An interesting encounter at the castle

Place: Osaka Castle - Osaka, Japan

Time: April 2nd, 2014 around 18:00

The scene: A slowly creeping shadow cast from the towering castle nearby. A fading blue sky slowly overtaken by darkened clouds. Sitting alone on a long bench watching the crowds slowly thin in the yard. Patrons entering the souvenir shops before leaving with their memories. I pass the time looking up train routes I'll need to know the following day. Going over my camera and realizing I'd had a setting on all day which has cast the shadow now surrounding me on all my picture. Shouldn't have done that. Waiting for night to fall to see the blooms illuminated by the lights of man. From the corner of my eye I see a bike approaching me. Turning to face the man, we greet.

Ooo, ahhh. Dramatization. A story I didn't have the time to write down in full back when it happened at Osaka Castle. True story, but far less dramatic. It's not precisely an oddity that someone wanted to speak with me. Though out of the other foreigners there I'm not sure why I was chosen. Thinking back I believe in the evening hours was the only time I actually had a conversation with any male. At least with someone I had not known of before going to Japan.  There certainly wasn't anything particularly odd about him in appearance or behavior. But soon interesting facts were revealed.

As with most conversations in a foreign land you first get asked where you're from. The following is what I recall how our talk went with this introduction. We will call him Ojisan.

Ojisan: Hello
Me: Konbonwa
Ojisan: Do you mind if I sit and speak with you?
Me: Of course not, please do
Ojisan: Where are you from?
Me: America, the United States (cover both bases since technically America is pretty much everything over on this side of the world)
Ojisan: Oh really? What state?
Me: Utah
Ojisan: Oh really? Provo? Salt Lake City?
...

Well, this is peculiar to begin with. For one, Ojisan actually knows something about Utah. And by something I mean he knows major cities and geography of my home. Which in all of my travels I can assure you is incredibly odd. Most are happy to know the country you're from and want no more than that. After I tell him my city, which is smaller than those previously mentioned, he again surprises me by saying "Oh! That one, it's up in the north right?". Again, he is correct. He then asks me if I was born there and I tell him Idaho. A state to the north of Utah. I shouldn't be surprised to learn he knows the major cities in Idaho. Yet again, I am indeed surprised. Rattling off 3 of the southern cities he guesses my birth place.

At this point I'm pretty confused. So I begin to task the questions. You may recall the Mormon missionaries I encounter in Takamatsu. Well the missionaries aren't located solely in the South. If you look you can find them across most of the world actually. And in Osaka it appears they offer a free English class where people can come and learn or practice. I have no idea how long Ojisan must have been going to this to learn as much as he had. Not only was his English really good. He knew an amazing amount of my stomping ground back home. Where Utah holds the greatest source for missionaries it does make sense that he had learned about the area. But to know as much as he did there would have had to have been a large amount of missionaries being met. Kind of funny how small the world can be.

He was an interesting man for sure. Turns out he was now retired from years of making the cloth signs you can find outside a store front or over the door way. Where the name of the shop would be made by hand in the past. It is now produced by machines. Which to say the least he wasn't a big fan of. I can understand the sentiment as it does remove some of the charm to no longer have that hand made sign.

My size was apparently impressive too, which I can't say I think much of. We talked about diet and things for a fair amount of time actually. Turns out he had mostly rice or other things he found boring. Only some fish but never beef. I wouldn't say I have big arms but somehow he got the impression that I'm a strong fellow. And kept asking me how much beef or chicken I ate back home. Was it easy to get? Gave my biceps a squeeze and patted me on the back saying "Ohh, you are strong!". I hadn't thought he was senile until then. Ok, not really, I never thought that. But it was pretty funny (and fun) to be called strong.

Where most people pick up a speech tic such as "you know", "like", or "uhm".  Something most people do subconsciously when thinking about what they'll say. He had picked up the phrase "Oh really?" for his. Which is quite engaging I must say! It really made me wonder what the classes he's been to must be like. I'm glad he has gone to them as he has had great success as a result.

Towards the end he asked what I was doing sitting on the bench at that time. And I told him I was waiting to take a picture of the trees and castle illuminated at night. He then pointed me to a pond in the corner of the yard and told me about the reflection of the castle in it. I hadn't even considered that possibility and was happy to learn about that. Shortly after it began to rain and we parted ways. Ojisan off on his bike to who knows what adventure. People make the memories.

I'm the best at being aware of my surroundings. A tale of the women only cars in Osaka.

So a lot of my time while wandering around in Japan I began to feel like there was an extraordinary ratio of women to men. It felt like like the population was at least 75% women and likely to be even more than that. This was throughout the entire day. From the time I'd start going in the morning until I'd get back to my hotel in the evening. If I saw any men it was going to be around the time I'd be having dinner. My friend Karen, who'm I'd been keeping in touch with and bugging about all things Japanese, got this following message from me.

• March 28
• 

3/29,10:56am

Tanner

Japan must have a larger population of women than men. I swear it's like a 3 to 1 ratio.

Really though it's more that a majority of the men spend an incredible amount of time working. The work hours in Japan are kind of crazy and I should never complain again (though I will). Which means the crazy american not rushing to work early in the morning never sees all those men off to work. Anyways, this is something I kept thinking pretty much everyday as I'd go around. Get on a train? Mother and her kids. Get off the train? Group of older ladies. Walking around the city? Men in suits walking around but even more women in suits!

This is the one time I really recall seeing more men than women at any given time. Which was early in the morning in Nagasaki.

You can see why I thought there were way more women than men! Which led to the following series of messages I sent Karen after having spent the day with Mrs. N and Mr. K in Osaka.

• April 5
• 

  Tanner
  

  Case and point, I'm in a train car with nothing but women! No men except for me!
  

  I hope I'm not in a women only car.. Now that I think about it... But that seems unlikely

  Lol it is
  

  Oh man
  

  I didn't know that was a thing
  

  Whoopsie

Whoopsie indeed. It was about 8 or so minutes between sending "I hope I'm not in a women only car" to my realization that I was, in fact, in a women only car. As suggested by this lovely sticker to the right placed by the door to the car. I should mention it's actually stickers. Meaning there was probably at least 10 of them throughout the car and a couple of signs up in other places that anybody but me would have seen. Certainly all those lovely ladies in that car were aware of it! Space cadet reporting for duty.

How was I supposed to know? Nobody even said anything to me! I would have certainly moved cars if I had known or been told when I got on. Though I imagine they had a pretty good idea that:

1. I was very unlikely to be the type that hopefully they're separated from by being in this car.
2. I was someone who had no idea how to read Japanese. Or english. Or probably any other language as suggested by my current location.
3. I had come to this car because I like pink. Which must certainly be the case as I began to realize exactly how much pink and suggestively "This is a women only car" decoration and signage there was.

Needless to say after I figured it out I attempted to play it cool and waited the two remaining stops before quickly departing the car. No longer the innocent unaware american believing such a thing as a women only car was unlikely.

So anybody that's going to Japan and happens to be man. Make sure you check for those signs that will keep you from treading where one should not.