Trading Trust for Slippers

Japanese dental offices (the two that I’ve been in anyway) are quite cozy. You remove your shoes when you step into the treatment area and put on a pair of slippers, which is reassuring. Who’s going to give you slippers then hurt you, right?

For an American receiving dental care in Japan, it helps to believe that, as I learned when I recently spent two long hours in a dentist’s chair. I understood and appreciated that the dentist and his assistant were busily working to save one of my teeth, but was a little sketchy on the details of precisely what they were doing. So it goes in a country where the best dentists don’t necessarily speak a lot of English.

Did I mention the blindfold? Once you’re settled in the dental chair, they cover your eyes with a small towel. The downside to that, of course, is that you’re in the dark literally as well as figuratively. You can sneak peeks through the bottom edge of the towel to look for clues as to what’s going on, but after seeing blood-soaked gauze and other unsettling sights, I decided that “cover the patient’s eyes during dental care” is an excellent Japanese idea, on par with sushi and Pokemon.

Part of the barrier is cultural, too. In the States, we’re used to being kept abreast of almost every move a dentist makes: “I’m just going to numb your cheek. Then I’m going to give you some novacaine. I’ll have to leave the needle in for a minute. Now I’m placing a suction wand....” In Japan they don’t feel that kind of hand-holding is necessary. (They give you slippers – what more could you need?) For two hours, I sat wondering exactly when they were going to make the incision in my gum they’d told me was coming. It wasn’t until I felt suturing thread dance lightly across my cheek that I realized they must have done it a while back. Chalk one up for the blindfold.

Eventually, I found myself back in my shoes and out on the sidewalk. Although feeling slightly woozy, I walked a block to an international grocery store to get a little shot of home. It’s amazing the trauma you can erase with the purchase of a few familiar luxuries, like all-purpose flour, pepper-jack cheese and, although it might be a while before I can eat them, salt & vinegar potato chips.

10 Trick-or-Treaters per Minute

We didn’t bring our Halloween decorations to Tokyo, thinking we wouldn’t need them. That was a mistake. But not as big a mistake as thinking 400 pieces of candy would last the evening.
I heard about Halloween as soon as I hooked up with the neighborhood expat ladies, way back in August. Halloween has become a popular event in Tokyo, they explained. Over the years, Japanese families have learned that our tiny corner of the metropolis, Yoyogi-Uehara, is one of only a few places they can bring their children for trick-or-treating – America’s great cultural contribution to Japan. Buy a lot of candy, they advised. So we did – 7 big bags of it. Give each child one piece of candy, they emphasized. So we did – 10 times per minute for 40 awesome minutes.

In preparation we strung Halloween lights ordered from Amazon around the entranceway, and taped a Happy Halloween sign and some creepy spiders purchased locally to our front door. Mark carved the small $15 pumpkin we bought at Costco, and put some candle lanterns on the wall in front of our house. Overall, we created a decent Halloween mood with limited resources.
Foreigners who are receiving trick-or-treaters sit outside their houses or apartment buildings with bowls of candy at the ready. We set up a small table and some stools on the front steps. Promptly at 6 p.m., the onslaught began. Adorable children dressed like pumpkins, witches, skeletons, ladybugs, princesses, clowns, and pirates came up our front steps in a steady stream. To the delight of the trick-or-treaters and their mothers, Mark was wearing his excellent Captain Jack Sparrow costume. Talk about 15 minutes of fame, well Mark had 40. Until the candy ran out, he was a movie star. Mothers urgently directed their children to stand with him for photos. Bulbs and smiles flashed all around.

I’ll always remember the sincere little faces of these young Japanese children. Looking up at me, they’d recite a succession of key English phrases: tricko treato, happy Halloween, and thank you. Proud mothers stood behind, prompting their children as necessary and smiling more broadly with each successful utterance. If the next wave of trick-or-treaters wasn’t immediately upon me, I’d wave and say “bye-bye” as children left. The Japanese use “bye-bye” much the same way we do, so this made their eyes light up, as though for a moment they saw me as more familiar than foreign – someone who understood at least one small ritual of their daily lives. Many turned back several times to repeat “bye-bye” and give another small wave, pleased to find they could communicate with me on their own terms, without memorizing strange phrases full of difficult to pronounce sounds.