Hoichi and the Empress of the Pacific

I'd never been to Japan before, and my first impressions of the country were very mixed. I was pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness of the streets, the friendly mannerisms of the people, and even a little bit surprised by their strange, yet endearing mannerisms.

But I'd also been here for 3 weeks now and I was dying of boredom. No one spoke any English here. Well, everyone spoke English but not a single person would speak to me in English. I'd tried to learn Japanese but it was so ridiculously difficult! The alphabet is full of sounds that don't exist in English or any other language for that matter. "K" and "S" and "T" are pronounced with a weird popping sound you wouldn't believe! And don't get me started on the "R", which sounds nothing like in English.

I had no idea how they could even read at a decent speed! Would you believe it if I told you that even "A" wasn't pronounced as an A? It's a sound somewhere between an E and an I! And then there are these crazy things called dakuten and handakuten which change the pronunciation of certain letters, sometimes changing their meaning entirely!

So yeah, I'd learned about 30 words total in 3 weeks. And those words were: yes, no, hello, thank you, please and sorry. Of course, none of them helped me in anyway cause no one would talk to me! Even if they did speak English they didn't want to talk to a white guy who only knew how to say "Hello" in Japanese! Oh well...

One day, after being super bored all day, I decided that I'd go out for some *sushi*. You see Japan has this thing called conveyor belt sushi places where you sit down at a table with a conveyor belt in the middle of it and waiters bring you plates of sushi as they pass by your table on the belt while you wait for them to arrive at your table. And then when you're done eating a plate you just put it on top of another empty plate on the floor next to your table and waiters clean them up when they come by again. It's actually pretty cool once you get used to it.

So anyway... as I'm sitting there trying to figure out what all these sushi rolls are (I've learned more sushi vocabulary than anything else) when suddenly someone sits down next to me at my table! Surprised, I turn around and ask them politely in my best Japanese how they are doing today (the only thing other than those 30 words that I know). But instead of replying back in Japanese or English or whatever language he is speaking (I have no idea), he just smiles back at me without saying anything and reaches into his pocket.

*What is this guy going for?* I wondered as he took something out of his pocket and placed it on top of my hand. My eyes widened as I saw what it was:

It was a keychain! That kind made with those little chains with different symbols attached to them by rings that open up when you pull the chain open like these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0034JG076/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3WQCQ2G7VFJH4

The symbols seemed familiar somehow so I picked it up and looked closely at it. There were two symbols that caught my eye: One was an apple (which meant peace or something) and the other was... wait... oh my God! It was Lenny face! Those characters used mainly on Reddit as representation of smiling face emoji! This guy wanted me to take this as some sort of joke?!

I felt myself getting angry as he smiled at me with that stupid smiley face drawn on his face. In anger, I stood up abruptly from my chair and threw his keychain at him with full force while yelling "WHAT IS THIS FUCKING JOKES?!"

As soon as the words left my mouth though everyone around us began staring at me angrily like they were disgusted by something horrible that I had said or done! Embarrassed beyond belief, I quickly got up from my chair and ran outside away from everyone else until eventually reaching an empty street corner where nobody else was around except for one woman who seemed slightly confused by my actions but otherwise paid me no mind as she walked past me without saying anything else or looking directly at me for more than 2 seconds straight.

I sighed heavily realizing what had just happened now that the anger inside me had died down enough for rational thought process to resume again:

As it turns out people here really don't like hearing anybody use what they call "gaijin slang". Apparently using words like "what is this fucks" is considered extremely rude here because they think they're obscenely offensive terms that shouldn't be used in polite conversation ever ad nauseum, much less directed towards other people unless absolutely necessary (like during an argument or something). They don't even have swear words here so swearing is apparently not something people do here (at least not among adults).

Still embarrassed by what had just happened though, I decided that maybe if i went back home early today maybe nobody will notice? So walking back into town alone now feeling completely exhausted from everything that had just happened today (the embarrassment from using gaijin slang + carrying luggage with clothes + having been tired from being awake all day + having eaten too much junk food earlier), I finally arrived back at my hotel room close to midnight where thankfully nobody else was up or paying attention to me anymore because apparently nobody gets off work until late here despite working jobs that usual start anywhere between 5am-9am every morning depending on where you work (so basically everybody sleeps during normal hours!).