On Holiday

Monday was another busy and strange day for me. Several exciting and less-than-exciting things were happening all at once. The most importnat less-than-exciting thing was the fact that my car is in the shop, forcing me to walk or hitch rides from friends any time I want to go anywhere. My car had a slight run-in with the concrete wall outside my house. I was the driver, and I spent a long time feeling extremely foolish, but then every person who's heard the story and knows what my driveway looks like reacted with "oh! That was bound to happen eventually..." So I'm getting over it, and now so is the car. The nice (American) man who was recommended by the many people on base who have had similar issues said it would take 3-4 days to fix. Today is day 7. Granted, two of those days were holidays, but still... I wish I could have found someone Japanese to fix it...
Not having the car was not a big deal for the first five days. The only place I had to go was base, and I walk that sometimes just for the fun of it. Other than having to carry groceries home, it didn't really have much effect on my life. But Monday, I had a Family Readiness Group meeting to go to in Hario housing, which is a solid 30 minute drive from my house. Not having a car was not such a good thing. I woke up very irritated at my unfortunate postion. Luckily, I have some very patient friends, and I was able to catch a ride for that, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Monday was a Japanese holiday. According to my handy list of Japanese holidays, it's commemorating the day that, according to historical records, the first Japanese emperor was crowned. As a result, the main shopping center in town, lovingly referred to as the Ginza by the Americans, was jam packed with people when I arrived there on my way to base Monday morning. The Ginza is a pedestrian only street in the middle of town with any type of shop you might desire. It runs for several blocks. I managed to arrive just in time to see a parade go by. It was the biggest display of Japanese nationalism I've seen in my year here. There was a marching band playing an upbeat, marchy version of the national anthem (which sounds really weird because the normal version is slow and mellow sounding), followed by a whole bunch of people who presumably represented various civic groups carrying paper flags. As I walked, I ran into a major gap in the parade. Further along, I discovered the reason for this gap: the parade was stopping at the cross walk and only proceeded when the pedestrian light was green. It made me laugh because no procession like that in the states would just stop for a light.
Anyway, if off base was a little festive, then on base was an all out party. Sasebo is currently being visited by a big ship that is apparently coming from the middle east somewhere. By big ship, I mean that it probably doubles the number of Americans in Sasebo for the time that it's here. It arrived on Monday morning. The last time this happened, I'd been living here for all of a week, and didn't understand what base is normally like. Now that I do understand what base is normally like, I can understand why the "locals" avoid base when there's a big ship in. See, the normal population of Americans here has been carefully trained to behave significantly better than the average American. We've adopted Japanese standards of politeness... almost. Most of the Japanese people we meet here base their entire opinion of Americans on us, and we want them to like us, so we play nice. When a big ship comes in, the base is flooded with not ordinary Americans, but sailors, and there's a reason sailors have the reputation they have. Some of the sailors will probably be delightful guests, but the sheer number of them makes it almost guaranteed that there will be an "incident" between an American and a Japanese person before they leave. Plus, they hang out all over base, and make it a signficantly less pleasant place to be. Also, security closes off several main streets, so driving on base becomes quite a hassle, too. So the rest of us quietly hide and wait for it to be over.
Unfortunately, I had to be on base, so I braved the crowds to get my groceries and found myself leaving base again behind a group of newcomers set on finding downtown. They were the more stereotypical sailors and I really felt uncomfortable being anywhere near them. Right as we exited base, a big black bus came by with speakers on the top. The speakers were blaring the Imperial March from Star Wars. I felt the urge to crawl into the pavement. I can't say for sure, but I'm fairly confident that the truck was a response to the ship that came in. Why? Well, Japanese people are not exactly fond of nuclear power for the most part (and can you really blame them?). I'm not sure about the ship that's currently visiting, but most of the big ships in the US Navy are nuclear powered, and it bugs the heck out of Japanese people when they're visited by those ships. So I'm guessing that the truck was a protest to that. What was really mortifying was the way the sailors reacted to this truck, as if it was privately owned and some weird quirk of Japanese society. They took pictures while shouting obseneties and jokes at each other. Hence my mortification.
On the way home, I passed a gathering that was either in honor of the Japanese holiday or another protest about the ship (it's really hard to tell since protests aren't really that loud or angry here for the most part). I also pondered just how nice it was that I didn't have a car today. If I had, I would have missed all the excitement.

Japanese Repairmen

So were two things around the house that needed fixing beyond our repair. First, paper in one of the doors on our tatami room was ripped. I would have continued to ignore this, but we also had a major crack in a glass sliding door in the room where I spend most of time, and it's cold in there without extra leakage. As a result, I reluctantly visited my bill paying service (they take care of pretty much anything related to the house that might involve talking to a Japanese person) to get a repair guy. I was prepared for a hassle. I forgot I was in Japan.
The lady at the bill pay service patiently listened to my concerns then called the repair service. They said they could fix both doors on Saturday, but they'd like to come see the glass one to figure out what needed to be done. They promised to stop by sometime after two yesterday. So I figured it would be late afternoon. I forgot I was in Japan.
At 3:00 a kind Japanese repair man was standing on my doorway. He spoke zero English. If I was in America and didn't speak English, a repair guy who spoke only English would pretty much be useless to me, but I'm in Japan. So I grabbed Dory, answered the door, and said "Chotto mate kudasai" which means "just a moment." I meant "I'll be back in a second after I put my insane dog somewhere where she can't kill you." He thought I meant "stay here until I get back." So when I arrived downstairs again, he was patiently waiting in my entryway. I appologized immediately. He took his shoes off and came in to check out the various damages.
The repair guy spent some time measuring the glass door, and actually appologized when he needed help holding the measuring tape. Then I showed him to the tatami room to check out the paper door and left him entirely alone without the slightest concern for my belongings in there. When he returned, he had a question. I appologized for having no clue what the question was, at which point he appologized to me and reverted to sign language. He had the materials with him to fix the paper door, which he proceeded to do for free. So the same day I expressed concern about the door, it was fixed. I love Japan.
Next my new best friend wanted to let me know when he'd be back to fix the other door. He went nice and slow and we successfully agreed that he could come back the next day (no, really) after 3:00 (because I wouldn't be home until then). I am very proud that I could get all that in Japanese. I even learned a new word (after) in the process. I tried to ask him how much it would cost and met with less luck, but he didn't seem concerned about getting paid (no, really) so I didn't let that worry me.
So today my bill service company called to ask me if it was okay if the repair guy came at 3:00. (Remember, originally the company had told me the earliest this would happen was Saturday.) Apparently he called them to make sure we were clear. He also gave them an estimate, and I arranged for them to pay that bill too. I told them after 3:00 would be fine, and they called back to say he'd be here at 4:00 and the repair would take about an hour. Then I forgot I was in Japan again and began to worry. In America, 4:00 in repair man time is 5:00 or 6:00 and one hour is two. Since I had to leave the house again at 5:30, that was a little unsettling. Thankfully, I didn't cancel. At 4:01, my favorite repairman was back. He indicated that he just needed me to unlock the glass door in question, so I did that. The one hour repair job took 20 minutes.
I absolutely love Japan.

Big Day

Lots of super cool things happened today, so I thought I'd share. Here they are in no particular order:
1) I successfully got my car into its parking spot despite the fact that there were cars parked in two of the spots I normally would use as room to turn around. I'd done it before with one or the other spot full, but never both.
2) Zack and I both got brand new ID's that reflect his promotion. He is now a Lt. JG, or O2, and that information is not only on his military ID, but also mine. The ID making process was not nearly as annoying as I'd been lead to believe, either.
3) I got my brand new laptop! Now, not only am I able to write a whole paper for my grad school classes without worrying that the computer might freeze at any moment, destroying all my hard work, I can also sit ina giant arm chair watching a movie while I write. I don't have to deal with error messages the moment my computer opens. AND it has a built in video camera. So I've spent all afternoon playing with my new toy. Life is very good.