Finding My Way in Japan
Our navigation misdirected us… It was jaw-clenchingly cold, below 20 degrees fahrenheit, and we were lost. As we walked through the back alley in complete darkness with no lights to help guide us, we finally found ourselves at our destination. The hole-in-the-wall ramen shop that had become super popular on social media and was known to almost every local. The difficult ordering process was actually very simple. A vending machine featuring all the options of ramen that you could eat. After clicking the image on the vending machine, you receive a ticket. The process is simple. Now what’s left is to give the ticket to the cashier, pay, and then find a seat inside. The last step is especially strenuous—eating the food! The best ramen I ever had also became the perfect comforting food in the frigid winter weather.
The best part about traveling is the food. But before you can dig in, you must understand certain cultural manners. I had not known this, which was a learning experience. As we were visiting a Mount Fuji lookout, we needed a two-hour hike to capture the scenic photos we wanted. We were gassed, extremely diluted, and hungry. We stopped at a sit-down restaurant, and I ate a traditional bowl of miso soup with rice. Eating the rice and miso soup together was something I had always done. At that exact moment, an older lady had sat down next to me, signaling with her hands, alerting me that I was doing something wrong. I was confused, and I didn’t know what to do. She grabbed the chopsticks sticking out vertically from the bowl and placed them sideways. I then understood, at least a little bit, that it had something to do with my chopstick placement. I pulled out my phone to use Google Translate, and she explained that sticking the chopsticks upright is symbolic of death and funeral rituals in Japanese culture. I regretted what I had done, but I took it as a learning experience.
This moment was fundamental in teaching me that, even without speaking the same language, we found a way to communicate, and I was able to learn something about another person’s culture.
