Thursday, August 28--Meeting the Neighbors

It is customary when you move into a new house in Japan to take small gifts to your neighbors. This is to apologize for stirring up dust and disturbing them while you are moving in. Gifts don’t have to be extravagant—something from your hometown, a hand towel or soap (to clean up all that dirt you’ve stirred up), American chocolate, homemade treats. It’s more the thought that counts. So, in preparation for this day, I made fudge and peanut butter candy, and packaged it all up neatly in gift bags. I have been as nervous about delivering these gifts as I was about taking the driving test! I know exactly three Japanese sentences appropriate for meeting people, I am not sure about the bowing tradition, and the last thing I want to do is offend the people we will be living among for the next three years! Adding to the stress is the whole setup of the house. You don’t go to the front door to ring the doorbell. Each house has a gate at the street, and the doorbell is located at the gate. Inside the house is an intercom with a camera, where the homeowner can ascertain who exactly is ringing the bell. If the person inside speaks only Japanese, and the person outside speaks only English, this could be a very awkward situation. Luckily, Jim had his wits about him and had a great plan.

The very first day we had come to look at the house—before we even had keys to get inside—one of the ladies from across the street came over to introduce herself. She speaks English, and though she is technically not a neighbor (the houses straight across and on either side are your neighbors), Jim felt we should include her in the gift giving because she made the effort to introduce herself that first day. He also had the foresight to suggest we take her gift over first—probably because we knew she spoke English and that would be an easy first stop. It didn’t turn out as easy as planned—when we rang the bell at the gate, her husband, who speaks very little English, came on the intercom speaking rapid Japanese. Jim managed to say konbanwa (good evening), but then we both stood there opening and closing our mouths like fish out of water. For what seemed like hours, but was actually less than a minute, we stood there gaping and fidgeting while the husband continued to try to figure out in Japanese what we wanted. Finally, Yasuko came out the door full of apologies, and we breathed a huge sigh of relief. She came to the gate to chat and accepted her gift, then (HALLELUJAH!!) offered to go with us to the other houses. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! She took charge, rang the bell at each house, then explained in Japanese to the voice coming from the intercom why we were there. Turns out, the occupants of the three houses across the street all speak English to some extent, so introductions went pretty smoothly. Only one of the houses beside ours is occupied at the moment, and that family does not speak English, so Yasuko’s willingness to translate was especially appreciated.

Once all of the gifts were delivered, we retreated to our kitchen to make dinner and revel in the successful completion of our task (I for one was nearly giddy with relief— like a huge weight had been lifted). Not fifteen minutes later, our doorbell rang, and our camera showed it was Yasuko standing at the gate. Skipping the whole intercom ordeal, I went straight outside to find that she had drawn a map of the homes we had visited, and had labeled each house with the names of the neighbors (obviously she picked up on the fact that I was not processing or storing information very well during the introductions). I can already see that this woman’s kindness and willingness to help are going to be invaluable during our stay in this neighborhood.