sumimasen

[ellenkushner]

OK, I admit it: Japanese staff treat me like royalty, and I ADOOOOOOOORE it.

We are now in a modest hotel (the Italiaken, on the site of a restaurant founded by an Italian sailor in 1874 in Niigata, a port town on the northern coast); I just called down to the desk to ask if they had computer cable for the rooms, and a young man in a snappy uniform brought up a small box full of apparatus and proceeded to install it (but only after he was sure I had invited him into the room, before which he refused to cross the threshold). Since I read there's no tipping here, but that you may give a small gift when exceptional service is rendered, I offered him one of the cute little pencils I had the foresight to pick up at CVS (it has emoticons printed on it). Gasps of astonishment. Deep bows. Pretty much left the (small) room backward, bowing once again at the door before it closed.

Egad. It's a formality that is a living version of what us fantasy-writers just pretend we know something about when we take our characters to court or up on the Hill. At our last hotel, the fancy one in Yokohama, retainers male and female (in livery - just translate the hotel uniform) were pretty much lined up from the moment you got out of the taxi to bow you into the first door, up the stairs and through the lobby. Really: I'm sure they were available to answer questions or carry packages, but when they weren't actively engaged in those things, they were standing there and bowing, so that you knew you were important and honored.

I try to take it in stride - and take notes.

P.S. Got the Advil trans., thanks! And deliasherman is blogging the rest of our trip.

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I should just mention the Japanese custom of department store openings in the morning, where a line of pretty young ladies comes outside just before 10 o'clock and one of them steps to the front and makes a pretty speech thanking you for coming to their store, and then they all bow in unison and go back in and you are invited to follow. This is good enough. Go to Korea and they have the same custom (or did fifteen years ago) with this difference: when you walk into the store, to the strains of Pomp and Circumstance, every single clerk inside is bowing and holding it as the customers walk by. That, yes, was when I finally got a glimpse of how it felt to be Louis XIV.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

It's Good to be the King.

[wikdsushi.livejournal.com]

Until the peasants discover how to use a guillotine. From there? Well, at least you won't have to worry about getting the crown to stay put.

[ashkta.livejournal.com]

Wow. That sounds amazing. It's one of those things I can imagine but which would be so much more surprising to me in person.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Oh MY. I loooooove luxury and pretending to live on the Hill as much as the next one, but I wonder if I wouldn't start feeling twitchy!

Of course, I'm not really a noble, I'm the Mad Duke's pastry cook, so while the fancy environments are familiar, I'm most comfortable BACKSTAGE in them. (Years of Boskone/Arisia volunteering and running around the unglamorous as well as the glamorous bits of the Park Plaza probably have something to do with that.)

I splurged a bit for myself this weekend, and spent a night at a beautiful place in Albany in a converted 1880s town house, and I loooved it, but I felt a little bit like an impostor even so.

[rosefox]

When we were in Tokyo, we saw two businessmen walking to a subway train. The subordinate ushered the boss onto the train, and then bowed and held the bow until the train had completely left the station.

Same planet, different worlds.

[regicidaldwarf.livejournal.com]

Wow! I've been to Japan before, but I was living as an exchange student, so I wasn't really getting the VIP treatment. That sounds like quite the experience.

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

Are we certain the young man was not a vampire who, moved by your confidence in inviting him in, was then touched by your handing over your small stake?

Ellen Kushner: Diplomat to the invisible world.

[rojomojo.livejournal.com]

"I just called down to the desk to ask if they had computer cable for the rooms, and a young man in a snappy uniform brought up a small box full of apparatus and proceeded to install it (but only after he was sure I had invited him into the room, before which he refused to cross the threshold)."

does this mean you had a computer literate and polite vampire at your door?

giggle

rojo

[cathschaffstump.livejournal.com]

As a university professor, I work with our partners in Japan often, and I think they are the most gracious hosts in the universe.

Enjoy your time in Yokohama.

Catherine

[mbchelle.livejournal.com]

im just an ordinary student but someh0w i imagined having a nice trip to Japan with my friends..reminds me when i had planned to have trip on the golf course, located at the bottom of Albay mountain..our day terribly ruined because of a bad toyota cressida radiator (http://www.overnightradiator.com/toyota-cressida-radiator.html), seems that we need to prioritized first on going to a mechanic..lol, i was h0ping i can visit Japan to0.