The sound that results from soft human facial tissue scraping against asphalt reminds me of an apple on a rusty metal cheese-grater. It’s not a particularly unpleasant sound, but when it’s coupled with the visual it becomes gut-wrenching. Not having much experience with this specific frequency of resonance, I can’t really say if Japanese face sounds any different than its Western counterpart, but I’m sure it’d be hard to secure funding (much less volunteers) for such a study. I hate to say it but the man whose face introduced me to this sound probably got what was coming to him.
The day started out innocently enough. It was a lazy afternoon in early November. The trees were sighing restively in their vacation between the summer heat and the winter chill, and the whole world seemed to be smiling. I was strolling to work at my usual leisurely pace when a man in a black leather motorcycle jacket sprinted past me. My first thought was that he needed to catch the train that was leaving in the next minute, you see this from time to time, but then I realized he was running away from the station. A few seconds later two men dressed in the characteristic orange apron of the Tokyu supermarket flew past in hot pursuit. I made the connection, “but petty crime doesn’t exist in Japan!” I told myself. The chase was out of sight now and I didn’t want to be late for work, so I continued on my previously plotted course. Just a side note on punctuality in Japan, the etiquette seems to be, “if you’re early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late. And if you’re late, you’re an asshole.” Probably the single most important message hammered home in training was the very real possibility of losing your job over being late, even just a single minute. Even the trains are considered to be delayed if they’re running 2 minutes behind schedule. It’s about the direct opposite of Bolivian punctuality.
Anyway, when I reached the school I was unable to ascend the stairs because of a dramatic struggle. Literally in the entryway of the building I was to work in that day, the shop keeps had caught up to the leather clad man. One had his torso tied up in a scissor leg-lock, and the other had the culprit’s hands pinned behind his back. His face was getting cozy with the street, but still holding delusions of escape, he was thrashing about like a rabid wolverine in a box trap. Scrape, scrape, scrape, apple on a rusty metal cheese grater. Surely whatever he had taken was not worth the physical damage generously applying itself to his face.
After a few minutes of watching the struggle I noticed an elderly Japanese woman hobbling up. I initially thought having her interest piqued she was merely joining the ever-increasing crowd. But she pushed on through and began collecting items that were strewn about; a compact makeup kit, a cell phone, a packet of tissues. It culminated in her wrenching free her purse from the ball of writhing limbs on the ground. I’m still unsure if this is a common occurrence, but given both the shock of my students at the news and the fact that it happened at 3 in the afternoon in a well populated area, makes me think it was an isolated event.
