Dream: Lost in Japan

Tokyo Map Dream
Originally uploaded by DerekSee

We are on one of Tokyo's high speed rails and I'm staring at a map. My family and a few strangers are traveling with me and relying on me to show them around. I stare blankly at the map. It's all in Kanji and I can't recognize any of the familiar locations. Even the shapes the trains make are odd and new. I try searching for Shinjuku, yet still no luck. The people in the group are expecting me to know about Japan and how to navigate. I ask a Japanese person about Shinjuku. They don't understand the words I'm saying. We get off at the next stop and wait. I run around frantically trying to figure out there we are and where we are going. The pink line, the red line, the brown line, the green line, they all blend together and seem to go nowhere. After failed trips and failed attempts to show my family I am at least slightly familiar with Japan and I'm not a fraud, I wake up.

I had a similar experience in real life of getting lost in Tokyo, the maps didn't show every stop because it was too complex. I am afraid I talk too much about Japan and don't really know that much about it. People ask me to make generalizations about a country I've only spent a month in, what do they expect. I'm afraid people can see right through me.

Field Trip Moment

Every so often my family takes a field trip downtown. Yesterday my grandma, mom, and I went to the Art Institute of Chicago. As usual it was a great little visit.

One of the collections the Art Institute is known for is the Thorne Miniature Rooms. While we are there, there is a tour of the collection. They rarely have tours of the Miniatures so we make sure to take the tour.

We decide to take the elevator up to where the tour is meeting. The elevator is in a small stone alcove, almost hidden from the rest of the museum. As we wait, the pay phone rings.

We all look at the phone and then look at each other. I say "Should we answer it?"

My grandma takes the initiative and slowly walks up to the phone.

In my head I am running through all the different greetings she could say.

She picks up the phone and in a very casual manner says "This is the museum." For some reason I never expected her to say this. No "hello," no "Who's this," or other typical greeting.

This time specifying the museum she says "This is the Art Institute."

At this point she turns towards the phone and hangs it back up.

"They hung up."