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I'm taking a blog break between massive studying. I want to finish this correspondence course textbook and take the test before I leave school tomorrow (last day of work before my trip!). I think I'll have time before the deadline when I get back, but I want to wrap up as many loose ends as possible. This is a very do-able goal, the tasks are easy. It's more of a personal meticulousness goal than anything else, the book is not very good and I know half the grammar already, so finishing it isn't really so vital, but still I want to be thorough.
I never gave them much thought back home, but I've started thinking about automatic doors now that I have doors to compare them to. In the States, everywhere you go that's large enough and public enough has motion auto-doors, and every other public place has a handicap access button for the door to open automatically. Every once in a while you get a door that doesn't open as wide as you need at a fast enough rate, and you have to slow down a little. Usually, you could squeak through but you wait, to avoid looking crazy. Overall, other than those few instances, you barely have to slow down at all.
In Japan, however, I can't recall a time when I didn't have to stop in front of an automatic door. Many of them have a 2-5 second delay opening and even so, sometimes you need to jump around in front of them a little to get them to recognize you at all. There is also a large portion of touch-activated doors in places where the U.S. would just have motion-sensor activated doors. This makes sense to me from a disability standpoint, it's certainly more practical than making people in wheel chairs go way off to the right to hit a button, because the doors in Japan are tap-activated right on the door. Still, I feel like they'd be better served just having regular motion doors than going tap at all.
As an American, I've almost walked into a couple of these doors because they're so much slower than our own. I find many auto doors in Japan to be an inconvenience based on their speed, but also because motion doors look identical to the touch doors at a glance, so you have to stop and think about what kind of door it is. Also, you have no control over how long it takes to open. I'd rather have a manual door at that point, because at least then I can go through it when I want to. Normally I don't give it much thought, but it is a little awkward when someone is coming from the other side, and you're standing smack dab in front of the door trying to get it to open. At that point, it always opens exactly when the other person is about to start slowing down, and so you have to decide whether to move out of the way so they don't have to slow down at all or to make them stop completely to wait for you because you were there first.
Initially I thought the difference was part of our rush culture. Blahblahblah Americans never slow down for anything, they're always in a hurry. They can't be inconvenienced by slow doors!! But really I think my qualms about the doors are just because they're different than I'm used to. I don't run into doors when I'm in a hurry, I run into doors because I'm not paying attention and I don't expect them to take so long.
Similarly, I thought people would judge me as a foreigner for continuing to ride my bike in December. I thought they'd say, "Oh, the American can't be troubled to walk, it takes too long! She's going to ride in the bitter cold because she's impatient!." After all, it's about 4 months later than I've ever ridden a bike before (seeing as I've always had a car to conveniently switch to) and the bike racks at school, which used to be swarmed with over a hundred, now don't hold a single bicycle. Then yesterday our snow finally accumulated and I gave up on the bike. Bike season is over for me.
Then walking to work yesterday I saw a man on bicycle going across the ice-covered street. And when I say ice-covered street, I mean it. They didn't plow or salt and so it's an inch of solid ice everywhere you go (it's no wonder people wear spikes on their shoes here). Anyway, I dismissed him because, even in Madison, there was also a diehard or two that road bikes in the snow. But then today I saw 3 people riding bicycles and the weather hadn't improved at all - in fact, it was snowing while they were riding. Then when I went to the bank, I realized a large number of people were still riding bicycles! Apparently, trecherous biking isn't part of rush culture at all, considering the daytime traffic is composed of the old people and housewives who aren't rushing off to work or going anywhere quickly at all. Curious indeed.
As far as service goes, Japan certainly pushes you through faster at the check-outs, considering there are always more cashiers than customers. However, when it comes to general service like answering questions, I find it's slower in Japan, unless you get someone particularly apathetic in the States, then it's about the same. Don't get me wrong, the Japanese employees always (literally) take off running to find you an answer, but they ask absolutely everyone they encounter and do it in the most haphazard way. It's nice to get such an enthusiastic response (seriously, every time without fail) but with all the crazy bumbling it usually ends up taking a long time anyway.
And when it comes to food service, I kind of hate it here. There is no standard of bringing out all the food at once in Japan, which is odd because generally, at a gathering, people wait to eat or drink anything until a toast is made. Granted, people don't usually toast at usual restaurant outings as far as I know, but you'd think the idea of the toast would translate to waiting for everyone to be served before eating. I was once at a restaurant where they brought my friend her curry first, then they brought the dishes for the other 3 of us out at 15 minute intervals after that, and then after another 10 minutes she finally got the rice that went with her curry. What the heck? While this isn't the standard and I can't believe such a gap is actually acceptable to Japanese customers either, it's certainly more common in Japan than in the U.S.
People tell me that I will miss the speediness and reliability of the excellent customer service in Japan, but at this point I don't think I would. I still view good service as a special treat, so I'm plesanatly surprised almost every time I go to a store in Japan, but I don't really expect it yet. I don't think I'll be disgusted shopping at the mall when I'm visiting home. If anything, I might find it more relaxing, usually it makes me feel stressed and guilty to watch Japanese people running around like crazy trying to appease the customers every whim, especially when it's me.
I think my overarching conclusion is that impatience and efficiency are two parts of the same coin. I don't think it makes me a bad person to do things quickly and I really appreciate the efficiency of the U.S. While I certainly think people need to slow down once in a while and that they can become too hurried to lead good lives, I don't think that's intrinsically connected to how our culture operates. If you live in an efficient culture, you usually still have the option to slow down in most situations. If you live in a slow culture, you don't have the option to speed up. I think our efficient culture is more accommodating in that way (though I'd still take the positive attitude of the fast service workers from Japan any day!)
I never gave them much thought back home, but I've started thinking about automatic doors now that I have doors to compare them to. In the States, everywhere you go that's large enough and public enough has motion auto-doors, and every other public place has a handicap access button for the door to open automatically. Every once in a while you get a door that doesn't open as wide as you need at a fast enough rate, and you have to slow down a little. Usually, you could squeak through but you wait, to avoid looking crazy. Overall, other than those few instances, you barely have to slow down at all.
In Japan, however, I can't recall a time when I didn't have to stop in front of an automatic door. Many of them have a 2-5 second delay opening and even so, sometimes you need to jump around in front of them a little to get them to recognize you at all. There is also a large portion of touch-activated doors in places where the U.S. would just have motion-sensor activated doors. This makes sense to me from a disability standpoint, it's certainly more practical than making people in wheel chairs go way off to the right to hit a button, because the doors in Japan are tap-activated right on the door. Still, I feel like they'd be better served just having regular motion doors than going tap at all.
As an American, I've almost walked into a couple of these doors because they're so much slower than our own. I find many auto doors in Japan to be an inconvenience based on their speed, but also because motion doors look identical to the touch doors at a glance, so you have to stop and think about what kind of door it is. Also, you have no control over how long it takes to open. I'd rather have a manual door at that point, because at least then I can go through it when I want to. Normally I don't give it much thought, but it is a little awkward when someone is coming from the other side, and you're standing smack dab in front of the door trying to get it to open. At that point, it always opens exactly when the other person is about to start slowing down, and so you have to decide whether to move out of the way so they don't have to slow down at all or to make them stop completely to wait for you because you were there first.
Initially I thought the difference was part of our rush culture. Blahblahblah Americans never slow down for anything, they're always in a hurry. They can't be inconvenienced by slow doors!! But really I think my qualms about the doors are just because they're different than I'm used to. I don't run into doors when I'm in a hurry, I run into doors because I'm not paying attention and I don't expect them to take so long.
Similarly, I thought people would judge me as a foreigner for continuing to ride my bike in December. I thought they'd say, "Oh, the American can't be troubled to walk, it takes too long! She's going to ride in the bitter cold because she's impatient!." After all, it's about 4 months later than I've ever ridden a bike before (seeing as I've always had a car to conveniently switch to) and the bike racks at school, which used to be swarmed with over a hundred, now don't hold a single bicycle. Then yesterday our snow finally accumulated and I gave up on the bike. Bike season is over for me.
Then walking to work yesterday I saw a man on bicycle going across the ice-covered street. And when I say ice-covered street, I mean it. They didn't plow or salt and so it's an inch of solid ice everywhere you go (it's no wonder people wear spikes on their shoes here). Anyway, I dismissed him because, even in Madison, there was also a diehard or two that road bikes in the snow. But then today I saw 3 people riding bicycles and the weather hadn't improved at all - in fact, it was snowing while they were riding. Then when I went to the bank, I realized a large number of people were still riding bicycles! Apparently, trecherous biking isn't part of rush culture at all, considering the daytime traffic is composed of the old people and housewives who aren't rushing off to work or going anywhere quickly at all. Curious indeed.
As far as service goes, Japan certainly pushes you through faster at the check-outs, considering there are always more cashiers than customers. However, when it comes to general service like answering questions, I find it's slower in Japan, unless you get someone particularly apathetic in the States, then it's about the same. Don't get me wrong, the Japanese employees always (literally) take off running to find you an answer, but they ask absolutely everyone they encounter and do it in the most haphazard way. It's nice to get such an enthusiastic response (seriously, every time without fail) but with all the crazy bumbling it usually ends up taking a long time anyway.
And when it comes to food service, I kind of hate it here. There is no standard of bringing out all the food at once in Japan, which is odd because generally, at a gathering, people wait to eat or drink anything until a toast is made. Granted, people don't usually toast at usual restaurant outings as far as I know, but you'd think the idea of the toast would translate to waiting for everyone to be served before eating. I was once at a restaurant where they brought my friend her curry first, then they brought the dishes for the other 3 of us out at 15 minute intervals after that, and then after another 10 minutes she finally got the rice that went with her curry. What the heck? While this isn't the standard and I can't believe such a gap is actually acceptable to Japanese customers either, it's certainly more common in Japan than in the U.S.
People tell me that I will miss the speediness and reliability of the excellent customer service in Japan, but at this point I don't think I would. I still view good service as a special treat, so I'm plesanatly surprised almost every time I go to a store in Japan, but I don't really expect it yet. I don't think I'll be disgusted shopping at the mall when I'm visiting home. If anything, I might find it more relaxing, usually it makes me feel stressed and guilty to watch Japanese people running around like crazy trying to appease the customers every whim, especially when it's me.
I think my overarching conclusion is that impatience and efficiency are two parts of the same coin. I don't think it makes me a bad person to do things quickly and I really appreciate the efficiency of the U.S. While I certainly think people need to slow down once in a while and that they can become too hurried to lead good lives, I don't think that's intrinsically connected to how our culture operates. If you live in an efficient culture, you usually still have the option to slow down in most situations. If you live in a slow culture, you don't have the option to speed up. I think our efficient culture is more accommodating in that way (though I'd still take the positive attitude of the fast service workers from Japan any day!)
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