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I see her making her way slowly down the two flights of concrete stairs. Her back is hunched and knotted fingers claw the plastic garbage bag tightly so as not to drop it. I hear it swish and crinkle against her body as she tries to adjust to the weight of it as she navigates the stairwell. Long black gloves and a big floppy maroon hat protect her skin from the early morning September sun and a long yellow Mumu like dress covers the rest of her bent form. The bright activeness of her clothes belay her slow painful movements down the stairs.
I think to myself that maybe I should help her, but I’m three stories above her and can’t reach her before she exits the stairwell, so I take the elevator with defeated superheroism weighing heavy on my heart. I can smell the rotted garbage stench of previous trips to the trash pick up area. And in all honesty, I know a white faced gaijin like myself offering to carry her trash would, socially, be as much of a potential burden for her as the physical difficulties of carrying the garbage herself is. The gossip and rumors that would swirl from my innocent charitable act would pile up faster than the opaque vinyl garbage bags.
This is Japan and I have my role, English teacher at the local elementary school, everyone in the apartment complex knows this and for me to violate it would upset the Wah (social harmony) to such a degree that my act of kindness would eventually have the exact opposite effect than the one I intended.
So I bow and mumble a “Ohaiyo Gozimasu (good morning) as I pass her near the trash site to which she gives a slight nod and run through my lesson plan one more time hoping that it will satisfy all the requirements my role in this foreign place demands.