Rant: Costco in Japan

It's an unexplainable phenomenon, but the Japanese become completely different people when they enter Costco. Or most of them, anyway. Usually, they are--in appearance and behavior at least--the soul of manners, of consideration, a model of being polite. But when they walk through the doors of that warehouse, a transformation of unknown cause occurs, and suddenly they are boorish. I don't know any other way to explain how it is that there and only there have I encountered Japanese people who seem to have nearly no consideration for the other shoppers around them. They take their huge carts, walk down the center of the aisles, stop anywhere they want, their carts helter-skelter, as if there were no one else around.

For those of you who've been to a Costco (most of you, I think), you know how big the aisles are, so you know that if carts are stopped along either side, another can pass easily through the middle. And there are usually two major "thoroughfares" leading from the from to the back, which can proabably accomodate four carts abreast. Along these larger aisles, they often set up food sampling stations, no big deal if you pull your cart into an aisle and go back for the food...but here, no, let's just stop and get ours NOW. And a big F-YOU to everyone who's behind me.

It's almost like, in this small, magical world that could, really, be called "Little America" (it's laid out just like Costcos back home and even the signs are in English), the Japanese who visit become not Americans, but what they think Americans are like at their worst. Or something. I don't mean to disparage Japanese people, who, as I've already said, are usually the most polite people you'll meet. But I've never encountered anything like this at the eight or so Costcos I've been to in the US.

More to come.