It’s the season of change in Japanese school. The time when the foreign staff changes a lot because the school year is over and a lot of the teachers who are finishing their contracts are going home while a lot of their replacements are arriving in Japan for the first time. I’m neither here nor there. Just one of those people who has decided to turn a year into two or maybe even three. But seeing all the newbies and answering their questions makes me nostalgic for the day when I first arrived in Japan and the subtle hints I got that it was going to be a long and entertaining year.
Between the day I got my job in Japan and the day I got to Japan, I had two weeks time to get my act together. Having done the same abrupt pack and go when I moved to Korea, getting my affairs in order was pretty easy. It was arriving in Japan that ended up being rather hard.
I started my journey in the mid-west. Four hours to Los Angeles, two days there talking to friends and then another twelve hours to Japan. The information from my boss was hazy at best. I thought that because she had given me such sparse details that perhaps once I got to Japan everything would be self-explanatory. The plan was simple. My boss wasn’t going to pick me up at the airport. She was going to meet me at the central train station, which, according to her, was easy to get to. She told me there was only one train that left the airport and that train always went to the central station. I asked if I would have to change trains anywhere, just to be sure. She said no. There is only one train that leaves the airport and that train always goes to the central station. Once I was at the station, I would call her and we would meet up.
This plan sounded simple enough. So I agreed to it after she reassured me that the train system, airport, and train station all had bilingual signs and announcements. And when I arrived at the airport, I thought for a brief shining moment that my boss might be right. All of the signs and announcements were bilingual. However, I was well aware that this was an airport and that a bilingual airport does not make the rest of the country foreigner friendly. Not that I was expecting Japan to cater to the needs of foreigners. I was just really, really hoping that I wouldn’t get lost in Asia my first day back there.
After wandering through the baggage claim, customs, immigration, and all the other fun places that the airport had to offer, I went to the train terminal. This is where the first flaw in the plan came to light. There wasn’t just one train that came and left from the station. There were many and all of them had different names, destinations, and prices. So I went to the counter that had the English sign.
“One ticket to Central Station please.”
The man looked at me for a long minute and then said, “Which train to central station?”
I hadn’t realized that perhaps multiple trains stopped at the central station, and not knowing which one was best, I said, “The next one please.”
The man nodded and handed me my ticket.
I boarded the train and learned two very important things. The train system was not bilingual and I couldn’t read Japanese. So I sat there listening as best I could to the announcements, while guarding my massive quantity of luggage. Across the isle from me was a group of Japanese high school students back from a trip abroad. They clearly hadn’t gone far since none of them seemed to be suffering from the massive jet-lag that was eating my brain. One stop after another, I listened to the announcements and none of them sounded like Central Station. Not even the stop where the train stopped completely and everyone got off. A little suspicious of being the only person left on a stagnant train, I gathered my things and went up to the man in uniform I saw standing on the platform.
“Central Station?” I asked him.
He looked at me for a long while before pointing at the train across the platform from the one I had been sitting on. It was then that I realized he was probably looking at me for that long because he may not have actually been employed by the railway system. He was probably debating in his mind whether it was better to tell this foreigner that he wasn’t railway personal or if it was better just to point at a train. I was very grateful that he pointed.
I got on the next train, which clearly indicated the second flaw in the plan seeing as moving from one train to another counts as a transfer. The high school students were also there. They watched me with some amusement trying to maneuver my bags into place. Then the new train sped off. Luckily, this train did go to Central Station. Unlucky for me, when I stood to exit the train, moving all my bags with me, the doors on the opposite side of the train opened. The high school kids burst out laughing and I had to manage to turn everything around and exit the train in ten seconds flat.
I had arrived at the station. Now all I had to do was call my boss and calling requires phones and finding phones in Central Station involves a lot of walking and climbing stairs. It took me twenty minutes to find a phone. With what little money I had, I phoned my boss.
“I’m at Central Station.”
“Where?”
I looked around. None of the useful words were in English. Finally I got a glance of something that might be useful.
“Lines five and six.”
Then the line went dead. My change had run out and now I had no way of calling her back. So I stood in a corner waiting to see if anyone could show up to come get me. Eventually, someone did.
“Lieske?”
“Yes.”
“My car is out front. Grab your bags and let’s go.”
We pulled my luggage out to the car and started driving. As we drove through the streets at sixty miles an hour, my boss started listing all of the things that were useful to me as we passed them. This was a kind gesture, however we were going too fast for me to see the actual buildings she was talking about and all of our conversations were about as useful.
“And that’s the Kyukyu. You can buy things there for ninety-nine yen.”
“Which one is it?” I asked.
“The one that says Kyukyu on it.”
“In English?”
“No, in Japanese.”
In the end, I knew nothing more than that a bunch of blurry buildings with Japanese on them had things in them that I may or may not be able to use. Then we arrived at my new apartment, which was owned by the school. We pulled all of my suitcases out of the car and went to the front door. My boss punched in a code and the door buzzed open.
“What’s the code?” I asked.
“What code?” my boss asked.
“The one that opens the door.”
“You don’t need to know that.”
I couldn’t quite figure out why I wouldn’t need the door code but after some conversation it was clear that I wasn’t going to get it.
Then we went up to my place. My boss showed me around the small studio apartment. The first thing I notice was the unusual amount of spider webs for an apartment that my boss was claiming was professionally cleaned.
“The gas doesn’t come on until tomorrow so you won’t be able to cook anything until then. Well then, if there is nothing else, I will see you at the school tomorrow.”
And with that, my boss left without giving me directions to the school. I realized at that moment that my year in Japan was going to be interesting, since my boss had left me without a phone, food, water or toilet paper in a building I couldn’t get back into expecting me to go to a store and a school I didn’t know how to find.
