Japan: First Impressions

We flew into Tokyo this morning, 5am local time. The flight was uneventful, unless you count being comfortable in economy an event.

First off, it was less than half-full, so Yuanyuan and I got three seats for the two of us and spent the flight doing acroyoga, trying to find all the comfortable sleeping positions.

Then the stewardesses took their oaths of service to the next level. At some point I got up to go to the bathroom and found it occupied. I parked myself near the door and got out my phone so I wouldn’t have to spend a second alone with my thoughts. But before I could unlock it, two stewardesses swooped in like air traffic controllers or kindergarten chaperones, waving their arms and smiling and “Please this way”-ing me to the vacant bathroom on the other side of the aisle. It was nice. Surreal but nice, as Hugh Grant would say. In Israel I once saw a kid fall off a bike and three strangers — also women, probably not the same ones — rushed to his aid while I stood, paralyzed by the bystander effect. As I peed 3 minutes earlier than the universe expected, I flashed back to that moment.

As we walked from the subway to our hotel, luggage in tow, I looked around and asked myself if anything seemed different. Alien experiences, that’s what I’m here for. Being alert made everything seem different though, instead of actually changing reality, like a flavor of semantic satiation. Did people always walk on their hind legs, or just here?

Things did seem different though. The streets were quiet. None of the people walking around talked or made any noise. I brushed it off at first but then we got to a red light with fifty people waiting in stark silence and it was definitely them and not me. This phenomenon repeated itself throughout the day, waning towards the afternoon as the crowds got bigger and tourist density increased.

It wasn’t just the streets. On the subway later in the day, there was an announcement over the intercom: “please turn your phones to silent mode and refrain from speaking on your phone.” We walked past a giant black crow in the park and even it was silent. As Yuanyuan put it, memorably and mysteriously: it didn’t even beep. It was like the whole country was inside a library. I could get used to this.

The streets were missing more than noise. They were clean. Really clean. Aside from cigarette butts, I didn’t see any litter. And as far as I know, they don’t even cane people here like in Singapore (though I’ve heard the Japanese police has a 100% arrest to conviction conversion rate). At some point we passed a guy with a leaf-blower, blowing a leaf off the street. Yes, a leaf. He stood there as we approached from twenty meters away, aiming at a spotless patch of ground and he was still blasting the same spot as we passed. I saw a tiny leaf being chased by the wind near the wall, which I assumed was his nemesis. I turned back a minute later and he was shooing the last non-concrete atoms off a different concrete slab.

Whenever something weird happens, I don’t think “I must be dreaming” or “that proves it, I’m in a simulation,” or “I really should have trusted the drug dealer on the dosage.” Instead, I remember this improv troupe I heard about on a podcast long ago, who went around making life surreal for people. For example, there was some no name band performing in a no name bar, and the troupe learned all the lyrics to the band’s songs, packed the venue one night and made the band feel like they were famous, with an audience that worshipped them and sang along to every song. (Imagine the hangover for that poor band). Another time they picked some random guy in a bar and pretended it was his birthday and that they all knew him and his name was Tom instead of whatever it actually was, and they all had made-up backstories (“remember that time, Tom, when we hid under the bleachers and spied on Mrs. Dumbledore-”)

Another time they had this leaf-blower guy make Tokyo seem even cleaner than it was, I thought to myself.

While we’re on the subject of clean, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention butts.

I don’t know how clean they are, but Japanese people have the most spoiled butts I’ve never seen. As a Northman, I’m suspicious of comfort and every third party claim of discomfort makes me think “I bet I could be comfortable with that.” One of the reviews about our hotel read “the room was tiny, even by Tokyo standards and had without a doubt the most uncomfortable mattress + pillows I have ever had at a hotel,” and I thought to myself “I bet I could be comfortable with that” (I did warn you I’d think that). For the record, the hotel, which shall not be named, is just fine, I encourage you to stay there.

But back to butts. The seats on all the toilets here are warmed. And they all have bidets. There was a bidet on the plane. There was a bidet under my chair as I sat and slurped ramen at Ichiran. Not really, but I wouldn’t have been surprised. What is going on? Why are all the butts here in business class? What happens when a stiff breeze blows through town? Does Japanese insurance cover that?