Keeping up with the Tanakas

I love the Japanese Postal Service! It is not just the fact that our letter carrier looks like something out of anime, racing around on her little red scooter, all of four feet tall, her bangs hanging down in front of her coke bottle glasses, though I do get a cheap thrill each time I see her and she smiles, showing off her slightly buck teeth that are too big for her mouth, but seriously the service is excellent. If you aren't home when a package is delivered, they leave a slip in your mailbox. Okay, pretty standard so far, right? But wait! If you return home by 6 PM, and you call, they will make their way back to your house and deliver your package that very same day! Here in the big city, we have an automated service to call, but back in the good ol' Omihachiman days, I used to call the post office and tell them my name (which was pretty much all I could do in Japanese at that time) and they would know exactly who I was and why I was calling and send someone out to my little apartment posthaste to put the care package from home into my eager hands as soon as humanly possible. For someone as big on instant gratification as myself, this alone would rate them five stars in my book. But there is more! On rainy days, they have been known to put my letters and catalogs into plastic bags to keep them from getting damp. One particular Auntie at our local post office adores Mina and Sam and always gives them some treasure or another whenever we visit, from tissue to old fashioned children's toys. My favorite employee in another post office I frequent always checks for the least expensive, most efficient way for me to send my books overseas without me even having to ask. We went to a new post office the other day to buy additional postage for letters we were sending out and the kind woman who helped us got the stamps, handed the envelopes back, gave Mina and Sam each a stamp, showed them the damp sponge on which to wet the stamp, instructed them where to place the stamps, and then praised them for being such wonderful children. I almost wanted to ask her to adopt all three of us, she was so sweet. Awhile ago the Japanese Postal System was privatized and I was worried that it would bring unpleasant changes, but no, I still love Japan Post!

Labels: Japan Post