Anyone who ever has or ever will get lost in Tokyo should be glad for the Japanese police, and the “koban,” little labeled Japanese police boxes scattered throughout the city. I’ve made use of them more times than I can count for definitely non-urgent matters. For example, there was the day I was trying to find my graduate school’s campus for the first time: Hitotsubashi has an undergraduate campus in Kunitachi, about an hour west of Tokyo, but it also has a graduate school (my school) near the Imperial Palace. When I arrived in Tokyo last summer, I was wandering the streets, without a trusty internet connection or Google Maps, totally incapable of reading Japanese addresses, baffled by the lack of street signs, trying to find it. That’s when I came across two Japanese policemen.

Dusting off my out-of-practice Japanese, I asked them for directions. First they laughed: Hitotsubashi University? You’re in the wroooong place. To which I said, no, the graduate school has an office here, at this address, and I showed them the little slip of paper I’d brought along (anticipating just such a situation). They said yes, there’s a building there, but it’s not Hitotsubashi, and I said no, I promise you it is, it’s on floors five to nine. (At about this time someone else, a Japanese person, rode up on a bike to ask for directions – so at the very least I was encouraged I was not distracting them from important crime-fighting duties, or at least no more than the rest of the populace). The policeman who stayed with me said oh, is this their phone number here? I’ll call them, and proceeded to, yep, take out his cellphone and call the number. The administration office informed him they were indeed at that address, the mystery was solved, and he took out a laminated map and gave me very helpful instructions. It turns out if I had just kept walking two blocks the way I’d been going (instead of getting concerned and asking for directions) I would’ve found it.

Oh well. Japanese language practice.