Who Needs Street Names?
So I arrived at the Narita Airport in Tokyo on the first of September. As soon as my plane landed and the doors were opened, I could sense many bad hair days in my future. Why? Because the humidity. The. Humidity. Compared to my hometown, it rains a lot here in Japan. We’ve had about two or three typhoons since I got here, and it rains at least every other day. So, if you ever decide to visit Japan, always bring an umbrella with you.
Orientation was two weeks long, and all of the events and meetings were fairly straightforward. On our first night in Japan, all the international students stayed at the Narita View Hotel, which I thought was super fancy. In the first week, there was an orientation every day, as well as tours for both the campus and the city Machida. The second week was more relaxed, the only mandatory events being the medical checkup, the evacuation drill, and the anticrime orientation. During those two weeks, I noticed a couple of things.
The first thing I noticed was the demographics of the international students. There were around 100 or so incoming students, and at least half of them came from China. So, most of the orientations were split into two sessions: one conducted primarily in Mandarin Chinese, and the other conducted in English.
Another thing that I noticed, specifically while I was on the tour of Machida, was the Japanese do not use street names to give directions or to specify addresses. Occasionally, you will find a sign with the names of the main streets. But, for the most part, the Japanese do not use street names. Instead, Japanese addresses specify the locations of buildings based on when they were built and what block number they were built on. As for directions, landmarks are crucial. This was something that I found kind of difficult to adjust to because in the U.S.—or at least the town where I’m from—buildings are constantly being torn down or renovated, so using landmarks to give directions might not be very reliable. But here in Japan, everybody uses landmarks to give directions. For example, when I asked a teacher for directions to nearest ATM, she told me: “Turn right at the bakery with the chalkboard sign, then turn left at the first streetlight, then walk straight for 2 minutes. Inside the 7-11, there is an ATM.”
As someone who always used street names to find her way around, this was difficult for me to get used to. My advice for anyone who is or will be in the same situation is to find multiple landmarks and to make sure those landmarks are unique in some way. For example, if you’re in Japan, don’t use a 7-11 or a tiny ramen restaurant as a landmark, because those places are very common and you can find many of those anywhere. Instead, use large sculptures or a tall building with a noticeable sign to help you find your way back.
