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JUST DIFFERENT, AS DIFFERENT AS IT CAN BE(Humor)

May 11 2008 | Views 303 | Comments (30)

JUST DIFFERENT, AS DIFFERENT AS IT CAN BE(Humor) “My choices are simple, I simply want ... Expand

JUST DIFFERENT, AS DIFFERENT AS IT CAN BE(Humor)

“My choices are simple, I simply want the best”

That was my one liner. But honestly, my choices are in fact simple. I simply wanted a bottle of health drink, something like "Horlicks" or "Bournvita" type. But it has turned out to be anything but simple.

There was a machine near the ATM, a machine to measure your blood pressure. I don’t remember seeing this kind of a machine before. A long hollow inside which you are to put your hand after sitting comfortably, then switch on the ‘START’ button. ( Thank God they have written a “START” in English over the button with a ball pen , otherwise finding that could had been another task).Then the soft cloth like material inside the hollow gets tightened around your hand and after some seconds, it gives in clear digital figure, your blood pressure and pulse rate. I did it just for fun, but the result showed something serious, my BP as 106/62. Horrible! I got tensed. The doctor would be available on Monday, what to do, I thought. Then we all decided our tried and tested home formula, “Let’s buy a health drink, something like Horlicks or Bournvita.”

We took the necessary direction from the front desk and reached the local market without getting lost. Good accomplishments, considering that there were no single signboard in English. It was a wonderful walk through the well decorated roads of the Tokyo, more correctly, Nishihara, the area a bit away from the main town. There was a departmental shop. We roamed around the shop for some 10-15 minutes. A lot of packets were placed in a beautiful systematic way in shelves. But which one is the health drink? We tried to look for English labeled packets. No chance. The labels written appeared to us nothing more than the pictures of any flower. Yes, written Japanese is something like drawing flowers, beautiful flowers, but useless for us.

I asked the salesman, “Do you have any health drink?”

He tried his best to understand my pronunciations. Nah, impossible. I looked around for any non-Japanese salesman. No good luck. Well, suddenly I got an idea. I tried to indicate the drink with my hand. After repeating the same gesture for some time……Bingo! it got clicked. He took me to a part of the shop and showed me a bottle of wine. Well, good enough, I thought myself. Atleast I could convey the portion “drink” properly. But “health”? I regret not trying acting ever in my life.

I used my next formula. I took out a notebook and wrote down in block letter, “CONCENTRATED HEALTH DRINK POWDER”. He gave me a helpless look, well, I think I had written too many words for him to cope with. I got the point soon and cut the rest and kept only the two words, “HEALTH DRINK”. Didn’t work. Suddenly I remember another idea, ‘drawing’. I tried to draw a glass of health drink, which looked more like a glass of water. He showed me a bottle of water. I turned my head indicating negative. No other way, I again showed him my written words. He starred at the alphabets with all the curiosities of the world, and then turned back and went inside their store. Minutes back, he came back with another person. I got relieved, the another person must be knowing English. I read out my written words in the slowest possible speed. The next person seemed to be useful. He took me to another corner of the store and gave me a packet of liquid milk. Still better, atleast in the right direction, it will do, I thought, even if I don’t get a powdered health drink sachet. I know these drink packets. After opening, you need to finish them within some limited days. Generally you need to refrigerate them after opening. It was impossible even to try to read these “flowers’ in the label. I needed to know two things to buy the packet, where to keep after opening and for how many days I can keep it. This time, I felt really helpless. Its too long a question to try acting. Once again I tried writing in BLOCK letter my both questions. The otherwise useful person gave me a blank look. Some more persons from the store joined to help me out. Someone showed me the date of manufacturing. Another gave me the date of expiry. I showed them the Fridge to know about the refrigeration part, to which they tried to convey me something like, “there are lot many in the fridge, I can get as many as I want”. Now, it was turning out to be really frustrating. Some other customers also joined the group. It was beginning to be really too much. Better cope with the low blood pressure, I told myself, then being the heroine of this strange drama of trying to buy a packet of health drink, atleast not any more. I spoke out the two words, “THANK YOU” as clearly as I can and came out of the store.

There were some more stores too. We decided not to ask anyone, atleast not for today any more, and instead roamed around to find it ourselves. Atleast the experience with the first store was anything but repeatable. Needless to say, we came back after some good amount of try, not empty handed, since we bought lot of other things, but without any kind of health drink. This was an experience in Tokyo, I felt pity about the persons who need to go to the interior area of Japan for their visit. Just imagine.

There are many strange facts about Japan. In Japan, English is taught only after finishing of Lower secondary School and at the beginning of Upper secondary School (approximately 16 years of age). In this Island country, only the people who plan to be a researcher, teacher, scholar or something like that go for education beyond Lower Secondary School. So, obviously very few people know English, and definitely, not generally the salesman or shop owner, unless you are exceptionally lucky.

There are other hilarious facts about Japan too, like the cost of Mango. A Japanese mango costs about 10$. In general fruits are costly, mango is an extreme case. So, “AAM (Mango) is anything but AAM (Ordinary)” here. They share one joke about mango amongst themselves, “that if you get sick, get sick properly, atleast you’ll get a fruit basket” (from your visitors and well wishers). Go to a shop and ask for an expensive fruit basket, you’ll be surprised at just how expensive it can be.

Ask a Japanese, what is his religion and you will be shocked at his response. He will look at you and then think, think, think for atleast some time. Then you may get some hesitant reply……“I think I’m Shinto”, “Well, you can say Christian”,….”No. no …Buddhist”…well it can be any of these replies, or anything else in that line or maybe a simple “NO”. Japanese people are anything but religious. They may decorate “Christmas tree” because they find it like “Celebration”, they may go for a Christian wedding, because it looks very “Romantic”, they go for Buddhist funeral, because its being used for years now. But they hardly have a single religion to say. Many of the children think, Christmas is the birthday of Sanatclause, because during the Christmas time, the most popular figure is that of Santaclause.

There are many more funny facts. One teacher came for our class on Japanese politics, a slim lady with same Japanese characteristics of un-guessable age. She told us

“My specialization is in DIET”.

We were surprised, what a ‘Diet’ specialist is doing in a political class! Well, we were totally wrong. Believe it or not, Japanese Parliament is called “THE DIET”.