The Lengths That One Man Will Go To For A Beer...

Japan is a wasteful society. It can not be characterized as one that reduces, reuses and recycles. Plastic abounds. Everything is shrink-wrapped, double-wrapped, individually sealed; once-bagged, twice-bagged, smothered in a plastic peal. As far as I know, there is no recycling program in my prefecture. Everything that can be burned, is. Everything that can’t, goes to that magical, mystery garbage pile in the sky (well, on second thought, it’s probably dragged out onto the ocean by a rusty, aging tug-boat, a few kilometers from shore, to be dumped; only later to wash up on the rocky beaches not far from my town). Not quite as romantic of a thought, now is it?

Hence, I do my best to save the universe- one purchase at a time. Whenever I buy something that I can easily carry without requiring a bag, I tell the cashier, who reaches for the plastic sack faster than an American customs official reaches for the rubber gloves, to “chill."

One Friday evening, not long ago, I was heading over to my friend’s apartment. On the way, I pulled into 7-Eleven to buy a couple of beers. As the clerk began to bag my drinks, I stopped her. “Iranai,” I said, telling her that I didn’t need a bag.

As I walked out of the convenience store, the two cold beers in my hand, I fumbled in my jacket pocket for my car keys. It would seem that this was too much for my tired and frail mind. Already concentrating on walking, carrying the two drinks, and humming a tune quietly to myself, the whole concept of successfully taking my keys out of my pocket proved to be too much to handle. In an unusual moment of gracelessness- an uncharacteristically clumsy moment in my life- one of the beers flew from my over-worked hands, floated fluidly through the air, and landed, hard, on the cold, un-forgiving pavement of the 7-Eleven parking lot. Before I even had time to trace the soaring snifter with my eyes, it bounced off of the concrete and rolled beneath the body of an idling car.

Like a prized pig hunting for valuable truffles, I circled the car in search of my two dollar treasure. It was nowhere to be seen. I bent down low to the ground and scanned beneath the smog-emitting gas guzzler, all the while trying to be inconspicuous so as to not alarm the woman sitting in the driver’s seat, yakking on her cell-phone like it was the end of the world. I quickly spied the battered beer can, hiding on the inside of the front driver’s side tire- but not before the woman in the car eyed the strange foreigner inspecting her vehicle from the perspective of a lop-eared Cocker Spaniel.

So as to not elicit fear in the chattering Japanese woman, I returned to a standing position, straightened my collar, and retreated to my car, which was parked adjacent to hers. Trying to hash out a plan, I weighed my options. I could either drive away, leaving my beer to the unknown darkness of the quiet Japanese country town, or I could wait for the woman to leave, fetch my assaulted Asahi, and head to a warmer place. Thinking that she had just arrived, or that she was about to leave, and couldn’t possibly talk on the phone for long, I chose to wait. I under-estimated the gabbing grit of the Japanese house-wife.

I waited in my car for four minutes. She clearly wasn’t going anywhere. After noticing me scoping out her vehicle from the closest thing to being on all fours, and then making eye contact with me several times as I sat in my car and glanced at her every 30 seconds, the woman, I am sure, began to wonder what I was up to. She gave me fleeting glimpses from her car seat; eye-balling me cautiously, constantly keeping me in her peripherals. She continued to yak on her cell phone, making sure that I remained at a safe distance.

After waiting for those four, long minutes, I was fed-up. I just wanted my beer. Frustrated, I stepped out of my car. As soon, as I did so, I saw her look up at me, a befuddled panic painted on her shadowed face, and I heard the power-locks of her car doors ‘click’. She locked her doors! She was in fear; thinking that I was going to hijack her vehicle or steal her Louis Vuitton handbag. I walked around the front of her car and made my way to her window. She followed me intently with her eyes, transfixed by my unfamiliar and threatening presence. As she stared at me like a brush-tailed rabbit-rat watching an approaching spitting cobra, she spoke nervously on her phone, likely giving post-mortem instructions to whomever it was she was speaking with.

I stood at her door, looming over her; nothing more than a quarter inch of laminated safety glass separating her from what she perceived to be an untimely calamity. I smiled. She shook her head defiantly, her eyes wide and her eyebrows furrowed; an unusual combination of fear and annoyance. She spoke more rapidly on her phone. She turned away from me, trying her best to disregard the 6 foot 2 inch foreigner blocking out the light of the street lamp, eclipsing the driver’s side of the car. Every few seconds, she glanced up at me with her wide, perturbed eyes, each time hoping that I would concede defeat and walk away. I remained, motioning for her to roll down her window. She refused, waving her hand uncouthly, motioning for me to leave her alone. I pointed frantically at her tire, hoping that, if I made her think that there was something wrong with her car, it would elicit a self-concerned response, and thus persuade her to speak with me. She didn’t fall for it. She shook her head insolently and pointed inside the store- as if to suggest that I had the attention span of an inebriated Robin Williams with no one to entertain, and my interest could be deflected elsewhere. Not once did she break in conversation.

I stood awkwardly outside of her window for more than four minutes, alternating between animated gestures for her to roll down the glass and violent gesticulations in the direction of her tire. She continued to ignore me as best as a frightened and agitated woman could manage. With a discourteous brush of her hand, she waved me away occasionally as if I were a destitute, squeegee clutching punk rocker looking to make enough cash for a coffee and a cigarette. I motioned with my hands that I wanted to speak with her. Passing 7-Eleven shoppers stared in puzzled wonderment as I stood, somewhat frustrated and disheartened, making unusual gestures beside the idling car of this middle aged, verbose Japanese lady. I considered just going ahead and reaching under her car for my concealed beer, but I didn’t put it past her to try to run me over in self-defense. I wanted the beer, but not that badly.

Finally, after realizing that I wasn’t giving up so easily and would likely stay until the wee hours of the morning, she pulled the phone away from where it was glued to her ear and rolled the window down a sliver; only enough for me to hear her say rudely in Japanese, “what?!”
“My beer is under your car” I replied, agitated. She smiled and let out a delicate laugh, directed more at me than at the peculiar situation at hand (most Japanese would have apologized profusely, both for ignoring me for so long and for what they would have falsely seen as themselves being in the way of me getting my sweaty paws on the cold brew). She waved her hand like Queen Elizabeth beckoning her man-servant to fetch another bucket of gin and tonic, motioning for me to retrieve my drink. I moved to the front of her car, reached under and grabbed the bruised can. I held it up in the light for her to see, trying my hardest not to glare at her, or better yet, spread my lanky body out on the hood of her car and crack open the can for a well-deserved nip. She smiled somewhat sarcastically again, and, having finally rid herself of the troublesome foreigner, stuck the phone once more to her ear, and went back to doing what she does best; ignoring me while discussing what I’m sure were deep and reflective topics such as frilly lingerie, mittens for cold dogs, and the small balls of lint that gather in the folds of one’s kimono.

I walked back to my car and sped away, annoyed, not by the fact that she was slightly scared of me, which I can empathize with, but by the fact that she was one of the very few Japanese people that I have met so far who was actually quite rude to me.

When I arrived at my buddy Seth’s house, I told him the story and we laughed about it for a while, adding it to our mental list of peculiar behaviours exhibited by the Japanese. He recounted to me a story about his mother, who had been on the opposite side of a similar experience in Connecticut where Seth grew up. She was using an ATM, not far from the ‘bad side’ of town. As she finished withdrawing money, a black man, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, appeared at the glass door of the locked banking booth; standing, in what appeared to be a menacing position and waiting for Seth’s mom to open the door. She apparently stood inside for several minutes, refusing to leave the safety of the locked ATM booth, in fear of robbery, or worse. They both waited until finally, the man, who was likely as annoyed as I was while waiting for the gabbing house-wife to roll down her window, said to Seth’s mother, “lady, I just wanna use the ATM.” She relented, walked outside and past the hooded man as he walked in to legitimately retrieve some of his own, hard earned money. Both survived to tell the embarrassing story.

So, while my personal mission to reduce, reuse and recycle might get me in the occasional quandary, I will persist, in hoping that my efforts will save a baby porpoise from ‘asphyxiation by polyethylene’ or at least to give the appropriately labeled ‘bag people’ a well-merited rest from cleaning up the beaches. But most importantly, I will remember to never again interrupt a Japanese housewife in the midst of her ‘parking lot philosophizing.’