Lose Something, Gain Something

Last Friday, I found myself wandering around St. Mark’s Place in a daze, wishing I was back in Tokyo. I went to Sunrise Mart, the Japanese supermarket there, to pick up some ingredients for dinner and try to pretend I was back in Japan. It failed miserably, and I left the store with delicious food, but an even stronger feeling of emptiness and longing.

I walked slowly up the street towards the Astor Place downtown 6 station, feeling extremely sorry for myself. As I stood on the street corner, waiting for the light to change, I noticed a Japanese tourist next to me, fervently studying his map with a look of total confusion on his face. I watched as he craned his neck to see what street we were on, and then went back to his map, his eyebrows contorted in frustration. After he did this four or five times, I decided to intervene.

“Excuse me, are you okay?” I asked in Japanese. He glanced up, startled, and I repeated my question. A look of absolutely relief appeared on his face as he exclaimed “thank you, thank you!” in a thick Japanese accent.

“I”, he began in English, and looked at me to see if I understood. I nodded, smiling, and he smiled back, continuing.

“I want to go to Bleecker Street”, he said slowly. Being from Miami, I don’t know my way around the city all that well yet, but thankfully I was going to Bleecker Street station in order to get back to my dorm.

“Ah, you have to ride the train!” I told him, adding “I’m going there too.”

So off we went to the subway station. Once we arrived at Bleeker Street Station, I pointed towards the exit, telling him “you go that way”.

He nodded and bowed to me deeply, showing great appreciation and respect. I bowed back, and sent him off with the Japanese expression for “be careful”. He nodded, smiled, and bowed again, saying thank you again and again as he did so.

I turned around and walked towards the F train, smiling and almost crying with joy, thinking maybe, just maybe, not being back in Japan just yet wasn’t so bad after all.