Tokyo Tempo

Tokyo Tempo:

Tokyo is set to a metronome; I’m convinced of it. And everyone, except for this expat, seems to hear it. Everyday life here moves with brisk efficiency, from buying your groceries to getting gas to taking the metro. Commuters will barrel you over if you walk too slow, so focused on walking quickly to that inaudible tempo that you’ll notice there’s hardly any conversation on the streets as they walk to and from work. The machinations of the city move like the tick-tock of a perfectly oiled clock, like the ones I used to see Tom and Jerry race through in my favorite childhood cartoons. Except the tempo in Tokyo is set at a rhythm a tick faster than the speed of most cities I’ve lived in. I won’t say I can’t hear it at all; I’m just having a hard time actually keeping up to the beat sometimes.

That’s my long-winded way of saying that there’s nothing like living in Tokyo to make you feel like a lazy waste of space. With my toddler-esque Japanese doing little to assist me in catching up with the rest of this city, I’m constantly slowing down the checkout line as I try to figure out which silver coin is the 100 yen versus the 1 yen, the clerk politely blinking at me with mild impatience. You know that feeling when those old LP’s skip a beat? I’m basically the scratch on the vinyl, at least when it comes to performing the rigors of daily life.

But then Mike noticed hiccups in the Tokyo tempo. Mike did entirely all the house hunting, so he got to see how business actually “works” in Japan. While the real estate company whipped out numerous housing options at a breakneck pace and we decided which would be Casa de Tuggle, the next step wouldn’t happen. At least, that’s how it seemed. Weeks went by. Then a month.

“What’s happening with this?” Mike asked the real estate lady. He got one of those vague answers where you’re not quite sure if it’s your lack of cultural awareness or the actual deal has fallen through.

More than a month later, the real estate company told us we’d gotten our rental box in the sky. I was delighted! The delay, I decided, was one of those strange snafus to the efficiency of life here. Mike and I set up our move date and then Mike got a call to go to work in Baghdad. So much for efficiency from the American end.

But my belief in Japanese efficiency once again deeply instilled in me, I sent off Mike with a “don’t worry!” and arranged for the movers to come move our clothes from our temporary housing to the new apartment.

On the morning of the move, at 9:30 on the nose, the doorbell rang. I opened the door to two movers, dressed in perfectly pressed, matching navy blue uniforms and glowing white gloves.

“Ohayo,” I said for good morning, bowing politely. I’ve got this whole greeting thing down, I thought proudly to myself. After the greeting I’m toast, but for the initial four seconds or so, I’m almost like a Tokyoite. The two movers came in, each weighing about 120 pounds and about two inches shorter than me. Lest you hastily judge, just know that these two tiny dudes moved those boxes much, much faster than the burly, ham-and-cheese-fed American crew who packed us up in Washington, DC. Ah, the Japanese, I thought, as I closed the door to my new apartment.

The apartment was like an icebox. We’d left the heat off, to save us from an expected whopper of a utility bill. We’d read that utility bills can be upwards of $1000 a month, so we were going to try to be smart about the electricity.

Each room has an individual heater, to save energy, I guess. I grabbed the remote for the bedroom to turn on the overhead heater and realized the 12 buttons were all in Japanese. I’d seen this in our corporate apartment, of course, but there were only six buttons on those remotes. I hit the big button. The vent opened (a good sign!) and Freon came out. I could smell the air conditioning firing up.

I hit another button. The vent closed. I didn’t expect that. I kept hitting buttons, the vent opening and closing, the air frigid the whole time. I waited through each cycle, only to keep feeling the freezing air.

I took the remote and headed to the lobby, to ask the front desk chick what to do.

“Hai!” she said, enthusiastically grabbing my pen and writing down kanji in my notebook. “This,” she said, pointing to button #1, “is timer.” She wrote down kanji characters in my notebook. She underlined what she wrote. “Ti-mer. Set heat on, off, to be eco-efficient!” Eco is a favorite word of the home nation of the Kyoto Protocol, but eco-efficient was a new one to me. Yet another hiccup in my ability to march to the Tokyo tempo.

She went through each of the buttons, showing me each step, and writing it all down in kanji.

I went back upstairs to try again, armed with my notebook of Japanese characters.

I looked at the notebook. Button three looked the same as button four. In fact, button four looked the same as button five. I couldn’t remember which one was heat and which one was timer. I kept staring at that infernal vent. I hit button eight and finally, heat started coming out. I set it high, enjoying the warm air starting to circulate through the room.

I went into the living room to start those heaters, too. When I came back to the bedroom, cold air was once again coming out of the vent. I was going to wait it out this time, instead of hitting all the buttons in a panic like my instincts were telling me.

I went into the kitchen, to start a load of laundry. Japanese washing machines come as a single washer/dryer unit where it does everything in one machine. Thankfully, this one came with an English manual and I set it for a quick wash/dry.

An hour later, during which I continued to struggle with the maddening heaters, the dryer buzzed. I opened the door to wet clothes. Not dripping wet, but wet. Like it just decided it hated its job and wasn’t going to finish drying the clothes. I set the dryer function and ran it for an hour. Clank, clank, clank went the buttons of my jeans against the metal dryer, echoing loudly through our nearly empty apartment.

An hour later, another buzz. Clothes still wet. I set it again. Hour, buzz, wet. I set it again. Hour, buzz, a little less wet. I set it one more time, cursing at both the heaters and the dryer. Hour, buzz, still friggin’ wet. It’s been five hours. I set it again as I headed to bed. I’m not sure why it’s not working well. It’s probably operator error, though for the first time in my life I actually bothered to read the (English) manual and am pretty sure I’m hitting the right buttons. Clank, clank, clank continued the buttons of my jeans against the metal dryer. Finally. A rhythmic percussion I can hear in this city.