It won't be the food. It won't be the immaculate mass transit. It won't even be the way everything comes wrapped in unnecessary amounts of cute packaging.
No - the thing I will miss most about being in Japan is my Japanese cell phone.
Kidding. Well, almost.
If it were at all possible to take these home to the States with us, my friends and I would do it in a heartbeat, but, alas, global technology has not quite addressed this problem. We'll be forced to return to boring silver-colored flip phones with bluish-green background lights, and have to make ourselves appear amused every time a friend downloads the latest hip-hop song as their ringtone.
To give you a rough idea of how insanely advanced Japanese cell phones are, I'll begin by saying that camera phones were first introduced in Japan four years ago, around the turn of the millennium. The most basic cell phones that currently exist in Japan won't be available in the States until 2006. And don't even ask when the most advanced Japanese cell phones - which can do just about anything except breathe for you - will be available.
Cell phone usage in Japan is so mandatory and mystifying that it's been researched and studied by scholars from all over. Many consider it to have its own culture. It was, perhaps, one of the biggest culture shocks for us Americans, and to this day, we can't decide if it's absolutely magnificent or downright scary.
First of all, it's kind of unusual to see dull, monochrome-colored cell phones here. Japanese manufacturers must have been blessed with an extra dose of creativity - just looking at a display of phones in a store window makes you wonder if a bag of Skittles just exploded in there.
There's no need for the plastic snap-on covers with crazy prints and designs that are for sale in the States - you can just buy a Japanese phone to match your personality. Leopard-print phone? You got it. Holographic, neon pink phone? Coming right up. The first time I saw a friend's silver cell phone, I felt more pity than anything else. It would be like walking into the world's most incredible candy store and walking out with a stick of Trident gum.
Then there are the capabilities of these phones. Just thinking about the hours my friends and I have logged playing with our phones is too tragic and embarrassing to calculate. Then again, what else is there to do on an hour-long subway ride?
Sit on any train line and just watch the people surrounding you. Middle-aged salary men, housewives, school children, construction workers - even toddlers are toting these things and playing with them. Cell phone usage on subways is so routine, there is a universal rule that everyone must put their phones on "manner" (silent) mode while on the trains. Otherwise, everyone would go deaf or insane from the amount of ringing that would be happening.
My phone's camera, if used carefully and properly, can actually spit out images that rival those of a decent digital camera, and it can hold about 300 pictures at a time. There's a way to attach photos of your friends to your call list, so whenever they call, text message, or e-mail you, their photo appears on both the main screen and the mini screen that's on the front of the flip phone cover.
If you meet someone and want to get their number, there's a way where you both can hit an "exchange data" button, hold your phones next to each other, then - viola! -your phone number, picture, e-mail address, and any other information you included in your profile is automatically transferred to their phone's address book.
I can send text messages (or "c-mail," as they're called here) in Japanese and English, and attach any of the hundreds of little icon images available. Want to tell someone that you just got blood drawn? There's a handy icon of a needle with blood in it. Need to tell someone you're broke? Find the picture of the 1,000 yen bill with wings on it, to express that your money has flown away. It's all so unnecessary, yet so addictive.
Surfing the web is a breeze, even from a moving subway underground. That's the other mind-blowing aspect about these phones - they're almost never without service. The only times I've been unable to get service are during the two-second intervals when I'm entering some of the train stations. That's it.
For those really suffering from boredom - which is a state I have not reached yet, thankfully - there are a host of options for entertainment on cell phones. You can watch live TV, movie trailers and actual movies that are constantly updated in your phone's memory bank, peruse a Japanese-English dictionary, and play games that aren't much lower in quality than video games. After all, this is the birthplace of Nintendo. And it's all quite easy to do in a crowd of people because you can plug in headphones.
Last, but certainly not least (because 1,000 words are not nearly enough to do justice to these phones), there is the battery duration. The battery on my American cell phone, if used strictly for phone calls a few times a day, would be done in about four days maximum. Here, you can coast through a week and a half with at least one bar of battery power still remaining. By two weeks, you might need to re-charge.
Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a c-mail with a picture of a bowl of noodles and chopsticks moving up and down that I've received from a friend, implying that it's dinner time. She's also four doors down the hall from me. Communicating has never been so anti-social, yet so sensational.
