Frightening Experiences

I asked some of my business students about how they would feel about living abroad. They told me that they wouldn’t feel comfortable with anything more than a 2 week trip, mainly because of the language. Today at the post office I realized that for me it’s not just a language problem, but also a “what do I do in this situation” problem. At the post office, from what I could understand from the signs, one can apply for loans or pay them off. Some of the counters required you to take a number, and when I first walked in I didn’t know where to go. After standing back and observing for a bit, I figured it out, but that initial minute or so was scary. “I have no idea what to do, so I’ll inevitable commit some horrible faux-pas” was more or less my thought. On the other hand, in many situations in the US, I don’t feel like it’s much more comfortable. On the contrary, I feel like I deserve a break if I do these things in another country, whereas in the US if I do something wrong, I should have known better.

That excuse wouldn’t suffice for a driving accident, though. In Japan, people drive on the left side of the road, as I mentioned earlier. I have two business classes outside the school which I must drive to, and it’s pretty scary. Everything is flipped. I have to turn around to the left to look backwards and back out of a parking spot. The turn signals are on the right side of the wheel. The gear shift is to the left. It’s really disorienting. Fortunately, when actually driving, I can pretty much follow the cues of the cars around me. When I turn left or right, I’ll be reminded to stay on the left by cars on one side or another.

My first day driving was quite scary though. My boss let my follow him to the orthodontist’s office where I teach, but I had to drive back. I didn’t have problems then, but that night when I had to drive somewhere else, I missed a turn without realizing it and went way out in the middle of nowhere. Google is mostly accurate, but it was still telling me to turn at tiny roads that I couldn’t imagine leading anywhere, and even if they did I would be in trouble if I met another car on them. Driving alone in the countryside of Japan at night, lost if Google proved untrustworthy—it was a harrowing experience, though I ended up arriving only five minutes late.

On Friday morning I was startled awake by alarms and announcements telling me that a missile had been launched by North Korea, and to stay under shelter. I wasn’t worried—if a missile hits here, practically the countryside, then something has gone very wrong. It was an interesting experience that I never thought I would have, something out of the cold war era or post-apocalyptic fiction.