Challenging Situation at Chennai Airport While Returning to Japan

One of the challenging situations that I had faced was at the Chennai Airport. I was traveling to Japan with my family and mother. We took a domestic flight from Kochi, Kerala, to reach Chennai Airport, from where we needed to board Singapore Airlines.

I handed over the copies of our flight tickets and passports of all my family members to the airline staff after a long wait in the queue to get the boarding passes. After examining, the staff asked me to show the copy of the credit card by which I had booked the flights.

I used the support of one of my colleagues from Singapore to book the flight tickets. He used his credit card to book the flight tickets on Singapore Airlines for me. My colleague had cautioned me about the importance of carrying a printout of the copy of his credit card when traveling. I did not carry the copy of his credit card, and the staff informed me to bring the copy in order to travel on Singapore Airlines.

I tried to appeal by saying that the Singapore Airlines staff did not insist on such a document when I traveled from Japan to India. The staff showed me the remarks at the bottom of the tickets stating the importance of carrying a copy of the credit card if the booking was done through another person’s credit card.

It was almost certain that we needed to postpone the travel to another date until I get the copy of the credit card from my colleague. We moved out of the queue so that other passengers could proceed smoothly. After a minute’s pondering, I decided to call one of my old friends in Chennai and seek his help. I called and explained to him the situation. He told me to keep cool, and since the General Manager of Singapore Airlines’ Chennai office was his friend, he would try to make an appeal for my case.

When I was waiting for my friend’s call, a lady staff member appeared on the scene. She was talking to someone on her mobile. When she approached us, she extended her hands for a handshake and asked if my name was Jayaprakash, to which I said yes. Then she handed over her phone to me and told me to talk to the person on the other end. The voice at the other end introduced herself as the General Manager of Singapore Airlines. She said she talked with my friend in Chennai, and based on that verification method, she has requested her staff in the Chennai airport to issue boarding passes. She wished us safe, pleasant travel back to Japan but advised us to book the flight tickets with our own credit cards as much as possible.

We traveled back to Japan thanking my friend in Chennai and also the general manager of Singapore Airlines.

Lessons I learned from that experience:

1. Pay attention to each and every detail, however small it is. I did not take seriously the instructions given at the bottom of the flight ticket.

2. Use your own credit card for booking the tickets. If a credit card is not available, then take a physical copy of the authorization letter from the person whose credit card is used for booking.

3. Move a bit away from the problem and think about a solution. While staying in the middle of the problem, we may not be able to think about a solution.

Japanese discipline – obedience to the law and order in Japan

Discipline is part of Japanese culture. It is neatly interwoven to the psyche of each Japanese citizen. It won’t be much exaggerating if I say Japanese people are obsessed with discipline.

There was an interview for foreign staff at the work place last year and I was being asked by the interviewer ‘what is your impression about Japan and its people?’

Well, that was an interesting question to answer. Almost naturally, without thinking I answered ‘Discipline of Japanese people’. The interview board was interested to know more about my impression on the discipline of Japanese society. One of the members asked me the spelling of the word discipline. He wanted to check the exact meaning of discipline in his language translator device. He asked me and I spelled D-I-S-C-I-P-L-I-N-E.

Probably ‘discipline’ is a bit difficult word for many Japanese people to pronounce. Most of them make mistake in writing discipline and they may write it as ‘disipirin’. The L and R confusion of Japanese people is very well known to them as well as to the foreigners in Japan. Japanese language has only one sound for R and L, the sound of which is in between RA and LA. Then, to many Japanese people, the ‘Light’ will be the ‘Right’ and ‘Law obedient’ will be the ‘Raw obedient’. I remember reading a site ‘Old brains learn New tricks’ in which the difficulty of Japanese military to distinguish L and R is expressed though an example when the GIs in the Pacific theater chose passwords overrun with R's , words like "rabble-rouser" or "rubbernecker." The reason was the Japanese people have a 'ell of a time with R, which they often pronounce as "ell."

He got the meaning of discipline in Japanese and we discussed the discipline and culture of Japanese society. The culture of a well disciplined Japanese society is known throughout the world. In school, the teachers used to tell us about the Japanese discipline and the benefits the Japanese society derived out of their discipline. Getting inside the train, getting out of the train, walking to the escalator (Eskureta in Japanese is modified form of escalator) are some of the occasions we encounter the discipline of Japanese people. I expressed my good feelings on the discipline of Japanese society to the interviewers.

By definition, the discipline is the training and control of oneself and one's conduct, usually for personal improvement. Since long, Japanese society had implemented discipline to its social structure as one of its essential constituent element. The Japanese Kanji character for discipline is 訓練. The Japanese samurai culture was based on discipline as the word indicates. Discipline refers to systematic instruction given to a disciple. In one sense the Bushido culture was programmed or instructed social system. Of course those instructions have been proved good to the present day Japanese society.

The obedience of Japanese people has its origin in the disciplined behavior which was instructed from childhood. Small kids will be trained by parents for good public behavior. The obedience to the law, the obedience to the system, the good manners in public behavior etc will be continued and reinforced through teaching in schools.

The culture of Bushido stressed on the importance of discipline. Discipline in English means ‘to instruct a person to follow particular rule, or ‘to adhere to a certain "order." This adherence to the order and the obedience to the order from higher ranking officers made the Japanese military one of the significant forces during World War II. I don’t want to enter into a controversy whether Japanese military was right or wrong during Second World War.

Coming to daily life experience in Japan, I have been observing the public discipline of Japanese people especially in railway stations. The pin-drop silence in railway stations in Tokyo is a live example of the discipline and good manners of Japanese people. The discipline may not be always corresponds to the education only. It depends on many factors one of which may be the level of education. Education does not mean simply holding a university degree, but with a more meaningful explanation, manifestation of the self as 'Swami Vivekananda' emphasized. When the education arms an individual with a powerful social tool ‘Empathy’, the entire society and nation become its beneficiary. Empathy is what many of us lack.

The discipline of Japanese children is incredible! Children too are learned to obey public behavior and rules. Learned from elders, they are not behind any of the adults and on many occasions better than the adults in observing obedience and discipline.

‘Discipline’ is one of the best characteristics of Japanese society, which I admire and would like to proclaim to the rest of the world.

Memories of a boring golden week in Japan

‘Students walk to school and rush to home’ is an advertisement caption I read somewhere in the newspaper. The reverse was the case for me till April 10 of this year in Japan. Virtually I cursed the week-ends for almost past one year and wanted to attend office to the maximum possible extent. Personal life in Japan was not very exciting as the whole family was miles apart.

For some initial weeks I had nothing to do in Japan on Saturdays and Sundays and that was one of the reasons for this blog too. Last Golden week was a silver week for me as for most part of the holidays I was found myself alone except in occasions together with Mustain-san. When one of my colleagues asked about the golden week holidays, I replied as if I celebrated a bronze week, not even silver!

During last Golden week holidays I was involved in internet browsing and Yahoo answers. Life in Japan with friends is thrilling, but never a lonely life. Coming out of the initial adjustment troubles with Japan after Golden week holidays, I could mingle with friends from other countries and some Japanese too.

This golden week is really more than golden for me as my whole family is here with me to make the holidays happier. Holidays in Japan now are not boring as I have kids to play with. My elder daughter is my companion now to accompany wherever I go. She will play football with me on the ground near to our building. She insists me to go the park and have fun outside.

Life with kids even if we are in hell will be cheerful! Children are natural in their behavior which almost all of the adults lack. The life in Japan with many adult Japanese having the attitude of children are thus more blissful!

When we go together outside especially in trains many Japanese people look at us as we have different face and skin color. I never felt this before as Japanese people have not stared at me as if I am an alien. Now while going with my daughter, some of them look with curious face at my daughter and say “Kawaii ne”. I learned a new Japanese word Kawaii, which means ‘Cute’. I don’t think Japanese people are staring at us, but they just wanted to show their curiosity in seeing a foreign child with big eyes. Many of them show in gestures that she has got big eyes with their fingers folded in circles around their eyes.

That is interesting and we never felt exhausted or embarrassed as we have taken those experiences in the positive manner. No Japanese have shown any kind of antagonistic attitude till now.

Coming back to the golden week holidays, I have good play times with my daughter. In Japan, Golden Week is a group of holidays together in one week. There are four national holidays within this week. During Golden week, Japanese people plan for long outing with their family. If there is a working day in between national holidays, many of the Japanese apply for a holiday to avail long holidays. As per information from friends, Golden Week is one of Japan's three important holiday season apart from New Year holidays and Obon week. The Constitution Day (Called in Japanese as Kenpo kinenbi), Greenery Day (Called in Japanese as Midori no hi) and Children's Day (Called in Japanese as Kodomo no hi) comes on 3rd, 4th and 5th of May.

Even during long holidays, after going out, I rush to return home. ‘Students walk to school and rush to home’ becomes a meaningful caption in my life in Japan too.

When the castles of good images of Japan falls down in the mind…..

Some of my preconceived notions were getting jolts when encountered with an incident of discrimination though not directed at me. I saw it happened at Morishita Toei Shinjuku station while waiting for train towards Higashi Ojima. Though I tried to convince myself that the acts of racism were not due to the skin color of the victim, I could hardly succeed in convincing myself. There were no other reasons to believe it was not due to skin color. If I could guess correctly, probably it was due to the hate towards a particular race.

And Japan is known for it as many of the personal bloggers declare with their own experiences. I defended many of the negative opinions expressed about Japanese people through this blog.

In acts of discrimination there are always three parties involved. The one who shows the hate feelings, the victim of discrimination towards whom the acts of the racists are expressed publicly and the third one are the witnesses. I was at the third position of witness and was watching the discriminator’s actions as he walked through the plat-form from where the victim was standing in the queue.

At first I thought of not writing about this incident as it may project Japan and its majority good and kind people in a detrimental manner. The discriminator here may be an exception from the vast majority of friendly Japanese people. Though an odd event, I could observe contrary to what I have been telling to my friends that I have never seen any kind of discrimination in Japan. This one of course was pure racist comments he spat on the plat-form with his antagonistic foul mouth.

Let me come out openly with what happened. I was coming down to the plat-form in the escalator at Morishita Toei Shinjuku station. The time was around 6:40 in the evening. The pink car is no more reserved for women. I used to board into the first compartment/car since it will reach first at the Komatsugawa exit by the time the train reaches Higashi Ojima.

There was standing a person who might be from one of the many countries of African continent. The physical characteristics of people including the skin color gives sufficient clue to guess the region and race of them. The person in black was gentle in his position, dress and looks. The moment he entered in a queue, I could see the Japanese young man who was already standing in the front looked at the guy in black and uttered some words in Japanese. The J-man walked away with an angry face and he showed as if he spit on the plat-form. This was to show his unlikeness to the person in black.

We, the witnesses could not see any reason for the J-man’s anger except the one that the B-man stood in his back of queue. They had to travel together once they enter inside the train. The J-man might have dislike towards the B-man’s race. There were no other reason I could guess in mind.

The witnesses of the J-man’s venomous words were just witnessing and did not show any surprise at his action. That is the great thing with Japanese people I have observed. Japanese people have an expressionless face towards many of the events in public.

What was the reaction of the B-man? He was engaged in eating chewing gum as if nothing new has happened. Some of the people walking were looking at his reaction, but he was not looking at anybody. He was gentle in his stand and the J-man was the ugly one showed up his foul mouth at the public place. Who is the winner here!

This one event looks different and dirty among other pages of life in Japan so far. Though not a victim of Japanese racism and discrimination towards foreigners, it hurts my feelings. At many incidents, some witnesses bear deep wounds than the victims. Still I bear the wounds and remember the moment I get down to the plat-form. That plat-form was the place where the castles of flatter on Japan built from the images of beautiful and kind people fell down in my mind. Still I like to believe this is an odd incident.