A Few Surprises

(Big Danger in Little Osaka #9, 2008)

Before I came to Japan, I thought I had the country pretty much sussed out. Everything I needed to know about Japanese society I had already learned at school. You know, the bowing, the nodding, the politeness – I had that shit on lockdown. Even the more unusual aspects of Japanese life were no mystery to me. You think I was going to be fazed by the control panel on the toilet in my apartment? Not a chance. Being the down-to-earth Kiwi bloke I am, I unplugged that joker right away and was left with your standard, no-nonsense toilet. However, there are still a few things about Japan that have surprised me, small things that people didn’t think to mention (and somehow escaped my notice on my first trip here).

For a start, almost all the dogs I’ve seen in Japan so far have been tiny. Not being a dog expert, it seems to me that everyone owns some kind of variation on the Chihuahua. Even quite tough-looking dudes will walk around with these tiny, fluffy dogs. I suppose it makes sense, since most people in the city live in small apartments where space is at a premium. But does that explain why some people have to dress their dogs in tiny clothes? Or why they carry their dog around as if it were a baby? At least they stop short of carrying around toilet paper for their dog. Well, apart from that one guy I saw. That… that wasn’t right. On the other end of the scale, the insects here are huge. The cicadas are at least five times as big as the ones in New Zealand. I swear a few of them could team up and devour a small dog if they wanted to.

I also didn’t realise just how many people cycle in Japan. It’s nice to see that, in such a technologically advanced country, most people still jump on their bike if they need to get somewhere. Every street in Fuse is teeming with people on bikes: on the road, on the footpath, cycling towards oncoming traffic… People will steam right across an intersection without so much as pausing to see what’s coming, even if they have children on the back of their bike. Did I mention that no one wears a helmet? It’s all a little alarming, although thankfully I haven’t seen anyone get hurt yet. Even worse than the possibility of seeing a terrible accident, though, is the fact that no one ever oils the brakes on their bikes. You can’t walk down the street without someone braking right beside you and producing a screech so loud and high-pitched that you swear the world is coming to an abrupt end. I know there’s a big noise music scene in Japan, but if this is some kind of weird social avant-garde noise experiment then things have gone just a little too far.

So, there have been a few small surprises since moving over here, though thankfully nothing has really shocked me so far - although the pornographic junk mail did come close. Bizarre.