Cultural divergence in fast food acquisition: Or damn, its hard to get a burger in Tokyo! Part 3

So there we are, against all odds, finally seated with our burgers, fries and beverages at Macca’s (Australian for Mcdonalds) in Shimbashi, Tokyo. Granted a large portion of our 30 minute lunch break has already flashed by, however, we are at last ready to savour our first tentative taste of familiar western cuisine in some time and relieve the pit of homesickness and hunger in our stomachs. (Maybe not!)

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Remember back in pre lunch prep (my first post)I mentioned the weather forecast (possible snow). Well turns out, the weather dude was right (who knew that ever happened?) and what’s more, it was at this precise moment when we were on the cusp of food consumption, that the forecast snow decided to fall (typical).

Now as previously disclosed I’m a Queenslander so my experience of snow is zip, zero, zilch! So I was pretty much mesmerised. Also what was falling from the sky was not what I had expected, this was not the beautiful picturesque white fluffy stuff of film and television. No, rather this was something resembling a colourless, unflavoured partially thawed Slushie (Australian for frozen beverage). Disappointed much! Hell yes…

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So while defintely not living up to my visual expectations, from my warm location inside Macca’s, it was immediately apparent that no matter its appearance this stuff was wet, freezing cold and thus a highly motivating force to those experiencing it directly on their person(they were all moving…rapidly).

Now you could see from the photo of SL Plaza, Shinbashi (in my first post), there is no cover, its just a vast open area. During lunch this area is busier than usual due to the influx of cold and hungry 30 minute dinner’s. So when the snow started to fall with vim and or vigour, where do you think the people caught outside in SL Plaza went? You guessed it, inside! Anywhere inside, and they did it en masse and at lightning speed, with the skill and precision developed over decades of cultural and environmental conditioning.

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Almost instantly, they filled Macca’s. Now I’m not just talking about the area where you place your order here, I mean the whole damn restaurant. Suddenly every bit of available space was jam packed with, well, people. Even those narrow spaces between the too close together tables were occupied by standing people.

Now if standing was the only thing they had been doing, they may have been better equipped to monitor their personal space with some degree of efficacy. However, as a closer inspection revealed (not that I could see very far) it became apparent that in fact they were eating lunch from their Macca's trays while standing!

Most if not all of those standing were holding a tray in one hand and eating their burger and fries or drinking their beverage with the other hand. Observing this precarious tray balancing digesting act, especially those trying to manage upsized beverages it occurs to me that these big cups might not all contain cold beverages! (OMG! what is the Japanese phrase for “where is the burns unit?”).

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So on contemplation at a macro level, conditions were not ideal. Furthermore, while assessing the macro situation I had lost sight of conditions at the micro level. On finally returning my gaze to the table and my colleague opposite, she seemed a little, flustered.

I’d been so fixated on the snow and the arrival of what felt like the entire population of Tokyo, that I hadn’t noticed that we were now sharing our table with 2 salary men (this is a Japanese term for male office workers/business men/executives/pretty much any man in a suit). And wow had they joined us!

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Giving my flushed colleague a querying look, she tilted her head to one side indicating I should follow her gaze. You recall that the tables are situated very, very close to each other. Well the excruciating lack of space forced salary men to stand between our table and the tables to both our left and right.

As the space between these tables is really narrow, so they have no choice but to face either one table or the other they can't fit any other way, its just too narrow. The physical consequences of this forced positioning are that, they have their butts are on one table and there crotches are on the next (or vice versa I am horribly dyslexic) and so it goes down a whole row of tiny little tables separated by salary men.

So when I follow my colleagues gesture to look down, I discover that yes in fact we have a salary mans crotch resting ever so delicately on the edge of our table, and in my personal opinion, not nearly far enough away from our lunch…

I look back at my colleague, she makes eye contact with me again to indicate I should look to the other side. Almost too afraid to look, I tentatively turn my gaze and sure enough wedged quite firmly against the other side of our table are a set of rather pert salary man buttocks.

For a brief moment time seemed to stand still in Macca’s, Shimbashi. My colleague and I exchanged a look of knowledge and understanding… Then as reality came crashing back in, we knew there was no time to waste, the 30 minute lunch break, burgers, fries and beverages, wait for no woman! Neither crotch nor buttocks we would deter us damn it…

We both attempted to pick up food and eat, but it was not a simple operation. Social norms and potential sexual assault charges, limited us both to using only the arms on the non-crotch side in an effort to minimise inappropriate contact or worse. (Seriously, where are workplace health and safety goddamn it!)

However, this preferential treatment of one side of the table over other was not without its consequences. Unavoidably, it resulted in sporadic buttock nudging when taking random bites and sips, (let me tell you anxiety levels do impact flavour). In any case we carried on... I personally was about to unwrap and bite into my burger (albeit one handed) when to my distress, I felt something pressing down on me from above. To be continued…