And it’s also the place known where some of the first foreign settlers came. This was our first settling point too, it’s where we spent our first night, and then the next two weeks, in a sardine-tin room, eating the same oddity of breakfast (fish and sausage and rice and salad anyone?) overlooking the seafront, tripping up over our suitcases while trying to find a place to live and set up bank accounts, and residency cards.
As a city, its history is fascinating. This is where Commodore Perry nudged the Shogunate (Samurai) to open their doors to the outside world in 1854. Until then Japan traded with a small bunch of dutch traders who were isolated to an Island. Perry’s nudging was a game-changer. And of course by nudging I mean the threat of invasion and war. Japan had no navy, a weak Shogunate (samurai military) gave in and by 1899 Japan had its first foreign settlements. Yokohama changed from a sleepy fishing village into Japan’s second largest city.
If you’re from Tokyo or London, Yokohama is pretty sleepy, but it’s a good quiet introduction to Japan. Although, we probably ate more Chinese and ‘Hawaiian’ food in these two weeks. Chinese because Yokohama’s Motomachi Chukagai area is home to the LARGEST CHINATOWN on Asia. Hawaii, I have no idea. It’s all the rage here.
So here we were in Japan; small spaces, fastidious attention to timing (snooze and you lose out on breakfast), fancy gadget loos, bowing, politeness. But we did encounter Gaijinphobia: a group of 10 of us were politely turned away from a mobile phone shop, as the manager couldn’t handle dealing with so many foreigners at once. Our biligual guide told us that the manager had been rude – he never raised his voice, but in dealing with our guide, stayed cold and tried to push us away by telling him that we wouldn’t been seen for at least 90 min. In another phone shop, a gaijin family weren’t able to get phones for their children. Reason? No one knew, and the shop assistants weren’t trained to be proactive and find out why. They tapped on the keyboard and said it simply couldn’t be done. Which lead us nicely into our first lesson in Japan…
Shouganai = There is nothing that can be done.
We were told by the culture experts, that to be happy in Japan we would have to adopt the long-suffering attitude that the locals did; We should simply accept that this would happen from time to time on our stay here.
TOKYO FOR BEGINNERS 