Real Japan
I walked the Market Street in my neighborhood the other day. It is a long avenue of shops set a few blocks back from Honan-dori that runs the length of the residential area until it outlets on another main street. Both sides are lined with small shops. Fish shops, vegetable shops, sweets shops, toy shops, clothing shops, dry goods shops, bento shops, all varieties of tiny, family-run businesses that cater to every Japanese need.

Though I�ve been here almost four months now, I�ve only walked along the Market Street a handful of times. For some reason it makes me feel nervous and out of place, as if someone might spot me as an foreigner and throw me out. Part of me says, Who am I to walk among these peoples� homes and lives, not even a part enough to buy anything? but another part of me says that I�m a neighborhood resident and equally justified to be there. I don�t know which part to believe.

This time, I walked the street slowly, poking in, out and around each store enough to make myself seen. It�s no surprise that I�m noticed there. This is not a place tourists go, it is a place families shop. When the few mentally handicapped �adult children� in the neighborhood see me, they practically hug me. I�m pointed at by old ladies and told I�m �soooooo beautiful� and �wonderful� in Japanese. Any time I speak Japanese I�m told that my language skills are amazing. Instead of bolstering my self-esteem, these complements only make me cheap. I�m blonde and tall but I�m not Cameron Diaz. And I learned early on that when someone tells you your Japanese is good, it means you speak like a foreigner. It�s only when they start correcting you that you�re actually good.

And it isn�t always just complements. Though I was stopped for random complements by several shopkeepers (what do you say to someone who tells you you�re �steki da ne� anyway?) I noticed equally as many glaring at me with cold calculating stares. Some warmed up when I greeted them but one woman didn�t even respond to �Konbanwa.�

But despite that it makes me feel like an outsider and probably because of it, I love this street. Unfortunately, the last time I was there, I ran into another foreigner (in fact, a foreign family) several times and given that the option of ignoring each other in a neighborhood atmosphere wouldn�t work too well, we engaged in the other awkward option of foreigner-to-foreigner conversation. As usually seems to happen when foreigners �bump into each other,� the talk went on for too long and, as usual, they gave me their contact information �in case I needed to talk or help with anything.� They WERE nice and they DO live near me, so perhaps I will see them again. But in a way, it felt just like every other forced-empathy gaikokujin interaction I�ve ever had. In a worse example, I had to flee conversation with a �nice� guy from Nepal after he cornered me into conversation on the 45th floor view-platform of the Metropolitan Government building when I experienced a sudden bout of diarrhea. No joke.

However, I digress. With all the awkwardness I experience on this street, I still feel a great sense of comfort that I�m seeing the REAL Japan. At twilight, here are the families shopping for their meals; here are the children playing in the street; here are the couples walking their dogs. It occurs to me now that had I begun strolling this street when I first got here instead of hiding in my room, I might be well known among the shopkeepers by now. But what use have I for this street? What can I buy there when the little food I need for my weekly bento I can get for cheap at the co-op a quarter block from my house? I�m amazed that these mom and pop shops still exist. When my host mother asked me if there were streets like this in America, I thought hard about it and I can say honestly, that they are a true rarity and I do not know if I have ever yet found one stateside. That, my friends, is a sad statement about corporate America.

But the Real Japan is a strange place, too. It�s a place where I�m complemented to the extreme degree if I know the right �counter� to use on an oblong object. And where my Japanese friend showed up to hike dressed in sneakers (ok), jeans (ok), a wool pea coat (??) and carrying, instead of a backpack, a designer handbag. But I�ve got to give her props; she kept up all the way. I guess I shouldn�t short change the Japanese, even if they�ve got some really irritating cultural �bits.�

What to see what it�s like living in Japan? Keep your eyes out for photo pages from Hama-rikyu Koen, The Imperial Palace and Yasukuni Shrine, my Yamanote Walk, the neighborhood around New Years, Yokohama and Mount Mitake. In the meanwhile, to understand what it�s like attempting to learn the Japanese language, watch this flash animation. It�s funnier if you know Japanese (because then the nonsense makes more nonsensical sense) but it�s still damn awesome.