Scott Johnston

Shipping a box at a Post Office: Culture shock Remember the old saying about post offices in the U.S.? Something like: neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor the winds of change, nor a nation challenged, will stay us from the swift completion of our appointed rounds. Ever. How time erodes away such sayings. Though I did observe an exceptional case of going beyond duty in Queens, NY one day when the postman helped a woman who had fell and called 911 waiting for the ambulance. But my experiences at the post offices in Japan and Queens, NY are like experiences from different countries. Oh, they are, aren’t they? First, here is how going to the post office in Japan. In Japan, this is my procedure for using the post office. Walk down from the 4 th floor to 1 st floor of my apartment and walk about 12 steps and enter the local post office. Sure it is tiny, about the size of a bathroom in the U.S. without heat in the winter and three cages: one for stamps, on...

Where is NYC?     We started to adventure out into the world of Sunnyside, Queens, Long Island, NYC, NY 100014. The name is confusing for non-New Yorkers. Why so many names for one place? Japanese ask, “It is not NYC is it? You said it is not Manhattan.”   I explain that NYC has 5 boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island and Queens. People often think of NYC as Manhattan. In fact, Bronx is north of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens are on Long Island, and Staten Island is an---island. Yankee Stadium is in the Bronx, JFK Airport and LaGuardia are in Queens, which is on Long Island which is in NYC. However, if you go east of Queens, to Nassau County, you are no longer in NYC. You do not even have to go over any bridges. Now that is hard to explain. Everyone expects some type of sign or border between NYC and rest of the world. Many of our friends think of river as border, such as the Hudson River or the East River. However, we patiently explain o...