Ripples

Well, I am safely home from my third successful wallet retrieval! I am the bureaucracy-conquering queen. In the 11 months that I have been here, two non-Japanese speaking friends have lost their wallets out in Japan, and, in both cases, after filling out the appropriate forms with the appropriate authorities, they were found. Today it was my own daughter; she lost her wallet while shopping with friends in Ebina. Most foreign folks simply write it off; they have no tolerance for the process of accomplishing anything here. The bureaucracy is almost Soviet in its backward thinking, convoluted, labor and time intensive, closed mindedness – the only difference is that here it works, and efficiently if you are prepared to follow the rules. I guess all of the years I have spent dealing with Eastern Europeans have paid off in the patience to work within the system. First, we went to the train station, to talk to the lost and found. The wallet was not there. Our next stop was the koban (police box), where we filled out a lost items form. Unlike the US, filling out a form does not mean answering questions while someone adds the info to the computer, printing out as many copies as necessary, or even filling out a form by hand and making multiple photocopies – it means CARBON PAPER. Please press hard. About a million copies of the lost items form are made with carbon paper, which is delivered to the other local kobans by bicycle. Armed with my own copy of the lost items form, we were able to return to the train station to fill out a train station lost items form, which we could not do before because you must first inform the police. To this point, all of this has been accomplished with pidgin Japanese, broken English and a lot of pointing. Now, we are ready to go home and sit by the phone. Someone turned in my daughter’s wallet a few hours later; I am surprised that the authorities were able to read my very poor Japanese handwriting to call us. So, I got back on the train to pick it up. A few more forms, another million carbon copies dispatched by bicycle and I was on my way, wallet in hand. Piece of cake. I do feel bad for the Japanese people, though. Most of the time, I kind of glide through their world, buying tickets and food from vending machines, riding the trains, wandering the streets. Other than causing a minor distraction, I am not too big a ripple in the pond. Sometimes it is necessary for me to interact with the Japanese folks, though, which disrupts the order of things. Cashiers pause and give me a look before launching into a routine three minute memorized recitation thanking me for my business and such and earning the societal karma bestowed upon them for a job properly done. I just listen until I hear the amount of the sale at the end, which is the only part I understand. Not too big a ripple, but a ripple nonetheless. I think the fishmonger actually gets a kick out of me, though. He smiles genuine smiles and laughs as I ask him what all the fish are, even though he knows I’ll forget most of them and ask again the next time. It’s times like today that I make the big splash – not only am I hard to communicate with, as I speak slowly and simply, I write so poorly I may as well be holding a crayon with my fist, and I don’t know the proper order of things (stuff everybody knows must be explained to me). It is very frustrating for them. The unseen benefactor did leave their name (which I can’t read) and phone number though. Tomorrow I will hook up with a Japanese friend who can help me make the call and arrange a meeting. I need to find out what is the appropriate gift for such an occasion. If you hit someone with a car and they are in the hospital, you give them a perfectly round $30 muskmelon with a “T” shaped stem. If someone helps you out with arrangements for something, you give them a perfectly artistic bunch of grapes (also expensive). Flowers are good for someone who’s sick – but only flowers whose petals fall, if the flower droops as it dies, it looks too much like a severed head which will discourage the sick person from getting well. Droopy flowers are OK for birthdays, but you only ever give chrysanthemums to dead folks. I am certain that there is a designated “good deed” gift.

Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night’s repose – Longfellow