My Neighbour: The Ninja
November 17, 2008 Living in Japan
A crisp breeze and a clear sky signaled the start of another beautiful Monday morning in this part of Japan. Making my way to the garbage bin, I spotted several small insects making their long trek across the parking lot in search of food and several dozen birds in the distance. Being the start of another workweek, the JSDF was in full effect, their powerful jets flying quickly overhead and occasionally making their noisy return to the airbase just a few kilometers away. From the corner of my eye I noticed that my newest neighbour was leaving their home, and I waved good morning to her.
“Ohayo gozaimasu,” a voice said to me from out of nowhere.
Startled, I looked across the road and found that a man wearing an orange T-shirt was crouched beside a small bush while smoking his favourite Lucky Seven cigarettes. “Ohayo gozaimasu,” I replied. “Ii tenki desu ne?”
This wasn’t the first time that the man had escaped my notice, and it probably would not be the last.
I swear, my neighbour really is a ninja. From a young age I had learned to pay attention to the smallest of details and notice the most insignificant of patterns. While the skill has certainly served me well over the past two decades, it seems that there is one person that has successfully found a way to make themselves so inconspicuous that I never notice them until it’s already too late. If we were playing some sort of spy vs. spy game, he would consistently be the victor.
This does raise a good question, though: are there Ninja training schools still operating in Japan? If so, I’d love to attend a weekend course.
Comments (7)
Too funny, and shocking for you I can imagine. At least you weren’t doing something you shouldn’t have been doing and hopefully he never catches you in the act of some sort of social or gomi faux pas
I try not to do any faux pas in public, Shane. Not only because you never might know who might be watching, but because you never might know who’s recording you. There have been an awful lot of cell phone cameras pointing in my general direction over the last six months, and I’m beginning to think that the police are just waiting to jump on me for some minor offence
I think that we all try to keep our public faux pas to a minimum Jason – at least I do…
If your neighbors like to take your picture you should look straight at their camera and flash them the peace sign with a very loud greeting of “Ohayo” – my bet is that they would stop doing it in short order if they knew you noticed them
Ah, it’s not my neighbours that are taking pics (as far as I know). Most of the cameras that get pointed my way are either on the train, subway or out on the street. It’s beyond obvious, too, so I don’t think it’s just in my head.
The process goes a little something like this:
* person spots me and looks twice
* person grabs keitai and points in my general direction without being too discreet about it
* a strange digital sound is heard
* the camera gets put away
Maybe it is just in my head, but I could have swore my picture was in the newspaper a few days ago with an ichi-oku bounty attached
… well … that last part was just in my head. But still, it’s strange.
I have had my pic taken by a few random people in Tokyo but I don`t know why they do it. I have heard from other gaijin about having a random pic taken of them.
Maybe they think you are attractive and want to add a pic to a story they later share with a friend.
That is interesting that he is able to do that, although, it seems intentional, I mean who crouches behind a bush when smoking a cigarette…
I bet the ninja training is not what you think it would be like.
Some people have some very strange ideas, and I’m sure that this guy crouches down so that his young son won’t see him smoke. That said, I agree that any ninja training today would be vastly different from what it was two hundred years ago