08.22.07

Midwesterner in the Sun Kingdom (part 1)

Posted in Japan, Travel Log (Asia) at 1:24 am by Benjamin Ross

note+  Please excuse the punctuation-spelling mistakes, and lack of form and proofreading in this post.  I am on a Japanese keyboard, which for some reason has excess spaces in places Iºm not used to having spaces in, and the punctiation keys are all different as well.  Its also 2 am and Iºm running on 2 hours of sleep which isnºt making things any easier…anyway…

Last night I had my final night in Fuzhou.  I intened on having friends come by from 8 to 11 for a little goodbye, but it inevitably turned into a late night party, and I didnt get to sleep until 3 am.  This was not the ideal plan, as my flight was leaving Fuzhou at 830 am.

3 hours later I awoke to Cheng Qing (from the barbershop) banging on my door.  He had offered to help me carry my stuff, and fortunately I took him up on the offer because my alarm chose the worst possible night to malfunction.  With the help of my friend Joyce (a regular commenter on this blog), we rushed all of my stuff into a taxi, and sped off to the Fuzhou airport.

All of the rush turned out to be for nothing, because my flight to Beijing on Air China was delayed from 830 to 1030 on account of “bad weather” (FYI it was perfectly clear and sunny all morning).  My connecting flight from Beijing to Tokyo was set for 245, so assuming my flight wasnt any later than 1030, I would have just over an hour to make my international connection.  This wasnºt my first negative experience with Air China, as the last time I flew to Beijing to meet my parents, I got to the airport 45 minutes before take off and was told my seat had already been given to somebody else.  Apparently Air China does not believe in offering compensation to those who choose to get bumped.  Instead, they just insist that the last passengers to arrive, regardless of how early they come, lose out.  That time it had been me and 4 Chinese travelers who got the bad end of the deal.  Needless to say, all 5 of us went apeshit.

So Air China managed to get me to Beijing just after one oºclock, leaving me about an hour and a half to get my bags, check in again, (I was on a different airline for my Tokyo flight), go through security, walk to the gate, and get on the plane in time.  The Beijing Airport is notoriously slow for processing passengers, so I by the time I got my bags I figured I had a 40-60 chance of making my connection.  With under an hour to go, I made it to security where a massive line of people was ahead of me.   I asked for some assistance at the information desk, and was told there was no way I would make my flight.  I scowered around the hall trying to get somebody to allow me to cut in line, on account of the fact the reason I was late was because my connecting flight had been delayed.  (This was all being done while lugging around 2 oversize bags, a carry’on, a laptop computer, and a mandolin.  As I was about to give up, and accept the fact I would be staying in Beijing for the night, I was approached by a man in a red uniform.  “Need any help_” he asked in Chinese.

“Sure,” I replied, figuring I had nothing to lose.  Before I could say anything more, the man ran to the front of the waving at me to follow him.  I pushed the cart to the front, dodging bystanders, and in my paniced desperate state, yelling “rang yi xia” (out of my way) to those in the way.  The man in red said less than a sentence to the people working the security gate, then waved again for me to cut in front of everybody and move to the front of the line.  After I got through security, the man in red, jumped out in front of me and ran down the corridor, yelling at me to follow him.  As he dodged people and suitcases, I couldnºt help wonder if this was just a regular Beijing Airport employee or the second coming of OJ Simpson.

I made it to the gate just as they were finishing boarding.  With less than 72 hours to stay in Tokyo, I was relieved I wouldnºt have to waste 24 of them waiting in Beijing.

The flight to Tokyo was a quick 3 hours on ANA (a Japanese airline), and contained the most multifarious airplane meal I have ever experienced.  My single trey contained rice with 2 different sprinkled toppings, 2 different kinds of noodles, a piece of fish, a slice of ham, tuna, dried raddishes and carrots, steamed peas, carrots, mushrooms, and 3 vegetable-fungi I couldnºt identify, lettuce, tomato, dried seaweed, noodle sauce, wasabi, and a kit kat bar.  It also came with a fork, knife, spoon, and chopsticks.  Note to self…so far Japan good.

After an hour and a half train ride, and checking in at my youth hostel, it was a little past 10 pm and I decided to get my first taste of Tokyo.

Before I go any further, I should add a disclaimer or two.  One of the most valuable lessons I learned from 3 plus years in China, is that it is quite difficult to begin to “understand” a new place without living there for at least a few months.  When I look back about my thoughts on China during my first month there, many of them turned out to be gross misconceptions which I found to be untrue after spending more time in the country.  That being said, I am still hoping these 72 hours will give me some insight into the country that the Chinese love to hate.

The other thing I should mention is that with only 2.5 days, I will be spending all my time in Tokyo.  So all of my observations on Japan will really be observations on Tokyo.  Using China as a comparison, spending 3 days in Shanghai (essentially Chinaºs Tokyo) would give quite a limited scope on average Chinese life.  All that put behind us, here are some random observations Iºve had on Tokyo so far.

1)  This city is clean, damn clean.  Maybe thatºs because I am coming from Fuzhou, but just the looking down at your feet when walking on the streets, you can feel how much cleaner Tokyo is than the average Chinese city.

2)  I am quite intrigued by the fashions here.  Tokyoers are quite up on fashion, and there seem to be many different sub«fashions and trends going on here.

3)  I went out for sushi tonight at a small sushi bar.  The sushi was excellent, but pretty similar to the sushi I had eaten in the US and Fuzhou, which is also excellent.  Then again, I am by no means a conniseur of Japanese food…I just love eating raw fish.  The best thing about the sushi bar was that in addition to a no smoking sign on the door they also had a big no cell phone sign.  This is something China needs desperately.

4) I only speak about 4 words of Japanese, but I am finding I can make sense out of most written Japanese on account of the kanji being so similar to Chinese.  Predominantly I am relying on body language though.

5) I am finding that Jinglish (has anybody coined this term yet_) is an entirely different animal than Chinglish.  Most of the English signs I have seen around are quite accurate, but some of the brand names and store signs have been quite amusing.  My favorite was a bar called UCLA.

Thatºs it for now.  My plan for tomorrow is to see the Yakasuni Shrine (the Japanese world war 2 memorial which has caused quite a bit of controversy in China), as well as visit Harajuku (where Iºm told all the trendy teenagers hang out).  I am going to try to catch a baseball game at the Tokyo Dome too.  Unfortunately, the sumo season is over, but seeing baseball should be interesting as well.  Iºll try to keep posting regularly for the next few days…..so for now sayonara!

continued in Midwesterner in the Sun Kingdom (Part 2)

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