The Inconveniencing Inconvenience

Inconvenience.

I know some of my Japanese friends might be reading this blog too. Take no offense what I say, I’m just trying to describe the Japanese society as it seems to me, a person who has lived his whole life in Finland.

Japanese society works with the concept of 'least inconvenience to all'. In every action that people take, it seems that they try to carefully think about how it might hinder other people.

Some examples:

Bells on bikes.

Usually bell on bike is used to tell the pedestrian in front of you to get out of your way. Not in Japan. There are lots of bicycles in Sendai, but I have heard bell ring only once or twice. Pedestrians are supposed to be considerate and aware that they are inconveniencing the bicyclist if they don’t let them pass. So when you are walking, you need to pay attention not only to what happens in front of you, but also what happens behind you. If you are ignorant enough, and actually inconvenience the bicyclist with not seeing them, he could ring the bell to tell you that he wants to get past. But this won’t do as it might startle the pedestrian. So what the bicyclist does. He uses the hand break to make this almost inaudible screeching noise to tell the pedestrian to get hell out of his way. Sounds crazy, but that’s how it works

Umbrellas.

All Japanese shops large enough seem to have a stock of ‘free to take’ umbrellas near the exit. Reasoning being, that if it starts to rain, it’s nice to offer customers free umbrella when he/she leaves the door. Most people also leave these free umbrellas to the next shop they visit, if the rain happens to end when they are looking at the wares. This is certainly convenient system. The same umbrellas go around the city centre and people stay dry. No-one loses and customers win by staying dry. What is extraordinary is that IF you happen to walk outside when it rains, and clerk of any shop with umbrella stock-pile sees you, they will rush out to give you an umbrella. This seems unnecessarily nice at the first glance. I suppose the reasoning is that they know they can help you (and the shop you are going to visit) by keeping you dry, and as it’s not a cost to them, they’ll do it. This is actually quite nice, but would never work or happen in Europe.

Good habits

If you happen to step on the feet of some unlucky person on the train/bus, they will not look at you angrily, or harrumph, but instead they will say “I’m sorry”. This feels bit odd, as it’s certainly not their fault that I stepped on their feet. But instead, saying they're sorry they at least gives you the image that you haven’t done nothing wrong, and that you shouldn’t feel too embarrassed about it. I guess getting someone embarrassed is inconveniencing them. Of course they still assume that you will give an apology as it is proper. But the fact that they are trying to ease your inconvinience by telling you that it's ok feels still bit puzzling. In Finalnd, or I guess anywhere else in Europe, if you step on someones foot, you say first that you are sorry, and then the other person says that 'it's ok'.


Now, none of these points make the country bad. Actually it makes the country quite nice to live in. The thing that I keep wondering is, how the hell can all these people, short-tempered and patient adjust to this? Guess it helps to be born here. In a way, I think that someone who has not born in Japan can never fully understand the social relations here. But for an outsider, it’s hell lot of a fun to watch and try to see how things work.