every day is a new day.

There's a book named something like „That's why Japanese suck...“ by some German guy who has lived here in Japan for ages. It's hilarious even for those who don't study the matter the way I do. When I arrived here I was actually hoping that dude was a bloody liar as some things seemed rather strange to me. The permission to ride a bike for example, which at some place can be won in the lottery. Paramedics who have the time to take off their shoes on the doorstep. 'Special days' as well. That people don't just attain full age on their birthday but on a special designated day in January for that everyone can celebrate together is what I've known before. What I didn't know was that there's a day for real estate as well, one for the passport (in the country where the majority never went overseas) which the department of immigration even honoured with a mascot named pass-boy, a day for cabs, one for saltsticks and I better don't forget the one for salad, which is June 7^th, by the way. A lot of rubbish, but some serious stuff as well.

„Yupp, „Nothing to declare“, that's my exit...“ is what I'm thinking upon leaving the airport. I still must look a bit puzzled though when I bump into that smiling officer who raises his finger up to the ceiling. „Today is 'Special Inspection Day'“, is what he says, pointing at the fixed sign at the ceiling which for sure had not been set up in the morning for that single day. First lesson in Japanese societyism: When crossing interpersonal boundaries is never really easy, how do you get the permission to dig into someone's dirty socks? Right. Authorisation through a 'Special Day'. As it's communicated at the airport it must have been granted by some official instance, for that reason must be a proper rule and as such needs to be followed by the people who according to that German guy apparently live to follow even the weirdest rules. Pretty long way to someone's undies and - just by the way - to make sure there's no bomb hidden between them, isn't it? It's taken probably 5 minutes to discover 'Special Day' # xyz. Good start I guess. It's as far away from my understanding of how to reach a simple aim as it's fascinating that this system does in fact work for almost 130 million people.

Life is somewhat different. It's hot. Bloody hot. Humidity is about 77% in the yearly average which makes me wonder how they managed to set up a population here at all. Shaking hands is such a wet experience already that my desire for body contact any closer than that went down to the same level as my natural craving for tofu. Perhaps that's why they don't shake hands in Japan but bow instead. Okay, it's probably not only that, I must admit.

Sitting in a sushi restaurant the very first night the girl I came over with tumbled over exactly that one gesture of politeness. Whilst mumbling to herself that she won't get used to that never-ending bowing and bending the waitress must have felt herself caught causing trouble. Again in German the waitress (!) apologized for what she had just done, ie serving (the best sushi I've ever seen) the way she did. Amazing to see differences between cultures. Any western world - waiter would have given her an odd look for being rude the way she was. Anyway, also my first impression is that Japanese spend the same time a day bowing that I need for my morning run. Actually, it feels like they spend half their time making sure that they don't bother anyone else and consequently make their actual work a second priority. My european personality is far more extroverted compared to the average here and I wonder whether hesitation is the key to success in this surrounding. It's dancing between cultures already, about the capability to adopt a completely different way of life 24 hours a day trying not to laugh about things that seem so funny at first sight. On that basis I wonder what would have happened this morning if I had told the staff of the town office that they made two tiny and funny but unpolite translation mistakes in the center and on the bottom of their explanation sheet of how to queue for the highly official „alien registration“...