Hokkaido - Being a Tourguide

Comic Timing Helps
As I explained earlier, our tour guides were from Hong Kong.  One, shown below, is married to a Japanese lady and lives in the outskirts of Tokyo.  He had some interesting insights into Japanese culture and he delivered them with great comic timing.  I knew this only because after listening to him speak in Cantonese for five or ten minutes the entire bus would erupt in laughter.  I asked for a translation of a few of his stories.  Here they are....

Story 1: Our guide was driving along the highway and was caught speeding.  Unlike in Hong Kong or most places, where the cops flash their lights at you to pull you over, in Japan they speed by you, way ahead, pull over, park, get out of their car and wave two white flags over their head to get you to stop.  When he got out of his car he started speaking English and handed over his Hong Kong passport.  Though fluent in Japanese, he didn't let on that he could understand the officers.  They were in a panic - neither could speak English and this was particularly embarrasing to them.  One told the other - "hey, it's cold out, get him to sit in the car, we don't want him to catch cold."  After a few minutes, they handed him back his passport and sent him on his way, no fine.  "Enjoy your stay, enjoooooooy" they told him in heavily accented English.  He watched them in his rear view mirror as he drove off, they were bowing over and over.

Story 2:  "It sucks living in Japan because nothing breaks" our guide explained.  He is fond of gadgets but his wife wouldn't let him buy a new phone unless his current one was lost or broken.  He, like all Japanese husbands, turns over his entire salary to the wife, who manages the money and books.  So, he set out to break his phone.  He let it fall on the sidewalk - still worked.  Dropped it in the toilet - nothing, still worked.  So, while at the mall, he purposely left it in the bathroom expecting to never see it again.  When he got home and explained to his wife she simply dialed his phone and the voice on the other end said "sure we found the phone, come on over and pick it up."  Lost and found in Japan really means that.  He once left his backpack on the metro and it had his wallet and close to $20,000 inside (tour guides pay in cash.)  One quick call to the lost and found and all was recovered.  In Japan, he explained, children are taught to never open a wallet that they find but to simply turn it in to the lost and found.