Job Discussion Forums

[SeasonedVet]

I am sure we all have had a number of experiences while living here in Japan. They may range from funny to hilarious to sad to interesting, weird, embarrassing and so on ...
Care to share?

[kdynamic]

That is the most overly broad question I have ever heard

[SeasonedVet]

kdynamic wrote:

[SeasonedVet]

Once I was walking along a dimly lit street behind a train station in Osaka. It was late and there were only two people on the street. A man and a woman. They appeared to know each other and were having some kind of a conversation which was becomind a little heated.
I passed and glanced at them and continued on glancing back evey now and then.
Suddenly the man shouted at the woman, grabbed what looked like a camera and then punched (or hit? ) her on her head and I think in her face and then he started to run while looking back at her.
I was wondering ...? what is this all about? Does she need help? Is it a robbery? Does she really know him? It was weird.
he continued running and looking back at her and she just stood there not moving and looking in his direction.
Edited to include this next experience:

When I first came to Japan I needed to find the ward office because I had moved from the apartment assigned to me to my own apartment.
I was on the train and I had a map but I was worried because I couldn't read the japanese words. On the train I took a big chance and asked a woman next to me if she could speak English. I wasn't surprised that she said no even if she answered in English.
Anyway I continued to ask her (in English) "do you know this place? I want to go here?"
She shook her head in the affirnmative and signalled the "ok" gesture and the "wait" gesture. As the train pulled into the next station she gestured to me to get off the train and follow her.
I did. She went out and hailed a taxi and told me to get in with her. I did.
She told the driver where to go. Along the way I tried to have some kind of converstaion with her, and in my nonexistant Japanese language skill and her limited English ability we found out that we were actually student and teacher of the same Language school (talk about coincidence)
The driver pulled up in front of the ward office. I took out my wallet to pay, she refused to allow me. I tried repeatedly but she refused. I gave up and thanked her profusely.
I got out and she drove away smiling. I stood there smiling too.

[callmesim]

NICE:

While in Tokyo during the summer vacation, I was taking the midnight bus back to Osaka. With 20 minutes before the bus departed, I decided to pop into Tokyo Station and take a whizz.

After walking around the abandoned shops and stores, I finally found a pay toilet. �100 but I needed to go. When I came out, I decided to be Mr Clever and take a short-cut back to the Bus Stop. BIG MISTAKE. I became seriously lost and was running out of time. 15 minutes. 10 minutes. 5 minutes left. I called my friend outside asking which exit I needed to look for. I was running across the station, asking for directions but they weren't too helpful. I called my friend back and said I didn't think I was going to make it.

In a final act of desperation, I asked another passerby who was at the station with his wife and teenage daughter. As soon as I said "sumimasen" and seeing I was in a bit of trouble the three of them jumped into action. I asked for the direction of the exit (in my rubbish Japanese) and he pointed back to where I came from. EXCEPT - he also quickly gestured for me to follow him. We ran over to a sign and he pointed to the kanji. He counted along 'one - two - three' and gestured that this was the kanji I needed to follow. I wrote it down on my hand and he gave me the thumbs up. I thanked them as much as I could and was on my way. I made the bus with 60 seconds to spare.

The pointing out of the kanji was such a simple thing but was the most helpful. He rocked! Thank you Mr Tokyo Mystery man.

[casual]

I was waiting to meet my gf one night in Shinsaibashi in Osaka. When I was waiting a big group of drunk office workers came down the street. One of them bumped into a car and a young lad came out and was a bit irate.
One of the businessmen and the car driver then proceeded to start knocking seven bells out of each other with assorted office workers trying to break it up. The business man was getting the upper hand as he had a hold of the young lads hair whilst uppercutting him repeatedly.
The fight was eventually broken up but two female office workers were crying, two of the people stopping the fight had bloody noses and there were a couple of ripped shirts too.
Unfortunately that wasnt the end of it and they started at it again but by now there was a big pile up of cars as the driver had left his car in the middle of a narrow side street. By now this had caused a massive tailback of traffic and it was accomponied by the sound of about 100 cars repeatedly beeping their horn. There were also numerous drivers trying to join in the fight because they wanted to get at the person who left the car in the street.
After the businessman again got the upperhand the young car driver was convinced by some people to park his car up before finishing the fight. After parking the car they went at it for a 3rd time. The young driver after taking another beating but decided not to actually bother fighting back and simply called people for back up whilst taking numerous punches to the head. The bizarre thing was he had a completely normal conversation whilst taking punch after punch and barely even flinched.
The crowd by now was pretty big with numerous restaurant and bar workers joining the scene to give wet towels to the numerous folk who were now covered in blood.
The fight was still going on when my gf turned up and unfortunately I never got to see the ending as she was more interested in going for dinner than to continue watching this bout of savage blood letting !!

[gaijin4life]

One Sunday evening a few weeks ago, I was biking home down a quiet backstreet in small town Japan and saw a woman walking her dog. As it was getting dark, she was holding a torch `in front of the dog` so it could see, I guess ... thats nice, I thought..

About a week ago, at the local, perfectly decent, - although not exactly very upmarket, department store, I was shopping and bopping along to the sounds of `Eamon`s `F**k you` - complete with all the usually deleted naughty words. I resisted the urge to sing along - loudly, humming it instead ...

Last Sunday afternoon, biking down the same backstreet, I came across a lady `walking her cat` ..! I am not joking, - it was on a leash - she was walking it. As it seemed to know the drill, Im guessing this wasnt the first time ...

Japan .. nation of pet-lovers and Eamon fans ... !!

[JimDunlop2]

[guest of Japan]

I saw someone walking a rabbit on a leash once in a park in Tokyo.

[Gordon]

I saw an owl in a pet store the other day. Who keeps an owl as a pet? I think it was about 80,000 yen.

[gaijinalways]

My first 'job' in japan included teaching a 'sake class'. The owner gave me a part-time job teaching his friends, all older men who were mostly retired. He told me, "Enjoy yourself, drink as much beer and sake as you want, let them talk about whatever." The usual conversations centered around

How girls in Taiwan rode bicycles with those short skirts
what I thought of Japan
their adventures overseas
their family episodes

I would get semi-drunk and always enjoyed this class, usually 2 nights a week. Strange ending to this story, as one night I showed up to teach as usual, and found out two teachers were scheduled to teach this same class. The other teacher decided since he was a more regular teacher at this school that he would take over the class (while at this time, this was the only job I had, very generous of him ). The secretary, who feared a major row after this f#ck up by the owner, was surprised that we amicably settled this, I never heard from the owner again, but I still pass by this school in Ikebukuro sometimes.

[SeasonedVet]

Thanks guys for the stories. They are great. If you have any more we wouldn't mind reading.

casual wrote:

[SeasonedVet]

I was in the bank, waiting to be served. a lady went to the teller's wicket. She seemed to be in her 50's or maybe early 60's. While talking the the young gentleman she appeared to become upset about something. After talking a little while longer she pushed her chair back, got up and walked away and left the bank teller who started saying "okyaku san, Okyaku san" as she was walking away. He got up and with a louder voisce said "okyaku san, okyaku san" and she increased her speed.
He on noticing that she was about to make good her escape, ran out through that little door with the codes to open it, after her saying "okyakusan okyaku san" and she increased her speed even more now literally running out of the bank, down through an alley way, the teller in pursuit. After a few minutes he came back alone. I figured he couldn't catch her. But after that I was wondering what possibly could have caused a woman her age to run out of a bank and him behind her in pursuit???
Strange one.

[c-way]

I left my apartment one morning last winter to get some milk from the nearby 7-Eleven.

I turned the corner in the freezing cold to see a guy squatting outside the 7-11 in mid dump.

This is not on some side road, this is on Kujo street in Kyoto at 8 in the morning. This guys 5 feet off the road and 15 feet from the door of the 7-11 taking a crapper!!!

The typical Japanese part is that no one except me seemed to even acknowledge the fact that this dude's poopin'. People sittin in 7-Eleven facing the window reading their magazines, unfazed.
I left for work an hour and a half later, and the crap was gone.

[The_Prodiigy]

In Obiyama (near to the Family Mart) the following happened. (it was NOT later than 5.00 am) : - :-

A middle-aged bloke, with greying temples and a red-and-white striped jersey stood ramrod straight behind the glistening formica table.

There were the unusual assortment of niku-man, kare-man, sweets and rolled up unagi dishes. A young girl (more than thriteen, hair knitted in briads and her cap, belt, buckle and sandals bearing the NIKE logo) addressed the man thus : -

" konnichi-wa. O-genki desu ka ? Ano desu ne. ORE ga Hokkaido kara. Shikashi watakushi ga hoishi omae no maguro. Mitsu o-kudasai!!"

Man-behind-counter misinterpreted her words and only gave her a quick lesson in the the speeches of Morita-san..


Now that is B-I-Z-A-R-R-E.

Desu- ne ... ?