Japan Days 1 and 2

So, I had a 13 hour flight to a sport philosophy conference in Japan that got a little boring, so I thought I'd write a blog entry for the trip. If you are not interested in reading this, then don't - I won't be offended. Also, if it doesn't sound as good as our usual blog entries, then that is because my better half hasn't been able to help. Even though I know nothing about the Japanese culture or language, I had a good feeling at the beginning of the trip. At 5:50am John and I sat at the (only) gate at State College's airport waiting to board our flight. We had spent the last 25 minutes listening to a long-winded sports law professor we know talk about how annoyed he gets with "academic blow-hards" (profs that talk too much) and clean his ears and nose out with his pinky, when a woman on the other side of me threw me an elbow, saying she heard we were going to Tokyo.Yes! How providential!! This gave me an out with the sports law complainer (while John kept listening) and an in with the Japanese. The woman next to me (we'll call her Tina - I didn't catch her name but that's what she looked like) said that Yamaha paid for a vacation for her family to visit Tokyo because they had sold a lot of Rhinos and bikes at their central PA store.Tina, a caucasian, was not the expert I hoped for, but I gave her a chance anyway.

Chad: Can you tell me a bit about Tokyo?

Tina: Well, the culture is a lot different than ours.

Chad: I figured that. I don't even know the language.

Tina: Yeah, that's different than ours, too. You won't understand it.

Chad: (pause, with confused Jim Halpert look) Right. I thought so. I have a student here at PSU that's from Tokyo and she said I'll probably get lost.

Tina: Oh no, don't worry about that. They have a big sign that says "Narita Airport" when you get there and it says "Tokyo" there, too.

Chad: (long pause, with confused look) Right. Thanks. I kind of meant when I get into Tokyo. I think the pilot will get us to the airport.

Tina: Well you might get lost because you won't understand the language, but others will be able to find you.

Chad: Right. Because I'm tall and I have blond hair.

Tina: No, because you won't have a black or navy blue suit on. Everyone wears suits. There's probably like a million of them in Tokyo.

Chad: (longer pause, with confused look) Right. I thought there were more like 10 million people in Tokyo, so there's at least a million suits. But the women don't wear suits, do they?

Tina: No, but you won't be able to understand them because they're speaking Japanese. There culture is so different from ours. Oh, and by the way, remember to exchange your yen before you get back, especially if you have a lot of it. It just isn't as good back here.

Our 6am flight finally took off at 7:02.

We got into DC in plenty of time (5 hours) to catch our connection to Tokyo. John and I had some schoolwork to do so I opened my notebook and he plugged his in as we sat at our gate as far from blow-hards and central PA Japanese experts as possible. We split the difference between an old homeless (-looking) Japanese woman on one side of the room and a mother and 3-year old son on the other.The Japanese woman wasn't actually homeless, but her tattered clothing, frizzy hair, and the way she intermittently coughed up phlegm into a hanky didn't help her cause at all.

The 3-year old boy, on the other hand, was not homeless. In fact, he was very mannerly for being an annoying and ranbunctious little tike. He greeted everyone that walked down the hallway by asking, "What's your name?" It was cute as he met George and said his own name was Maharis. But after meeting Carlos, Joe, Wayne, and Bob, it got old. (One wonders if a young Calvin Broadus asked a similar question often as a child before producing his first hit "What's My Name?" under his more popular name, Snoop Dogg).

We shared row 33 on our 13 hour flight with Maharis and his mother, while the (homeless) Japanese woman with a cough sat in row 34.