People Watching

People are strange.
Nowhere is that more obvious than in a youth hostel, where dozens of young people (and sometimes not-so-young people) from all over the world share small spaces and limited resources. In the week that I have been staying at the Sakura Hostel in Asakusa, Tokyo, I have seen more strange human behavior than I had for months beforehand. For example: On the day I arrived I lugged my (far too copious) luggage up to my room, which contained six beds and several lockers. The room was clean and neat and I immediately struck up a lively conversation with the young Dutch man in the bed opposite mine. When I asked about our others roommates, he grimaced slightly, which gave me a bit of a warning. He told me that three of the other residents were pleasant enough people, but were also a mother, father, and grown son (also from Amsterdam) who spent all day away from the hostel, only to return at 9, sleep from 9:30 to 10 am, and then leave again, barely speaking with the other people staying in the room. He mentioned that he often stayed out of the room until he himself was ready to sleep, as this trio went to bed the earliest and slept the latest, and he got the sense that they were irritated with anyone who didn't keep the same hours. Although that seemed somewhat odd to me (you do have to make some compromises in a shared space), I wasn't all that phased, until I returned to the room to sleep at 11 and found the father glaring at me from his bed as I used my alarm clock light to search for my toothbrush. Luckily they only stayed one night, after which I didn't have to worry so much about disturbing their obviously delicate sleeping schedules.
I have to say, however, more so than the issue of sleep courtesies, I was disturbed by the age of the people staying in my room. I tend to think of a "you hostel" as just that, a place for youths to stay as they travel or backpack through a country. And yet in just the last week I have encountered several people that forced me to re-evaluate this, sometimes to my discomfort. It is difficult enough to share a small room with strangers, but even more difficult and uncomfortable when those people are significantly older than oneself. There is a big difference between wearing your pj's and brushing your teeth in front of 20-somethings and doing the same in front of a 55 year old man whom you have never met. For another example, just three days ago I was sitting at a table in the lounge, surfing the internet and drinking a beer, when a trio of people sat down at my table. Looking up I was somewhat shocked to find a woman in her 60's, at least, with a younger woman who was most likely her daughter, and a boy no more than 6! I suddenly felt the urge to both hide the beer I was drinking and to sit up straighter. I hate to judge, but, well I will. What the hell?! Who brings a six year old to a youth hostel full of hormonal, drunk college students? And for that matter, Mom and Dad, why are you not in a hotel? What 55-year old mother and father are so cheap that they are willing to bunk down with a bunch of kids half their age? Especially in Japan, where getting a business hotel is only about $10 more than a hostel.
However, my experience earlier this very day took the cake for me. Beyond the issues of age-appropriate lodgings and money, this next story also dips into my feelings about child care and age-appropriate behavior, period. In order to facilitate and easier move into a new room tomorrow, I took half of my luggage down to the storage space in the basement. As I arrived I was surprised to meet yet another young kid, this one perhaps 7 years old. I rolled my eyes to myself, once again feeling like a hostel is not a great place for kids. However, I was even more surprised by his mother, a young woman, who had three suitcases and about 15 shopping bags strewn about the storage room, blocking almost all access to the shelves. She was dress in a skimpy, hot pink terrycloth tube dress that was both strapless and short enough to show the curve of her buttocks. When she spoke to me (In English and with no traceable accent, either American or Canadian), her voice was girlishly high pitched and giggly. She politely apologized for having her stuff in the way, but made no move to actually pick up or move any of her assorted junk. She asked how long I had been in Japan, and I breathlessly explained I had been at this hostel for a week as I wrestled my suitcase onto the top shelf. She told me that she and her son had been there for a month.
A month?
A month of keeping a child in a shared bedroom, living out of suitcases, surrounded by strangers in the bed next to you, with no personal or private space? The though boggled my mind. I was shocked that she had spent a month in a hostel, when judging by her bags of shopping she clearly had enough money to afford or hotel or even an apartment. Which is to say nothing of her attire... but then, I could do an entire other blog entry about my feelings about women who dress like hookers even after they have married and had kids. Another time, perhaps.
Of course, in a shred space such as this, little things like courtesy and manners also take on a new and exciting twist. As anyone who has ever lived with others knows, it is sometimes amazing how completely lacking in common courtesy some people can be. This weekend, the hostel was inundated with guests, many of them from France. Now, I am not making any judgments about France or about the French people, but this week the perpetrators of rudeness have so far all been French. One young man has annoyed me multiple times. The first evening he arrived, he and his friends rented a film to watch on the big screen TV in the lounge. I was sitting at least 20 feet away from the TV, on the other side of the lounge, yet the movie was turned up so loudly that I could not hear my music in my headphones. Everyone else in the lounge was cringing from the noise, shooting dirty looks and the boys on the couches, and generally being irritated by the whole thing. I hated to be the one to bitch, but as no one else seemed willing to say anything, I finally got up and asked them to turn it down. They did so, fractionally-- and proceeded to watch another movie just as loudly, well into the small a.m. hours.
This young man wasn't done yet, though. As I speak, this is his third evening of contact with what I can only assume is his girlfriend, as he has loud conversations with her on his computer without the benefit of headphones. I can hear both sides of their conversation for hours as a time and he laughs and yells into his computer so that she can hear him. Yet, oddly enough, he does own headphones-- he just only uses them to watch movies on his computer.
Watching movies and TV shows on our computers in one of the main activities here at the hostel. I have spent many hours laughing quietly to myself as I watch old episodes of South Park, one of the only shows I can stream in Japan. Hulu and the Cartoon Network website are both locked to American, and thus unavailable to us poor stranded Westerners here in Asia. So too are most of the network websites like NBC and CBS. So, as usual today, I was seated at my computer, giggling at the antics of Cartman and the boys, when a shadow fell over me. I looked up and a young girl, no older than 15, was watching over my shoulder. Alright, no big deal, she's just wondering what I'm watching, right? Wrong. She continued to stand there, right over my shoulder, or occasionally sitting in the chair next to me, and stare at my computer for a good 20 minutes. I kept looking at her, trying to tell her with body language that she was making me uncomfortable, and exchanging exasperated looks with my Australian friend seated across from me. The girl seemed as oblivious to her breach of etiquette as she was at my attempts to politely make her aware of them. However, just as I was about to lose my temper and ask her "Can I help you?", my episode ended, and so I decisively snapped my laptop shut. Robbed of her sparkly lights, the girl then proceeded across the table and set up shop behind my Australian friend! Just as with me, she stood behind him and watched what he was doing on his computer. However, apparently what he was doing was not as fascinating as my activity, and eventually she moved away to go sit directly behind someone I assumed to be her brother who was playing a Nintendo DS. I left to return to my room at that point, but my occasional trips down for a drink or a snack found her in exactly the same place.
There are, of course, other stories, like my roommate who makes a little double throat clearing cough every three minutes, or the French girl in the elevator in just a tank top and panties, but I have to say, strange computer staring girl is so far my favorite wierdo of Sakura Hostel.