I’ve mentioned convenience stores in Japan before. Let me add a little detail.

For starters, they’re everywhere, in great variety. There’s Lawson Station, Daily Yamazaki, New Days, Familymart, Sunkus - which is part of Circle K, of which I’ve also seen a couple - and still others, including, of course, 7-Eleven.

I’m sure you’ve noticed the picture. 7-Eleven in Japan is now known as 7&iHoldings.

Why would they do that? The name 7-Eleven is short and clever, even though an anachronism since the advent of the 24-hour store, and it’s a world brand. With its subsidiaries, 7-Eleven is now the largest distribution and retailing business in Japan and the largest chain store in the world. 7&iHoldings sounds just like what it is - a holding company.

It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? “Honey, could you run down to the 7&iHoldings and get a quart of milk?”

I trace this change to language cultural differences. When business people in the U.S. start something new, one of the biggest things they consider is the name. It has to be catchy, it has to be clever, it has to be memorable.

Now I agree that 7&iHoldings is memorable, but not in a good way. I think that when the company got taken over by Japanese owners, the American penchant for creative brand names was not understood, language-wise.

Japanese companies go by different rules. They’ve got a chain of convenience stores called Sunkus and a gum called Xylish, for crying out loud. Those words don’t mean anything in any language.

I believe this is the same process at work as the one that puts nonsense English phrases on t-shirts and names cars Naked. There is just not the feel for the language that comes with being brought up in the culture.

As I’ve mentioned before, this isn’t so much criticism as observation. I am well aware that I can’t convey the same feeling in my Japanese that a native speaker can. No matter what languages we’re speaking about, it’s extremely hard to get to the point where a person sounds like a native speaker. When you add culture to that mix, it becomes even more difficult.

On the one hand, in Japan, it doesn’t matter if 7&iHoldings sounds and looks odd to English speakers. Most of the people who see the signs don’t have the feeling for the language, either, so it makes no difference to them. On the other hand, it’s a world-wide name and I don’t think it will fly in English-speaking countries.

My prediction is that the name will revert to 7-Eleven before long or at least that 7&iHoldings will never be on any stores in countries where English is the first language.

Names aside, however, patronizing a convenience store in Japan is a different experience from going into one in the States.

The first thing you’ll notice is that when you walk in, all of the employees will greet you, often at the same time. The greeting is “Irasshaimase”, usually said rather loudly, and since you’re not the only one entering the store, the greeting is echoing around the place the entire time you’re shopping. (Actually, this will happen in all stores and restaurants.)

Being naturally polite, I have the feeling that I should be walking around the store and saying ‘Thank you. I’m glad to be here’ to everyone.

It’s a stronger feeling after I make my purchase and the entire staff thanks me on my way out (Arigato gozaimashita). I have a hard time not saying ‘You’re welcome’ to each person I pass.

There’s a little bit of insincerity in this because while the employees are walking around doing their jobs, every once in a while they just suddenly come out with the greetings and the thank yous. If someone says ‘Welcome’, that’s a cue for everyone to echo it. The same is true for thank you. When the first clerk says thank you, everyone jumps in. You get the feeling that they don’t really mean it after a while. Still, it’s a polite insincerity.

I can’t help comparing it to clerks in the U.S. saying ‘Have a nice day’. Can you imagine all of the workers repeating that as you’re walking out the door? For me, it’s annoying enough for one person to say it. I’ll be glad when that expression dies a natural death, although I don’t think it’s going to be any time soon. It’s been around for going on 40 years already.

Embarrassingly, I remember having a ‘Have a nice day’ sticker on my backpack when I first went to Europe in 1973. I was only using it to cover up the insignia on my Official Boy Scout backpack, which I felt was more embarrassing, but even then it was getting to feel overdone. In my defense, it was not a Smiley face sticker, but had a more artistically designed smiling sun. That’s at least marginally better, but there's a reason that I still remember it after 36 years. I'm embarrassed in retrospect.

I know the phrase is trite and has outlived it’s usefulness and original intent because when I go to stores in the U.S., the checkout people always say ‘Have a nice day’ no matter what time it is. To me, it’s blindingly incongruous, as well as annoying, to say this to someone at six or seven p.m. That’s an example of insincerity if ever there was one. My response is always “Too late for that”, but no one ever seems to get it.

Now, even though the call-and-response in convenience stores here seems a little overdone on occasion, the clerks are unfailingly polite and helpful, even to one of the non-Japanese speaking persuasion. It’s a pleasure shopping there and I wind up in one or another almost every day, often to buy another umbrella (see my earlier postings). They’re very... convenient.

This is another picture from a bathroom. I’m not really sure why bathrooms have become a recurring theme in this blog...

Anyway, in some stalls, they have these baby seats that allow parents’ hands to be free. The idea would seem pretty self-explanatory, but, just in case, there are instructions.

1. Never turn your back on your baby. This woman is in a MUCH larger stall than I was. I had trouble turning my back on the stool.

2. Beware. Babies will make a break for it at the first opportunity.

3. Of course, there’s the obligatory finger-pinching warning for the mechanically disinclined.

4. And finally, never ever let your baby smoke while sitting in this chair.

Well, in the continuing saga of the Japanese driver’s license, I got to the right place at the right time and more incomprehensible lectures, to me anyway, followed, interspersed with scary video tapes about what can happen to careless gentsuki riders and then it was time to be taught how to actually ride a scooter. When I later mentioned this process to my friend, Jim, he said this seemed to be a bit backwards. Shouldn’t you learn how to ride and THEN get your license? I must be adjusting somewhat to Japan because that never occurred to me. At this point, our group had all passed the written test and we were entitled to our licenses, but apparently, besides for me, no one knew how to ride a scooter.

Also at this point, I realized that the rest of the people in the class were about 17 years old. The person checking us in looked at me and said “How old are you?” Her tone added ‘anyway’ to the question. I’m getting a little tired of that question.

In addition to being the oldest, by a long shot, I was also the biggest, by far. They had to send back to the main building for a larger helmet, which was handed to me with the English sentence, “You have a big head.” Hey! We needed some work on comparatives there - not big, just bigger.

A couple lectures - or instructions, I don’t know - and several videos later, we were ready to ride... and it was raining. Out with the rain suits. On with the rain suits. They come in sizes up to 3XL and that’s what they managed to find for me. Just to be clear, 3XL in Japan is about L in the U.S., but it fit fairly well and out we went.

The Menkyo Center provided each of the dozen or so of us newly licensed riders with a scooter and for the next hour or so, we rode around an obstacle course in the rain as instructions were shouted at us and demonstrations were given.

Now, to me, the first instruction for riding a motorcycle should be, ”Don’t ride in the rain!” It gets a little slickery out there. I think that’s a general rule in the U.S. There are lots of sites online with advice about riding in the rain, most saying just don’t do it.

It was never even mentioned in this class. They just put us out in it.

Thinking about it, I realized this. If you don’t ride your motorcycle in the rain in Japan, you’re not going to spend much time riding your motorcycle. It’s always raining or threatening to rain. Everyone rides in the rain and no one seems to worry about it. High school students and grandmothers and office ladies and postal carriers and pizza deliverers all ride in the rain, though the pizza people are on three-wheel bikes with windshields. There’s one more thing that is unexplainable about cultural differences. Why would it be safer to ride in the rain in Japan than in the U.S.?

The end of this part of the blog is pretty anticlimactic. We finished our training, went back inside, took off and returned our helmets and rain suits and were handed our licenses and that was it. Finally, I thought, and I'm sure you're thinking, as well.

Of course, I still had to do the reverse trip back home by bus and train, but the next day, I rode my scooter to the university and legally only almost got killed twice.

It’s that dang left-hand side of the road thing.

I think the people are around here are becoming aware that there’s a foreigner in town.