I know rain. I'm from Seattle. Japan knows rain, too. They cope with it well.
Last week I was caught in the rain without an umbrella. Call it what you like; I took it to be a soft reminder of my "foreign-ness" here. "The Japanese" don't get caught in the rain like this, I thought.
With my mind fixed on the shelter of home, I cruised past the open entry way of a house where I noticed a woman shuffling about. The woman shouted out what I took to be an announcement -- to her kids or husband? On a conscious level, I barely made out the last word of her sentence: ". . . agemashou . . ." She finished with a soft chuckle.
As I continued on, I challenged myself to remember and translate what the woman had said. Two minutes and two blocks later, I had picked out the following: "kasa . . . mochi . . . agemashou."
In all my life, living in Seattle, no one has ever offered me an umbrella. It's unheard of. The woman's chuckle probably came upon realizing that it would take this foreigner two minutes to figure out what she had said. -- David in Yamanashi
Send your tales of life as a foreigner in Japan to [email protected]. If yours is printed, you'll receive a Japanese-language-study aid courtesy of The Japan Times Book Club. Stories should be 200 words max.