Don't Try This at Home

Time to take a break from the school chats and go on to one of the "only in Japan" stories I've had so far.

One night last year, I was juggling two events between two groups of friends. I had gone to karaoke in Aomori and was planning to meet some friends for other shenanigans later in the night at Misawa, a town about 1:30 away by train.
I took the second-to-last train at 9:00 from Aomori to Misawa and arrived at my destination around 10:30. I came out of the station with some directions to a friend-of-a-friend's house where we were meeting up before going out. The directions, though, were a little shady, and I only had an intersection of two streets to go by, which in a medium-sized town like Misawa could take a little while to find. After wondering around a little while, I walked down a street with a sign pointing to one of the two streets that was part of that intersection. After walking for 2 or 3 minutes, a black car with blue neon lights on the bottom pulls up besides me. Theres one 25-ish looking guy in the driver's seat, and he learns over and asks me (in Japanese), "Where are you going?" I told him the directions that I was given, and after a second of thought, he says, "That's not close. Get in."
Here I was on a somewhat dark street in the middle of some town, with a stranger asking me to get in his car. All the alarms in my head back from those old, "Don't accept candy from strangers!" posters in elementary school were screaming in my head. No way...I thought...there could be any number of bad things that could happen if you get in that car. But, instead of politely refusing, my hand reached for the door, opened it, and I plopped myself onto the guy's rather comfortable leather passenger seat.
So we drive. We kept driving until we found the intersection, but it wasn't anywhere near a residential area. So what does this guy do? He doesn't throw me out. He waits in the car as I call my friend, who gives me more detailed directions, and the driver and I go through them step by step until I reach his house. On the way, we talk about music and movies, but I can't remember which ones he said he likes. It was strangely normal, and he was just an ordinary guy. An ordinary guy who took about 30 minutes out of his Saturday night to drive a foreign stranger to some house. And asked nothing in return. The only thing I had on me at the time was a few beers that I had to start myself off once I arrived, but I gladly offered them, and he took them.
If I were anywhere else in the world at that point, I don't think I would have gotten in the car. But its something about Japan... something that made me feel 100% comfortable about getting in.

People will talk about incredible events that restore faith in humanity. It wasn't one of those for me. Everything from opening the car door to get in and opening the car door to get out at my friend's house...just went its course. At that time, my mind said to itself, Everyone in Japan does this, and I went along with it. And in the end, what might seem a scary experience was just...normal. Wouldn't be weird if people everywhere else in the world were like that? And looking back, I have to wonder what the guy was thinking to pick up some random foreigner walking the streets. Was he scared? Or was it a normal thing to him, too?

I'll leave all that difficult thinking to all you people out there. I have a day of insanity at an elementary school tomorrow, so I'm going to go sleep. Bye bye for now.