Gaijin Friendly

Before arriving to Japan, a lot of people implied I'd be met with quiet hostility. Indeed, when I had just got there and joined forces with Alex, he was expecting the same, having just come from a stint of teaching in China, where he was met with a fair bit of negativity. Of course, I'd also heard that the Japanese are an incredibly friendly nation and I'm more inclined to agree with the latter. However, whilst Japan is 'gaijin friendly' (gaijin being the Japanese for foreigner), I was extremely aware of how un-Japanese I was most the time.

Alex and I probably stood out more than your average traveller in Japan (Alex especially). He being a 6 foot tall man with a shock of red hair, me with my long bushy black hair and both of us rocking the bearded hobo look. Japan completely lacks beards. The most you'll see is the very occasional samurai style goatee, never a full beard or stubble. Partially as a result of our lazy shaving patterns (I think I shaved once out there, came back with a fairly hideous beard which topically I got rid of today - having smooth skin doesn't look right, mind), the local Japanese were always surprised we were only 18. So, as we looked slightly more foreign than the other foreigners, we were met with a lot of stares. Literally everywhere, we were stared at. In Shimoniseki, a rather small seaside town, we decided to cross the road when the lights were red and were met with 'gaijin' laced comments and angry stares by an old Japanese woman. However, not all the stares were bitter. In Kyoto, a car stopped at the traffic lights as they had just turned red. The driver and his companion then noticed us, waiting to cross the road and proceeded to stare. We noticed and waved at them. Hilariously, they smiled and waved back. It was a cute moment.
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Couldn't be bothered to finish this blog the other day, and coming back to it now, I've slightly forgotten where I was going with it. The more hilarious occassions of "omg foreigners" occured with my friend Alex, a ridiculously tall man. We were in Nara, checking out the fantastic Todaji temple where a lot of kids were turning around and pointing at us, occassionally coming over to speak really basic English with us, as was normal really. We were following a small group of 2 or 3 children, when two of them spotted us to and pointed. Their friend turned around to find Alex, quite undeliberately, towering over him. He actually let out hilarious gasp before quickening his walking speed a bit. Okay, written, that doesn't sound at all funny, but when it happened, it was. School kids were generally quite amusing with regards to us.

One thing I became aware of being a foreigner in Japan though, is just how out of their way people will go to help you... presumably, because you're completely out of your element - or at least, I was. When trying to find the Shinjuku National Garden, I became very lost and was looking at one of the maps on the street. However, before I could actually start reading the map, a man next to me spoke in somewhat broken English and asked where I was heading. When he didn't know where it was, this very small middle aged Japanese woman came over and started speaking fluent English. Not only did she explain that I was technically at the wrong Shinjuku station (the one I wanted was one stop further on a different train line), she insisted on leading me to the right station, taking me inside and showing me the map and basically just making sure I got through the barriers to the platform in one piece. This was rather out of the blue, but it really did help to be shown the way in such detail - sure, I'dve been able to figure it out alone, but it probably would've taken a while longer. She didn't have to go as far to help me as she did, but she was more than happy to. In any other country, I'dve been more suspicious of her motives, but there, some people just seemed to be incredibly nice.