I have many stories to tell

It was December 2014. It wasn’t snowing, but it was cold.

My roommate realized he had dropped his wallet somewhere on the way home. He had been home for almost 2 hours. I told him to report to the police, but we didn’t speak much Japanese back then so dealing with police would be a pain in the ass. He decided to walk back to the station to look.

Half an hour later he returned, wallet found. Apparently an elder saw his wallet dropped, but couldn’t follow him in his rush back to the air conditional. So he picked up the wallet and waited 2 hours in cold weather just in case my friend would return to look.

I posted this picture of my ultra-worn-down shoes (the result of skateboarding) on Facebook.

A week later (October 17th, 2014), during my shift in a convenience store, the store owner visited and called me to the back room and asked for my shoe size. He was trying to buy me a new pair of shoes. I tried to decline, he insisted… back and forth for a while. In the end he gave me 3000 yen and told me to “consider it as an early birthday present” (my birthday is Oct 30), so I thanked him, accepted it and put it in my wallet.

On my birthday, he gave me a new wallet. I guess he noticed my not-very-new wallet the day before.

December 26th, 2014, the last working day of many companies near my convenience store (the one mentioned above). A regular customer came in and bought his regular items. After paying for the goods, he suddenly bowed

and said in extremely polite Japanese: “Thank you for serving me very well during this year. I wish you well and look forward to seeing you next year!”

My friend had just bought the newest iPad in the electronic town Akihabara. After that, we were to visit another friend together, but unfortunately we lost each other on the way.

She had just come to Japan and had no cellphone, so she had to call me using a public telephone. Then she got on a train to go to where I was waiting. Midway, she remembered that she forgot the brand new iPad next to the public phone. She came back to try looking for it, and behold, it was still there, untouched for almost an hour in a place where hundreds of people go by every minute.

And for the ones who think the Japanese are saints:

Another friend came out of his bath, greeted the police officer in front of his door and was told that an old lady next door called the police because she was annoyed by my friend’s humming in his bath!