One of those "Only in Japan" moments

[dr4b]

Apparently sometime in the late evening, somebody puked all over the electric cord for our GEOS sign outside.

This is not a particularly improbable event, given that we're in the basement of a building with a karaoke parlor, several izakayas, and a pachinko parlor next door.

The funniest part was coming outside after work and discovering this fact. There's this big pile of puke, and right next to it some girl is standing and smoking and emailing someone on her cellphone. She's using our ashtray that I had to move outside a month ago when it had spontaneously turned into one gigantic cigarette butt. And apparently the fact that she's standing next to a gigantic pile of vomit doesn't faze her at all, although seeing an American walk by her makes her flinch a little.

It's weird, this country is supposedly so clean and polite and all, but it's completely normal and acceptable to puke and/or urinate wherever you want to, I swear. Well, maybe not if you're a girl. Then it's just the puking part.

Comments

[tadzilla.livejournal.com]

It could be that they were drunk. In that case, people acknowledge it and understand you're going to do that kind of stuff.

[shiguma.livejournal.com]

When I was in college, people would shit in the shower, piss in the dryers, etc. I remember waking up one morning and opening my room door, to find the entire hallway in the dorm covered w/ feces.

Graduated, then moved to Japan with the "starry-eyed gaijin" mentality that everyone comes with. Then I saw vomit on the streets, and old men unzipping their pants and pissing in their rice paddies. Combined with the ultra-nationalist/traditionalist mentality, the racism, etc. that are parts of the daily life in this country.

When I was in high school, I thought "this sucks, I can't wait for college." When I was in college, I thought "this sucks even more, I can't wait for Japan." At this point... I'm pretty sure I have zero faith left in the human race. :P

[the2belo.livejournal.com]

The way I see it one has to stop chasing heaven at some point and make do with what you've got. :) I stopped when I realized, yeah, there are a lot of ridiculous things about this nation that I didn't "get" until I made permanent roots; but, where else am I gonna go? This is as good (and as bad) a place as any...

[the2belo.livejournal.com]

Wait until you see a man puke on the train.

[oren.livejournal.com]

Eventually you end up in the opposite extreme of a place like Irvine, California where everything is planned and kept perfectly clean. It's a bizarre world when you see it. Just need a nice balance...

[shiguma.livejournal.com]

Yeah, true enough... reconciling one's own unrealistic expectations can be a bitch. Thanks for adding a lil' bit of optimistic thinking to my day. :)

[shiguma.livejournal.com]

Someday, I must visit this "Irvine, California" place. I wonder if there's affordable housing, lol.

[the2belo.livejournal.com]

Actually I never had any unrealistically positive expectations when I first came here; as I have a deeply rooted paranoia problem, I was genuinely relieved that I wasn't fricaseed by yakuza the minute I left the airport.

Besides, in 2002 I was sent to the Philippines, and looked into the face of Satan. After a year and a half of that, there is nothing -- nothing -- that Japan could ever throw at me that would faze me, ever again.*


* Okay, except for maybe the new immigration fingerprinting bullshit.

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

At least as much as in Tokyo.

[dr4b]

That's really fucked up. Nobody ever did stuff like that at my college...

All in all things aren't that bad here, it's just occasionally the dondake moments really get to me.