Fulbright Adventure

Hi from Sapporo! Japan is an adventure. I’m enjoying it—but I’m enjoying it because I like trying new things, and I like surprises. It’s so strange not being able to read anything.

I’m staying in a “mansion” (that’s what they call it here) just across the street from the south end of campus. I’ve got one room, kind of like a dorm room, but a bit smaller (!). It’s a kind of temporary housing. I’m on the 8th floor, and have a balcony looking out over downtown Sapporo, a nice view. Actually, all the buildings around are equally tall (about 10 stories), so you can’t see very far. But there are mountains in the distance when they sky is clear – a nice change from Champaign-Urbana.

The myth that everyone in Japan speaks English is not turning out to be true. It is true, however, that people are really willing to help. I asked for directions several times trying to find the university from the train station, and while they had trouble figuring out what I wanted (silly me – I can assumed that the word “university” would be clear), they were very willing to help me once they figured it out. The best is shopping, though.

First of all, I haven’t figured out the bowing. I think you bow to clerks when you check out. Or they bow to you. But I’m not sure who’s supposed to bow first, or how low. And when I check out, they inevitably ask me something that I don’t understand. In one store, I figured out they were asking me if I want chopsticks to go with my food. But then, if I pay with a credit card, they ask me something else, and hold up one finger (something about the number one it appears?). But what are they asking? I really have no idea. I’ve just started to nod when they ask me about “one” something. They were extremely kind and patient, however, with the silly blond who tried to sign the credit card receipt upside down!

But even before I get to the counter – since I can’t read the labels, I’m guessing at what I’m buying. (That’s actually the fun part.) And since I don’t know the units on the prices listed, I’m never quite sure how much it’s going to cost. I bought what have to be the most expensive bananas I’ve ever eaten. (I don’t know if the listed price was per piece, or per kg, or per bag, but it was much more than I expected a few bananas to cost.)

And I bought something that I thought was a milk product – I expected it to be flavored yogurt or something. It was in the milk section, looked like a milk carton, and had a picture of an unidentifiable (to me) fruit on the front. But when I opened it, it didn’t look like a milk product, and it tastes like pineapple juice, perhaps, but not quite. But it’s the wrong color. And I bought eggs, but the box had some instructions in Japanese for how to open the container, and while trying to open it, I accidentally cracked one of the eggs, and finally gave up and just tore the pack open with a knife.

Or just buying things like laundry detergent, soap, toothpaste. I’m guessing I’ve got what I want, but I have this fear that at the end of my trip, I’ll find out that I’ve been washing dishes with shower gel or something like that – and I honestly have no idea what I’m washing my face with. It was in the right section, but doesn’t smell quite right.

Getting the train from the airport was kind of fun. First of all, I had to find an ATM to get yen. After trying to put my card in one machine, and having it rejected (evidently it wasn’t an ATM), I finally found the right machine. But then I realized I didn’t know how much to get. The only concept I really have of how much a yen is worth, is the exchange rate I remember seeing listed at Russian banks a few weeks ago.

So if 100 yen is 26 rubles, how many do I need to live in Japan for a month? Here I haven’t seen exchange rates posted anywhere. So I took a guess at how much money I would want. The ATM machine told me that it was too big of a withdrawal. So I reduced it and tried again until it worked. Later on I figured out that I had originally tried to withdraw about $4500 dollars! Oops!

Taking the train from the airport was fun. (Actually, it really was.) Most people were getting tickets from machines (with no English on them), so at first I was a bit concerned. But then I found a ticket window with a real person who gave me the ticket I needed. You need to put the ticket in a turnstile to get onto the platform, and it spits it back out at you, and then you have to keep it to get out of the station at the other end. If you haven’t paid enough, there’s a place you can pay your additional fee. That was actually a relief to find out. Someone had explained to me about needing your ticket to leave – but I had understood her to mean needing your ticket to actually get off the train, and had all sorts of fears of missing my stop because I hadn’t paid the right amount. That sounded odd to me, but conversation in a foreign language leaves room for all sorts of little misunderstandings like that.

Figuring out your way around the city is really different from anywhere else I’ve been. The city is on a grid system, and instead of street names, you have to know the block north/south and the block east/west. I guess there are street names, too, and building numbers, but I haven’t seen street signs or address numbers on buildings. Then again, I probably wouldn’t recognize them if I saw them.

It’s amazing how hard the Japanese work. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since I know how hard Japanese students in the U.S. work, but still... My desk is in a room with several grad students (I was told they’re grad students.) They are somehow associated with the Slavic Research Center, but I don’t really know what they do. It’s just always quiet in there. There are 4 of us, and no one speaks a word.

I felt like I should introduce myself, but no one even looked up when I walked in. They were all focused on what they were doing. I was there from 3-7 p.m., and I wasn’t the last to leave (although I was the last to arrive – I had been on a library tour in the morning, and then did some exploring around town before going back in the afternoon. But the work ethic really keeps you going. All the scholars are at their desks all day, and if they’re not, it’s noticed. And the reason I stayed till 7 p.m. was that I didn’t want them to think I came and only worked for 2 hours, after seeing how hard they work.

Some other little Japanese oddities I’ve been having fun figuring out… The pillow has beads in it as well as cotton. The water in the bathroom has to be set a certain way before it can go on (that took a while to figure out). I was unsuccessful at figuring out how to change the temperature on the washing machine. There’s a coin with no number on it at all – I have no idea how much it’s worth! I couldn’t figure out for quite some time how to close the door to my balcony. There was a single Japanese character written near bottom of it – but I couldn’t figure out what it was telling me to do. After trying a lot of opens – push, pull, tug, lift, yank – and eventually got it closed.

The parking garage is really cool. I had wondered when I saw on the floor plan of the building only 4 parking spaces. But I looked inside today, and noticed that the four places are multiple-layered. Its like an elevator, but the car stays on it. There was one car just above the car on the ground floor, and I don’t know how many could have been below it, but I suppose 1 or 2 more, so these 4 spots could probably hold 12-16 cars?

In Russia, someone gave me a bag of stuff to take to his wife, who is doing research in Sapporo as well, and it included 2 loaves of bread. I laughed at the time, thinking how silly it was to send bread over, as if a city of 1.8 million wouldn’t have bread… But I haven’t found any bread here that I would consider good. I found something that I thought looked like a loaf of white bread – kind of like a big long hamburger bun, actually, but when I got home and opened it, I found out it already had butter and jelly on it. So much for my cheese sandwich! But then again, I haven’t found cheese yet, either. Well, actually, I haven’t found a supermarket yet – my shopping so far has been at convenience stores. I’m sure I’ll find one soon.