Zach awry in Japan

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10 December 2007 Moral Conundrum

 

 

 

 

This morning I went, as I often do, to Starbucks to get some work done. I do this for two reasons: Maki and the baby are still at home, and I need to get my requisite hours of alone-ness for the day; also, unlike the US there is no wireless Internet at Starbucks here, a productivity boon the discipline-challenged like me.

This woman sitting next to me all of the sudden offers me the little bag of rice pictured above. It’s from a care package by the Bank of Kyoto, probably for opening up an account. She says she won’t eat it (which itself is odd for a Japanese person), so I take it because we will and thank her. However, over the course of the next hour while I try to get work done it becomes all too obvious that this woman is seriously mentally disturbed, probably schizophrenic. The conversation consists entirely of non-sequitors, conspiracy theory, and unsettling non-blinking looks.

I try to be as polite as possible without explicitly encouraging more conversation. Eventually she leaves.

I wonder what to do with the rice. It occurs to me that there is a vanishingly small but non-zero chance that it’s been tampered with. I don’t really believe this, but then again I’m not sure I can feel good about feeding my family, including a very young baby, with this rice. Probably irrational of me, but there you have it.

Later I’m writing up a to-do list for the day. Not 10 seconds after I type the words “Throw away rice” she re-appears at the table and gives me the money pictured above. I object, but she insists, saying “You’ll eat the rice for me, right?” and I just accept the cash rather than make a protracted exchange out of it. She leaves again.

Now that she’s theoretically paid me 20 Euros and 1 dollar to eat this rice, I feel even worse about throwing it away. Now I’ve not only wasted some rice, I’ve also welched on a paid transaction. However, she’s exhibited even more evidence of freakiness, and I am no longer even conflicted about feeding this stuff to my family. It ain’t gonna happen.

But, what do I do with it? Seems like it would violate some universal law of something to just up and throw it away now. Give it to someone else along with the money, and let them deal with the conundrum of having this big American guy offer to pay them in foreign currency to eat some rice? Nah…If I’m not willing to eat it myself, then I cannot conscionably give it to someone else.

Can’t use it, can’t throw it away, and can’t give it to someone else. I feel like Frodo.