Another stamp in the old passport

I just returned to Taipei yesterday from a five-day trip to visit a college friend, Cira, at her teaching post in Fukuoka, Japan. Three other friends who are also teaching in various parts of Japan came down for the weekend since it was a three-day weekend for them, and it was really nice to spend time with them and hear about their experiences living and working abroad. It was also really cool to hear them speaking Japanese and to see them so comfortable in their surroundings.

There are about a million and one things I could write about when it comes to my impressions of Japan, from the social etiquette to the transportation system to Western influences. I found the whole experience a bit disorienting, to be honest, because the Japanese writing system uses Chinese characters. So I was constantly looking at signs and recognizing characters or phrases, but not understanding any of it because the order or usage was different.

Something that was refreshing about the whole trip was the fact that the area Cira lives in is much quieter and less populated than Taipei. Here, the traffic noise and crowds are almost omnipresent, even at 2, 3, 4 in the morning. You don't hear birds or other wildlife, and often you can't even see the sun for all the high-rise apartment buildings and stores. Cira's area was much less urban, with a lot more open space, and a lot less noise. It's strange to realize how accustomed I've gotten to the city noise here, considering I grew up in an area more like Cira's.

I guess the thing I noticed most, however, was the politeness. My time here and in mainland China has kind of conditioned me to be "rude" in the sense of not saying "please" or "thank you" very often, using whatever hand is most convenient to hand over money or objects, pushing around people to get on/off the subways/buses, and not really expecting courtesy, at least as we know it in the States. In Japan, politeness was like law. People were perpetually saying "sumimasen" (sorry/excuse me) every time they brushed up against you or bumped you on the trains, I saw people bow when cars stopped for them at crosswalks, and every transaction, even in convenience stores, was punctuated by polite phrases (see, that one semester of Japanese in college did pay off!). I was completely thrown off by it all. My Chinese teachers have always told me that the reason the Chinese don't say "excuse me" or "sorry" is because there are so many people in places like Beijing and Taipei that if they said "sorry" every time they bumped into someone, they'd be saying sorry all day. But places like Tokyo and Osaka are pretty crowded too, so I guess there has to be something more culturally rooted as well.

Overall, it was really refreshing to get away from Taipei for awhile and see some familiar faces. I feel recharged and renergized, ready for the next term, and I've also got some plans in the works for some more traveling at the next term break. Lauren and I are planning to move out at the end of December, which is causing some stress, but for the moment, I am about as happy as I've been since I first arrived here.