Lost in Translation

We (except Natalie who hasn’t been with us much) don’t know any Japanese. Well, we know how to say five things to be exact. Hello. Goodbye. Thank you very much. Yes. Excuse me. 

We read with the help of the Google translate app—you hold up your phone over the menu or sign or toilet directions, and English appears on your phone. It is always at least slightly off—what are meat trousers? Are they really serving fried chicken cartilage? So much of the Japanese foodie scene is wasted on me anyway, born with a strong gag reflex to anything that has lived in the sea (ask my mom). I so want to be a person who can eat anything, but I am not. And the food here is often not made for someone like me. This is a shame because there is excellent food at every turn. Even the 7-11 sells great food.

Also not made for me (or the rest of my fam): observation deck windows and binoculars. We have to bend over pretty far sometimes to try to see something. Chairs and benches leave our knees at chin level. Even the handrails on stairs are too low to do me much good.

There are “rules” you learn. You can buy food on the street, but you eat walking down the street—you need to find a bench out of the way. If you do that, you will create some trash, but you will not find a trash can anywhere—you will be left holding your trash for a long time. There is so much trash involved in eating on the run, but while there is very little litter around, there are no trash cans. The people living here all do their part to keep it clean.

We navigate the city of Tokyo, Google maps on our phones and joy in our hearts that we are not relying solely on paper maps as we once did. I feel a tad nostalgic for following down an atlas in the U.S., but I have no such nostalgia for that in international travel! Yet, every once in a while Google fails us, or the portable WiFi we rented runs out of charge (rent one if you come here!) and I start wondering if I’ll be sleeping in the subway station.

Seriously, this guy was 

worth waiting for

Today we went to the zoo, the National Museum of Nature and Science, and the Ghibli Museum. First real animals at the zoo, including giant pandas for whom a huge crowd stood in an orderly line for an hour in order to pass by the window for 60 seconds. Then we saw stuffed real animals at the science museum, including, remarkably, the actual taxidermied body of the dog Hachiko, whose loyalty to his owner inspired books and movies, including the American movie “Hachi: A Dog’s Story.” Allison is taking the lead in navigation and tour direction, because, as she puts it, “I like being the leader; it makes things much more bearable.” We try for no higher goal than to be bearable, so lead us she shall.

The third act was seeing the fantasy creatures and other imaginative art of Studio Ghibli, the animation studio made famous by filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Classics like “My Neighbor Totoro,” “Spirited Away,” and “Howl’s Moving Castle” are just a few. This sort of small but whimsical museum was a blast for the fans in our family. The museum highlights the creativity of the filmmakers, with both visionary beauty and attention to the smallest details of life. I now understand why they sell such a limited number of somewhat difficult-to-get tickets each day, as the place would be overwhelmed by uncontrolled crowds. 

Exterior of Ghibli Museum

Allison, Andrew and a new friend

None of these three places offered much in the way of English explanation. This too makes things more bearable in one way, because no one has to linger, reading all the signs. But it does leave us adrift, reminded continually that we are outsiders and have no real understanding of what’s going on around us. I’m not lobbying for more English, just reflecting on the experience of being a stranger in a strange land. 

One of the weirdest things about traveling here is how seldom we have a conversation with someone outside our family; most other places we visit we end up chatting with people here and there. Here we are left to observe from an isolated perspective, not because people are unfriendly—they are almost unfailingly polite. But we know so little. 

When Natalie joined us again today, the woman at the front desk of our hotel lit up when Natalie started conversing with her in Japanese. This can lead to interesting experiences—last week a woman got on the elevator with a friend, looked at Natalie, and said in Japanese (referring to Natalie) “she’s scary.” Natalie responded that yes, she is. The woman let out an expletive and said “she speaks Japanese” to her friend, then kept still the rest of the ride. Last night an older man sat at the table next to us in a soba restaurant. We were obviously the only westerners there. As we ate, the man at the next table kept his eyes on us, chewing his food the way someone watching a movie chews their popcorn. There was no maliciousness in it, nor was he embarrassed when we made eye contact. It was genuine curiosity. Then I accidentally inhaled a bit of sake and launched into a coughing fit that had the entire restaurant looking our way. The offspring were mortified; I chalk it up to added entertainment value for our fan at the next table.

Part of being in a new place is being willing to be different, to do things incorrectly, to embarrass yourself. It’s easy for us—we know it’s temporary, and in a few days or weeks we will be back to a place where we know all the words and all the rules. What a privilege to get to live in a little world that is so Kristy-shaped. How hard it must be to be the square peg in a permanently round hole. Being in a place so different from my own is a good reminder to me to continually


try make that round hole a little wider and a bit more open.