When I was growing up in Tokyo in the 1960s, all the signage was in Japanese—a combination of hiragana, katakana and kanji that was considered universally accessible, since even small children could read the hiragana. Unfortunately, many gaijin visitors and residents couldn’t, which resulted in their getting hopelessly lost in the city’s sprawling train and subway system. Fortunately, help was at hand. Japanese strangers with maps in their heads and a willingness to give directions were the norm. Sometimes they would even escort lost gaijin to their destinations, going out of their way to do so.
This is not an urban legend, nor was the phenomenon rare. Of course gaijin were a novelty and all the signs were in Japanese, but a willingness to help—or at least try—remains a Japanese trait. (More on how that began in a future post.) Fortunately for today’s visitors, all public signage is in English as well as Japanese. In Tokyo even local trains now have English language announcements, as the Shinkansen has for decades. But getting lost is not a thing of the past, especially in a city where only major streets are named and the rest are identified by a confusing system of place names and numbers. People who expect cities to be laid out on grids are confounded by Tokyo, which from 1600 onward spread organically across the Kanto Plain from a nucleus of villages along the Sumida River.
After World War II, MacArthur advocated rebuilding central Tokyo along the lines of Washington, D.C., imposing Lafayette’s wide avenues and grid on the firebombed capital. But that wasn’t the Japanese way: before the plans were completed, Tokyoites had rebuilt their city on its original footprint, restoring its village-like neighborhoods, each with its row of essential shops. Also back were the narrow, nameless streets that have confused natives and visitors for centuries.*
Last week in Tokyo, I got lost repeatedly. Jet lag, a new hotel whose street looked like many others and a phone whose GPS led me in maddening circles forced me to ask for directions repeatedly. People weren’t always able to help: thanks to cell phones, the Japanese sense of direction isn’t what it used to be. Nor is everyone willing to be bothered. The other night when I politely asked (in perfect Japanese) directions from a man hanging around outside a shop, he waved me off. “Wow,” I said aloud, shocked at his indifference. On the bright side, he did say “Sorry”.
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*This is why fax machines, a distant memory for most Americans, are still essential in Tokyo: people use them to send each other handwritten maps. Before fax machines, this was done by mail or in phoned instructions like “turn left at the greengrocer. Up ahead you’ll see a little shrine on the corner; I’m three houses down, on the right”.
Lost In Tokyo
My first Japanese teacher, in 1960, used to come to give me lessons at our house, which was easy to find. Soon after we started, he explained Japanese addresses and how they grew, and how difficult it was to sort them out. In about a year, he refused to go to anyone's house, and made students come to his office.