Hospitals, Powdered Milk, and Printers

My friend Wendy recently put into words something I experienced my entire time living overseas:

In your own country, you figure out where to buy most things over time, either from advertising, or by looking things up in the Yellow Pages, or just by experience. ... We often rely on word-of-mouth ...

Her words resonated so deeply with me that I started to write a comment on her blog post. My thoughts quickly developed into a post of their own. 


One thing I noticed in my first few months in Japan was that I couldn't identify shops or offices or hospitals by what the building looked like.  (And of course, at the beginning I couldn't read any signs ... and years later, there were still plenty of signs I couldn't read!)  So, in addition to not knowing where to buy a certain item, I couldn't even use context clues to look at the outside of a building and guess what it contained.

Hospitals 
I realized this when I found myself thinking:

They don't have hospitals in Japan. 

No, they must have hospitals in Japan. 

Hmm. I must not know what hospitals look like in Japan. 

Until I actually went to a hospital in Japan (with a friend to visit another friend), I had no idea what they looked like. 

Powdered Milk
Once, as a 2-yr missionary was giving away her pantry items in preparation for leaving Japan, she was declaring the merits of some powdered milk she had available and mentioned, "You can't buy it in Japan."

Oh, but you can!  The size of the package, the location of the package in the grocery store, and the picture on the front of the package (including the brand - and brand logo) were all different, so she never realized that she walked by powdered milk every time she was in the grocery store.

It takes a lot of humility (and patience) to ask someone about every item on your shopping list - is this available? where do you buy it? where is that store? and can you draw me a map? (since most street signs in Japan don't have names).

Printers
It works both ways.  When I came back to the U.S. for a year's assignment in 2004, I was operating on knowledge I'd had in 1999 of what would be available.  I opted not to bring my computer printer with me from Japan to the U.S.  Instead I ordered a mini-printer so that it would be waiting when I arrived.

A few months later I ran into some missionaries also on home assignment and they mentioned their all-in-one printer which could scan! and fax! and copy! as well as print!  Why hadn't anyone told me?!?!  I hadn't known about these newfangled things ... and that they were just a fraction of the cost of my micro-printer.  In fact, I hadn't even known to ask that question.  (And I'm not sure how well it would work to ask, "What do I need to know that I didn't know 4 years ago?")

The reverse happened in Japan.  A missionary had been gone for a year and returned to the same town.  She was there many months before learning that there was a huge new discount store just a few miles away.  "Why didn't anyone tell us?"

Passing on a body of knowledge is harder than it seems.  The teacher often isn't aware of what the student doesn't know.  And the student often doesn't even know what questions to ask.