Checking In at a Japanese Airport

I had another food post in the pipeline for today (weird flavors of Japanese Kit-Kats--don't worry, you'll get your fix of watching us suffer). But while trying to figure out my travel schedule for an upcoming workshop in Hong Kong, I got to pondering the check-in system Nana and I have seen here in Japan.

We've checked-in for probably a half-dozen flights so far (including a few while we lived in Korea) and never have we needed more than 15-20 minutes to get from the door of the airport to the other side of security. In fact, as described in an earlier post, we've even had a check-in agent book us on an earlier flight with less than fifteen minutes to get to our gate. The agent assured us that we had plenty of time . . . and in fact we made it with five minutes to spare.

So how does that work?

I think there are three main factors:

1. Personnel. Compared to American airports, Japanese airports are simply teeming with employees. Not only is every check-in desk fully staffed (I say "staffed" and not "manned" because there seems to be an unwritten rule that any airline employee who interacts with the public must be a twenty-something female), there are also check-in agents roaming the lines, giving assistance as needed. The security line, too, has its team of rovers.
2. Triage. Both at the check-in desks and the security checkpoints, "rovers" start pulling out people according to departure time and shuffling them off to priority lines.
3. Traffic Management. In Fukuoka and at both Narita and Haneda in Tokyo, the majority of the shops and restaurants are located outside the security checkpoint. Passengers can wait in this area until the "big boards" tell them to go to the gate. This allows the airport to stagger the "rushes" to the security checkpoint by fudging the call time a few minutes either way.
4. Layout. The airports we've been to have had many small security checkpoints, each serving a handful of gates that are right on the other side of the checkpoint. Coupled with a boarding pass that tells you which checkpoint to use, this minimizes the lines at any one checkpoint.

Now, this system seems to be working brilliantly here in Japan, but I can think of at least two reasons it would never work in the US. First, and most obviously, there is no way an airline is going to pay for extra people to help you check in faster.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, the Japanese system works best if most passengers show up an hour or two before their flights. In a pinch, it can rush a handful of latecomers through without causing any major disruptions, but if everyone showed up 30 minutes before the flight, all heck would break loose.

You see where I'm going. I consider myself a responsible person who is more than willing to weigh personal convenience against the well-being of the whole. (I am a teacher, after all.) But I can't help looking at this Hong Kong flight next week and thinking . . . do I really need to get there an hour early? When I'm reasonably sure they can hustle me through if I show up with twenty minutes to spare?

(And thus concludes this evening's lesson in game theory and airport design.)

Some linguistic observations

Justin and I have hit the ground running here... or rather, running, in my case, and staggering, in Justin's, as he's been hit with a walloping head cold/sinus flu. In fact, yesterday (Friday), Justin took the first sick day taken by either one of us in two and a half years of teaching. After sleeping perhaps eighteen of twenty-four hours yesterday, he's feeling improved, but not quite himself again yet.

The only photographs we've taken since we got back were of our broken dryer, so I don't have anything to show you. Instead, I thought I'd write a bit about our observations of language.

Justin and I learned in Korea than even a rudimentary understanding of a student's L1, or native language, can make a universe of difference when it comes to helping those students write in English. In Korean, for instance, it is grammatically correct to have a sentence without a subject, and many Korean adjectives are actually technically verbs (as in, "Expensive-ing red-ing shirt." Yeah. Is it any wonder we never learned Korean?)

I had a Japanese cultural/linguistic moment yesterday while helping a student reduce his word count yesterday. In English, wordiness is taught in middle school as a writing flaw to be avoided alongside run-ons. I have always thought of it as a courtesy to the reader: don't waste his or her time by flitting around your point, and don't make him or her do the work of deciphering your meaning. Say it with the three Cs - clearly, correctly, and concisely - and then move on to your next point. This goes double for writing which is supposed to be authoritative: "The airplane customer would please consider wearing the seatbelt in a rather tight fashion to ensure both comfort and safety" is a laughable over-articulation of "Fasten Seatbelt Please."

But while talking to my student, we realized that the issue is that in Japanese, wordiness, or indirectness in other forms, is not only correct but more polite. Remember our adventures with the Asian No? Similar idea. I suggested reducing many of his adverbs, as well - as Strunk and White said, "Rather, very, little, pretty—these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words." But according to my student, adjectives and adverbs are critical to socially correct Japanese writing. It would be impolite to your readers to be too direct. My fake sentence above about seat belts is actually exactly the sort of thing you'd hear from a Japanese flight attendant - anything else would be rude.

Another curious language quirk: the conflation of syllables with independently meaningful words. Although Japanese, Chinese, and Korean are of course very different languages, they share common roots in Ye Olde Chinese, much as Portuguese and Romanian both came out Latin. The Japanese use kanji, or Chinese characters, for many nouns, and Korean, although written in the indigenous alphabet (hangul) these days, is based in Chinese characters as well (Chinese characters in Korean are called "hanja").

So many East Asian nouns as similar to each other, and very much like English compound words.

English: biology: bio (life) + logy (study of) = study of life
Chinese: shengwuxue: sheng (growth) + wu (things) + xue (study) = study of growing things
Korean: saengmoolhak: saeng (growing) + mul (things, substance) + hak (study) = study of growing things
Japanese: seibutsugaku: sei (life) + butsu (things) + gaku (study) = study of living things

And the three Chinese/Korean/Japanese words all share the exact same root characters: 生物學 (although the Koreans write it in Hangul as 생물학 and the Chinese use simplified characters 生物学).

The other important piece of information you need is that just as English speakers abbreviate by taking the first initial of each word (Brigham Young University -> BYU), East Asians abbreviate by taking the first character of a long phrase (Beijing Daxue, or Beijing University -> Beida.)

Going back to the "biology" example, this works because the English word is a genuine compound word. It's when the English word is not actually a compound that things start to break down. A great example is the word "sandwich." Although it's a fun pun for second graders, the word "sand" plus the word "witch" actually have nothing to do with two slices of bread with meat in between.

This leads to one of our favorite Engrishisms: the use of the word "sand" to stand in as the abbreviation for "sandwich." I just purchased a waffle iron which doubles as a sandwich grill. The box informs me proudly in English that I have just purchased a "HOT SAND MAKER." There was a coffee shop in Korea which sold sandwiches and espresso. Using the same logic that turns "Beijing Daxue" into "Beida," clearly "Sandwich + Espresso" became "Sandpresso." Completely ludicrous to a native English speaker, yet surprisingly logical with a bit of insider knowledge!

Stirred, not shaken

Justin and I arrived back in Fukuoka safely last night after a relatively modest 26-hour travel day (5 AM Saturday Pittsburgh time to 7 AM Sunday Pittsburgh time, which is 9 PM here in Fukuoka). This was the first time we'd included an airport transfer in our travels - we flew into Narita, Tokyo's largest airport, which is heavily focused on international and long-range flights, but then transferred to Tokyo's Haneda airport by bus for our domestic connection. The airport limo costs $30 each, a bit steep, but it was better than the alternative, which was to wait overnight in Tokyo because no Fukuoka flights left until Monday. Actually, it ended up working great. The bus ride took us maybe seventy minutes, getting us to the airport around 5:30, not only in plenty of time for our 8 PM flight, but actually so early that the gate agent checked us in for the 6 PM flight. Getting home two hours earlier than expected? Fabulous. Haneda transfer is a win.

And then, this morning, at 8:22 AM, Japan saw fit to welcome these two Midwesterners home with our first-ever earthquake!

You can see the epicenter at the X above, in Hakata Bay. The blue circles just below the X are us.

Please be assured that I would not have used that exclamation point, nor would I have started this post by babbling about air travel, if the earthquake had been serious. This is nothing like the 7 pointer they had in Chile this morning. According to the map above, it was a magnitude 3.8, or a 2 on the Japanese scale, and one text descriptor says it might even have been a mere 1 (Japanese) by the time it got to us here in Sawara-Ku. I was in bed debating whether or not to get up when I felt it, and it felt sort of like lying on one side of a waterbed while somebody sat down on the other side. If I'd been on my bike or in a car, I wouldn't have even noticed it. Still, it was novel, and reminded me that I definitely need to ask our teacher supporter Kumi if she has an estimate on earthquake insurance rates...

What a way to kick off '11!

Merry Christmas!

Enjoying a white Christmas here in Pittsburgh, and thinking of all our friends and relatives all over the world. Here's hoping you have a great holiday!

Back in Pittsburgh: Or, Delta Culture Shock

Nana and I arrived in Pittsburgh yesterday afternoon, just in time to celebrate my 27th birthday (!) with some Carbonara's.

The short, 24-hour trip went off pretty much without a hitch, though in retrospect that jet-lagged jog through the Detroit airport was probably unnecessary. But, man! was that Delta flight from Tokyo to Detroit a shock! It's been a while since Nana and I flew on a plane with an American cabin crew, and thus a long time since we've seen a flight attendant yell at (literally: yell at) a passenger.

Also, Delta, seriously: does anyone still run 12-hour flights without in-seat video?

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the level of service rivalled perennial European punching-bag Ryanair--without, of course, the cut-rate fares.

But still, none of these minor annoyances add up to anything like our worst travel day: you can read Nana's account of that fiasco on our old blog.

Before we go home . . . home comes to us!

Nana and I are headed back to the US tomorrow, which means that (yet again) I'll be spending my birthday on an intercontinental flight. It may be miserable, but hey! at least it'll be long.

Today, though, we've had a visit from Nana's dad, who has been in Tokyo on business this week. Lots of fun, though the weather hasn't exactly cooperated--these have been the two ickiest days yet. Here are a few shots from his visit.

First, at the school.

Then, looking beatific (and backlit) in our tatami room.

And finally, goofing off on the jetty at Momochi Beach (with Fukuoka Tower in the background).

With that, Nana and I are off to the US for a couple weeks. Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Go Go Geisha

Last Saturday Justin and I had the chance to use some free school tickets to go see a geisha dance performance downtown at the Hakata Theater. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photographs during the performance, so you'll have to settle for my descriptions.

Before we get started, one amusing tidbit about geisha dance and the Hakata Theater: the performance went from 11 AM to about 1 PM, and you were allowed to eat bento lunchboxes in your theater seat. Japanese people must just be more tidy eaters than Americans.

The stage and sets were elaborate and wonderful. One dance had a huge, brightly-colored multi-story house set which started out as just one story but then rose from the stage. Above the stage, there were strings of cherry blossom petals, or their nonunion theatrical equivalents, which sprinkled lightly down on the dancers like pink snow. Very graceful and beautiful.

My favorite part was the geisha costumes, although "costumes" may not be the correct term for geisha apparel. (When Justin's mother asked Justin's aunt Jen, who was living in Hong Kong, if she was going to go out for Chinese food, the aunt responded dryly, "Here, we just call it food." Geisha probably feel the same way about their clothes.) In fact, this section will be plagued by linguistic perplexity, as I also still don't know if the plural of "kimono" is "kimono" or "kimonos." Even Wikipedia won't take a clear side. Perhaps I should just go with "kimoni"?

Although you can buy them in cheaper modern synthetics like rayon, the holy grail of kimono fabric has always been silk. A single kimono can cost, I have read, over $10,000 USD, and a full kit (including the obi, or belt, and the underlayers) can pass $20,000. This is because of the quantity and quality of the fabric involved and the necessity of hand-stitching. No geisha would be caught dead in rayon, so what we saw was the real deal. The geisha can own the kimono herself, or wear one that belongs to her geisha house. If you've read Memoirs of a Geisha, this may all be sounding familiar; it appears to be one of the few facts that people think the author got right. (Not that I care: I liked it anyway.)

Dancing in a full outfit which weighs up to 40 pounds is quite the task, and probably explains why geisha dance looks like it's being done in slow motion. Now, I've done Taekwondo, and everybody's most hated exercise was doing the forms and kicking techniques in slow motion, because it's just excruciating. Doing things fast is much easier than doing them slow. And the women all scuttle around the stage with their legs half bent, an motion so trying that it made Justin's knee hurt just to look at it. Even an untrained goober like me could notice and appreciate the attention to detail of geisha dancing - the precise timing and angle of a head tilt, the movement of the eyes, the slight turn of the arm that sent a ripple down a long sleeve.

But, and I hate to say this, being difficult did not make it interesting. Maybe I would have liked it more if I could have understood the narrative, which was being sung by other geisha accompanying the dancers on traditional instruments. Since I couldn't follow the story, my personal enjoyment was limited to the moments of particular visual appeal, like a semi-sheer kimono sleeve whirling through a stage light, or a hem setting cherry blossom petals swirling across the stage. Oh, and I really enjoyed watching the black-clad ninja stage hands, who would scurry in from off stage like Wimbledon ball boys carrying props or helping with costume changes, and then zip back off into the wings. I probably wasn't supposed to be watching them, though.

Overall verdict: I really, really respect geisha dancers as artists and as athletes, but geisha dancing is not for me. I posit that football : sumo :: ballet : geisha dance. And seeing as I've genuinely enjoyed consecutive seasons of lousy DI-AA football yet can't face the Nutcracker after eleven months off, I think we could have predicted this result.