Thank You
Emma Alexandra Berniczky (Stuyvesant High School)
“Pull down your shirt!” “Don’t sit like that!” “Don’t put your bag on the floor!” The rules of etiquette
my mother would constantly reprimand me for breaking were absolutely interminable. She said she hoped I
would come back from Japan more graceful than I had left, but I assured her I would not. In fact, I had no
intention of changing, but I question whether I actually changed, or just grew up.

At my first meeting with the principal of my “host” high school, instead of waiting for everyone to
be served first, I chugged down the iced green tea a second after it was placed in front of me. I realized as
soon as I put the cup down that I had already made a terrible first impression. Without realizing it, that was
the moment I took my first step toward fulfilling my mother’s wish.

The perfectionism I met with in Japan hit me like a speeding shinkansen train. Although I was
amazed at first, I soon became aggravated at the amount of time I saw people dedicate to the most mundane
tasks. The cleaner and more organized everything was, the dirtier and messier I felt. Almost as if I had a
King Midas touch gone awry! I tried to follow the unsaid-but-set-in-stone rules I observed from other
people, but only because I did not want to be ostracized or criticized. I was doing it only as a show for
everyone else. After six weeks, I did become much more graceful, but I still could not understand the
purpose of it all. I felt it was ridiculous to ask, so I continued imitating people, remotely satisfied at the way
I was able to conform and fit in with all my classmates at school. After I came back home, I kept up some
habits but they seemed out of place away from Japan. It was not until I visited a Zen Monastery in New
York that I understood what my mother had wanted me to learn, and what Japan had tried to teach.

I was telling one of the young Japanese priestesses there the story about how I was leaving a fancy
traditional restaurant with my host family, and instead of taking out my shoes from the cubby and gingerly
placing them on the floor like everyone else did, I dropped the shoes down from waist level. Every single
family member turned around and gasped at the huge slap they made as they hit the floor. After she
finished laughing, she explained to me that Westerners think of shoes as inanimate objects, not worth any
respect. But a Japanese person respects them by handling them with care and thinking “Thank you shoes,
for supporting me as I walk.” They value the time and labor used to make the objects; because after all,
where would we be without the fruit of other peoples’ labor? Even though hardly anything is handmade in
the 21 st century anymore, this mentality still exists in Japan today. The same attitude is applied to eating:
saying “Thank you for this food” and bowing before and after eating a meal seemed incredibly tedious to
me at first, before I realized that I was not saying “Thank You” to my rice just because it was rice, but for
the energy and nutrition it provided me every day, not to mention its’ excellent taste! Although I had trouble
remembering to do this in Japan, I found it much easier to do in America because it was no longer a phrase
I needed to repeat six times a day, but a mindset that affected everything I did.

Perhaps what the rest of the world sees as excessive nitpicking and abnormal perfection manifested
in countless unsaid rules, the Japanese people simply see as a way of life that accords the proper respect to
everything. Instead of waiting until you lose something to truly appreciate its value, why not appreciate it
while you have it? I learned that it is possible not only to value other objects and people, but also yourself.

By being in good physical and mental shape and by being graceful, you show your gratitude and respect to
your body for all it allows you to do. Thank you Japan, for teaching me how to say “Thank You.”
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