Before continuing you need to know that all Japanese construction sights have what looks to be a traffic cop standing at the entrance. Once I saw one of these one of these guys stop traffic to let a truck exit but otherwise they seem to attend these sites without much to do. In other words the job looks profoundly boring.
Okay, so the other day I was walking home through a residential neighborhood where a house was under construction. There was, of course, one of these traffic cop people standing there to keep an eye on a street that had nothing going on but this time it was a twenty-something lady when it's usually a guy who's much older than that. Stunned, I was looking at this lady thing, "whoa, that's a lady" when her eyes darted up and we made eye contact. I smiled. She instantly darted hey eyes downward, which is the typical Tokyo reaction, but then she smiled and darted her eyes back up to mine. Of course I was still looking so she immediately darted her eyes back down but the second her chin hit her chest a big, slowly spreading smile grew across her face and she slowly picked her head back up to make eye contact with me for the third time.
Keep in mind, I'd rarely found someone who'd give me a second glance AND THIS LADY WAS GIVING ME A THIRD! It was amazing. So her head comes up and she has this HUGE smile on her face so I had a huge smile on my face and we then proceeded to wave at each other in a profoundly dopey fashion until I rounded the corner. It was amazing. My brother, who's lived in Tokyo for the past eight years said, "That's probably the first time she's ever seen someone smile at her at work." I'd wondered if that was the case.
On the same walk home we passed by a school a few blocks later and there was some sort of compressed pitch futbol practice going on. I wanted to watch a spell to get a sense of what they were doing and—yes—how much better they were than I am so I told Matthew, mom and Spectra to go on without me.
This school's playground/pitch was on a major intersection and there was a produce truck waiting for the light to turn green. When it did and accelerated away a box fell out and some of it's contents scattered across the street. There was a car behind the truck and it honked it's horn but the truck raced away and then so do did the car.
Now I'm standing there at a busy intersection with a big cardboard box in the middle of the street and vegetables scattered here and there so I gathered the vegetables into the box and put it off to the side of the road. While I did this on the other side of the street a 50-something Japanese man was walking by and he yelled at me, in English, "Thank you." I waved and said no problem. He yelled again, "Thank you." I nodded and bowed and he reciprocated.
All by themselves these would be what Spectra calls "Top Japanese Experiences" but they got better. So I'm on Cloud Nine because they were both a kind of bonding with people, which I crave. Then I told Aki about them. She laughed, smiled, asked some clarifying questions, and then said, "You shouldn't go around smiling at strangers like that."
I SHOULDN'T GO AROUND SMILING AT STRANGERS LIKE THAT! Amazing. Aki said it reflexively and naturally. It was no doubt some iteration of what the construction site lady was feeling in the midst of one of those doubletakes. And it was as alien to me as my crazed desire to connect to strangers was to Aki. This reminded me for the kabillionth time... There is no one way to be. For every correct course of action there is another. You will never be able to keep track of all these things and they are what makes life worth living so stay alive and keep learning.
Apropos of absolutely nothing... This picture was taken from the middle of an intersection that was between these two encounters. That pointy looking building in the middle there is the minaret of a mosque. So for those who perhaps thought there are no Muslims in Japan, proof that there are. Like I said, apropos of nothing.
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