Dispatches from Japan - Part 1

This is taken from Wordsmith.org , written and posted by Anu Garg, the founder of the online community comprising word lovers from around 200 countries spread over the globe. He is an author and speaker and his books are all about words. We should be proud because Anu Garg was born in rural India. I sincerely suggest to visit the web site to grace the beauty of words.

Dispatches from Japan - Part 1

Ryoan Ji, Kyoto zen garden in Japan, Image courtesy: Cquest, Wikipedia

Last month I spent some time in Japan. Here's the first in a series of travel reports from that trip.

After visiting the Ryoanji temple in Kyoto, I walked the long passageway back to the main road and approached a taxi. The taxi driver pointed to another taxi ahead of him that I hadn't noticed. Then he got out to alert the driver of that taxi to open the door. After I got in, he bowed, and went back to his own taxi. This may sound like an unusual gesture of courtesy, but courtesy is the standard operating procedure in Japan.

I used metro trains dozens of times, but never saw people talking on cell phones in a compartment. I took many taxi rides, but only once did the driver talk on his phone -- and that was to find directions to the place I wanted to visit -- a hard-to-find veg restaurant located in some alley.

The Japanese go to great lengths to help. I had a taste of it right here in the US. A few years ago, I visited Portland, Oregon to speak at a conference hosted at a university. After attending the pre-conference reception the previous night, as I tried to find my way out of the labyrinthine building, I came across a Japanese student. She walked with me to guide me right to the parking lot. I learned that she was visiting the US for a few weeks to study English. It dawned on me that while I lived in the US and she was a visitor, on the Portland State campus, it was the other way around. I was a visitor to her campus and she did what any Japanese would do.

And it's a pretty safe place. I saw a woman nonchalantly leaving her bag at the table near the entrance of a cafe in Tokyo as she went inside to order something for lunch. I saw people, including girls, bicycling away late in the night. If you lose your wallet, don't worry. It'll find its way back to you.

I wonder what cautions Japanese guidebooks advise their readers when visiting other countries.