Just for laughs!

There are loads of times where I think that the Japanese can never surprise me - they all seem to be so fairly predictable, so efficient - sometimes, I stop thinking of them as human :-). This is probably something they would not like to hear.......

But then the funniest things happen to me and I look at the world again in a new light. Like the time when my umbrella was stolen. (Yep - people steal here too!). From the moment I have heard about Japan from Thilak (- which is quite a time before we got married!), the most consistent description I have heard was how safe it is here. You could leave your suitcase in the street for 10 days and come back to find it untouched. Ditto for unlocked apartment doors (as a friend said, even ghosts will not enter your home unasked!). Same goes for wallets left in the train or passports dropped on the way to the bus stop. But hang on!! This rule apparently does not work for 100 yen umbrellas - you know, those transparent plastic ones which remind you nostalgically of Bollywood songs from the 90s, where the heroine goes about dancing in the rain with a see through umbrella and you wonder where you could pick up an umbrella just like that?!! I am no exception to the rule and I secretly covet the clear as glass umbrellas which make you feel like you are cashing in all the rainy fun minus the drenching part. It was on one such rainy day, where I happily left my umbrella outside the library and popped in for a few minutes. And when I came back, my umbrella was gone! I checked again before heading out to the door to unsuccessfully try to find my umbrella in a sea of 100 yen umbrellas. Heartbroken and soaked to the bone, I returned home to be told that apparently if someone else forgets his or her umbrella and it starts to rain, he or she figures out that taking your 100 yen umbrella is not a big issue for you - anyway it costs JUST 100 yen! (And I grumbled about how he or she conveniently forgot that instead of him or her, it would be ME getting wet in the rain!). After having my 100 yen see through umbrellas stolen 2 times, I have started carrying expensive, foldable umbrellas which stay safely in my bag and within sight for use when the heavens open up.

The other incident I am going to relate is totally weird. Anyone's who has been here knows how friendly the older folks are to the foreigners - they do their best in striking a conversation up with you in all ways possible - sometimes including the one below. Thilak and I were walking in this departmental store, hunting through the clothes section for a good deal. And the old lady assisting us was very friendly, complimenting me on my non existent Japanese skills in the same vein as Thilak's far superior speaking skills. After some small talk, I moved on ahead to examine some formal suits up for good bargains. And suddenly, someone yanked my thick plait - real hard! A bit stunned, I turned around to find the obaasan saying - 'Ii, desune!' ('Very good!') and I'm like - 'WHAT?!!' According to her, I had lovely, thick hair - which she apparently wanted to check by pulling. According to Thilak, Japanese have straight hair which does not curl gracefully like mine does - or ''she wanted to see if you were wearing false hair and it would come off!!'' (amidst peals of laughter!). I stomped out in indignation, checking nervously over my shoulder if the obaasan was following for another tug every few minutes!

You always know you are doing something wrong when the Japanese people around you start to stare openly, unabashedly - something which is not normal even by their high polite standards. We discovered that recently when a friend drove the car in the wrong lane - trying to exit from a one way entry. Or when he drove slowly down a steep mountain in Nikko with a long line of cars behind us - when some of them overtook us, you could clearly make out angry faces saying something which you probably not like to hear or understand.

Japan is a land of surprises, me thinks - maybe in ordinary situations, you can expect the majority of them to follow the unwritten rules. But like a Stephen King novel, there are always situations which make them behave unlike their normal, helpful, polite selves - which makes you wonder about what really the Japanese are made up of.