My frustrating experience at the San Francisco Airport after consecutive delays in the 3rd and final leg of my international flight back home.
People talk about getting “reverse culture shock” when they come back from a foreign country, but today what I’m experiencing is more like “reverse culture bummer,” the “oh yeah I forgot that America was like this.”
So first some updates on my life. I just finished my internship at Mitsubishi Electric in Japan (2 months) and traveled around Hiroshima for a few days with my friend Jee, and now I’m sitting at San Francisco Airport for a 6 hour layover before my flight back home (now turned 10 hour layover due to multiple delays). Anyway coming back to the states from Japan I’ve been experiencing a series of reverse culture bummers, ones that I don’t really remember experiencing the first time I came back to the states from Japan (study abroad at Tohoku University 2 years ago).
Language
I thought I would revel in the awesome feeling of being about to understand everything around me effortlessly. But walking around the Airport it just reminds me that TSA agents hate their job, and that people have really boring conversations with each other.
Airports
Wow I freaking hate airports. But especially airports in the U.S. For some reason security lines in the U.S. always take way longer than any other airport that I’ve been to. To give some perspective, there was literally no security line the two times I tried going through Haneda International Airport (one of the busiest airports in Japan). The first time I accidentally just waltzed through the metal detector with my jacket on, things in my pocket, totally unaware that it was a security gate and had to get a pat down.
At other airports I get to keep my shoes on and don’t need to chug all my water before going through the screening, making it through the place in record time. Also all the TSA agents here look grouchy AF. Nothing like doing a 13 hour flight only to be greeted by pissed off immigration officers. I get it, your job sucks, but my flight sucked too.
Customer Service
So this is totally related to the grouchy TSA agents, I’ve been spoiled by Japan’s customer service culture. Everyone smiles at you, speaks very politely, bows and even thanks you for asking them questions. Fast forward to me going through security in SFO where I go through the body scanner and like always my left ankle triggers the machine and I need a pat down on my ankles. The dude TSA agent is like, “can you pat her down” and the female TSA agent is like “haha, are you sure it’s not a dude,” winks at the dude TSA agent, turns to me, goes “haha, sorry,” like somehow I’m in on her joke. I manage a sardonic smile.
Like I get it, I got short hair, and I’m wearing baggy clothes, but there was a million ways to go about confirming who gets to pat down my ankles without being a dick about it. It’s great that you get to get a laugh, but it’s really coming at my expense and I kinda dislike that.
Toilets
I think the first feeling that I was like “yep I’m in America” was when I walked into the bathroom at the baggage claim area. On the way to picking a stall I walked past three unflushed toilets, and one with a bloody diaper floating on the surface. You’re not really in America unless you need to flush someone else’s mess and hover pee in all public restrooms.
Maybe you’ve heard of the high-tech Japanese toilets that have bidet functionality and the ability to sing waterfall sounds to mask the sound of your pee hitting the water. But that’s not really what I care about. I think in my entire time in Japan I’ve only really seen one or two unflushed toilets. I even got used to sitting on toilets in public restrooms. Everything always felt so clean. The toilets in my company had floors so pretty that I wouldn’t freak out even if I dropped my phone on the floor.
Now I’m in America where all public bathrooms have auto flushers installed to thwart the nonflushers, but what really ends up happening is that they don’t work when they need to, and they flush when I’m still using the bathroom resulting in maximum grossness.
Cleanliness
One thing that always annoyed me about Japan was the lack of trash bins. This meant that I’ll be walking around the entire day carrying my trash in my shoulder bag. Despite this Japan always felt spotless. There was no litter on the floor, there wasn’t a bunch of chewing gum stuck on the pavement, do Japanese people not litter??? The answer is, no, they still litter. In the morning I’ll see a bunch of people walking around with tongs picking up last night’s litter thrown away by drunken salary people. But then for the rest of the day it remains spotless until people start drinking at night. There was still the occasional abandoned plastic drink cup or wrapping paper, but for a country with a lack of public trash bins, there is not a lot of litter.
Right in front of me, as I’m typing, I’m surrounded by trash on the floor. A dirty napkin, a subway receipt, the top part of a cough drop bag that someone ripped off, a few unidentifiable paper scraps, and old gum that’s been blacked from being stepped on so many times. There are plenty of trashcans in the vicinity. Why the hell is this place so dirty despite having a trash can around every corner!!! Why!!!
Just now a skin head dude with tattoos walked over to one of the charging desks and tossed his trash into the corner of the table. Why, couldn’t you just walk to a damn trashcan? It is probably equidistant…ugh. Update: just watched another guy put an empty altoid tin down in the same area…
Before I sat down I took out some sanitary wipes to wipe down my seat. There was an unidentified brown smear that I refused to subject my pants to.
Hopefully in the next few days I’ll be reminded of reasons why I like living here. But for now it’s just a series of reverse culture bummers.
