Japandamonium!!!

Whew! It’s ten past two on what I have now finally realized is Wednesday and not Tuesday afternoon, and I’m ‘at the office’ on Mami-chan’s computer. Her internet’s down but it only means I can type more innocuously over here and I’ll later pull it over to Takatomo’s computer with my thumb-drive and upload it to the world outside. So, there are two clusters of desks in a long room that makes up the office. One’s for the bosses: Katcho san, Kakaricho san (which means Boss Jr), and someone I’ve never met called Katcho-Hosa san, who as far as I can tell is maybe the school cook? Or something? Then the second cluster, with six desks: Kancho san, which means like community-activity-boss, Taeko san and I make up the row close to the windows, and Takatomo san, Naofumi san and Mami chan face us.

Kancho-san, Taeko and Mami are women, about 60, 48 and 28 respectively and the rest are men in their 30’s-50’s. Takatomo’s the youngest, but like many people I’m meeting, he’s probably ten years older than I think he is; maybe 30ish? Naofumi san was telling everyone today that some youngster passing him in the street today called him “ojiisan” or ‘grandfather’ and sighing as Kacho san commiserated with him; I think that puts Naofumi san in his 40’s or 50’s and the salt in Kacho san’s hair reads about 50 as well. Mami chan is 28, which I couldn’t believe when I first found out since she’s got the hyperactive bubbliness of a Japanese teen. Kakaricho san’s a mystery, but not a very interesting one; 40? 35? More on their office hyjinks and personae later!

It’s really a nice place. Lots of laughter and a good working atmosphere, and lots of low key work. There’s a window to the lobby and any time anyone comes up to it they say 'good morning' or 'good afternoon' and bows, and the whole office responds together and bows back to whoever it is, and in the space of time before someone jogs up to the window to help them, i can always see that whoever it is is very suprised to see me there bowing along with everyone else. Whenever anyone comes or goes from the door there’s a round of communal call/response: itterasshai! ittekimasu!; i'm going! i see you're going! It’s really quite nice, like everyone keeping up with each other and checking in with where everyone else is in their day. I’m learning which things to say for when but I haven’t gotten a chance to unleash our house favorite, ‘okaerinasae,’ or as we like to say it, OCARINA OF TIIIIIIME!

Every once in a while (I’m sure according to some schedule I’ll never have an intrinsic understanding of) Taeko san or Mami will bring around a tray of drinks for everyone, sometimes coffee, o-cha (green tea), or Calpis, a milky/watery yummy refreshing kind of drink (I think we’ve got in the states but it’s called called Calpico, since when you say it out loud, Cow-Piss isn’t a great seller Stateside). Yesteday I made a funny feaux-pa (someone help me spell this) trying to bus Taeko-san’s mug for her when I was bringing mine to the kitchen. The whole office got in a big whirlwind of giggles and outright disbelief; at first they didn’t know what I was even trying to do and then when they finally figured out I was trying to take her cup for her it was such a shock that they actually tried to stop me; I couldn’t possibly know what I was doing. It was like a warning that the stick I was reaching for was actually a poisonous snake. When I finally just took it to the kitchen all of us were laughing ourselves to pieces and most of us were blushing (Katcho san came in half way through and they had to tell him about it, with the air of surprise appropriate for “Joshu-san just discovered cold fusion!” and he was laughing and blushing too). Taeko san didn’t stop bowing and thanking me until after I was done drying the dishes. I can’t wait to try offering to bring someone else a drink; it may be something they’ve never even thought of!