The Last Word On Nothing

It’s often a surprise, coming back home. When I came home from Saudi Arabia five years ago, I was shocked by the trees. I’ve lived with trees like this most of my life, but just seeing them lining the airport road, sucking gallons of water from the ground and throwing it into the atmosphere like it was nothing – what a miracle, after a month in the desert.

In May, I came home from two weeks in Japan. The differences were smaller – Japan is also quite humid – but they struck me. So I wrote down what I noticed on a post-it note, and now I’m sharing them.

1. Cars drive on the right here. So weird, a world where we can’t even agree on that. There are only two choices but not everyone agrees, and once you get started down one path, switching is nearly impossible. So here we are, with infrastructure built for one or the other, and pedestrians’ brains trained to look one way or the other, and we’ll be different until, presumably, the end of cars.

2 . Toilets aren’t fancy. I was disappointed the first time I sat down on a toilet back in the U.S. and realized that, not only was the seat not heated, but there were no buttons to push for washing functions and also it would not play the sound of running water to cover the sound of my business. The sounds are hilarious but unnecessary. The cleaning, however? I miss the cleaning.

3. I’m not safe. After two weeks wandering around a country with very little street crime and virtually no guns, I had to put my defenses up again.

4. My phone doesn’t make a sound when I take a picture. I suspect every country has its own phone-related fear. In Britain, people are convinced that phones spark fires at gas stations. (Come on, Britain.) In Japan, it appears that the dominant phone-related fear is that people are taking photos of you without your knowledge, so all of the phone companies have agreed that your phone shall make a sound when taking a photo. (Read the history.) I bought a Japanese SIM card for my phone, so my phone followed Japanese rules. It was a pleasant surprise when I got back to the U.S., switched back to my T-mobile SIM card, and was able to take photos without disturbing the peace.

5. A variety of people. Japan has a lot more immigrants than it did when I lived there, in the late 1990s, but there still aren’t very many. It was comforting to get back to the U.S. and be surrounded by diversity again.

6. Only two kinds of trash! Japan’s byzantine garbage-sorting rules vary depending on where you live. We were flummoxed by the rules at our AirBnb in Tokyo. Narita airport had at least three options for its bins. When I got off the plane in Chicago, I only had to choose between trash and recycling, and to try to ignore the fact that so many other of my fellow travelers had chosen incorrectly.

7. No vending machines. Sure, vending machines exist here. But vending machines in Japan are things of wonder. One machine might offer a variety of soda, sports drinks, vegetable juice, soup, tea, and coffee. They’re mostly for beverages, although I did come across one selling ice cream on this trip. For two glorious weeks I took for granted the ability to get a hot or cold green tea whenever I wanted, and now that is, alas, gone.

It’s true, the cliche that traveling makes you see home differently. I love these little sparks of surprise that I get when I return home–when the net of things around you that feels so normal, made up of trash cans and toilet seats, suddenly changes form beneath me. It’s so helpful to get a reminder that there’s not just one way of doing things. In some places, vending machines sell corn soup and the phones make sounds. In some places, anybody can buy a gun. It’s a wide world, and there are a lot of ways to live in it.

Photo: Helen Fields, the first vending machine I saw in Japan in April. I was so happy.