Cleaning Day in Our Neighborhood

By Freddy Benstein | Monday, Jun 2, 2008

I can’t believe this!  A lawn mower would finish this job in five minutes, yet here we are, five of us, hunched over with little knives, cutting grass by hand on a beautiful Sunday morning.  Yesterday was outdoor cleaning day at our mansion.  What I saw as a five-minute job lasted nearly an hour and a half.  When I discovered that we would be cutting the grassy areas around our condo building by hand, I was a little annoyed.  It was a nice, sunny, Sunday morning, my only day off this week, and there were plenty of other things that I would have preferred to be doing. 

I often get frustrated with situations like this.  At my job as well, there are often tasks that need to be done, which I think could be done in a much more efficient way, yet they are not, even if people are aware of the more efficient way. 

Here is a situation that was not necessarily an issue of efficiency, but rather common sense, at least from an American point of view.  There was a room that needed to be cleaned and organized.  It was a bit of an overwhelming task, yet could have been handled by one person.  This came up during a time when many of my colleagues were fairly busy, and I was extremely not busy.  Since I would have otherwise been sitting on my bum all day trying to fill the hours until I could go home, I “generously” offered to work on the room on my own if someone would just give me some guidelines as to what needed to be done.  But this suggestion was rejected.  Why?  Because they felt bad to ask me to do it all by myself.  They insisted that we find a time when we can all do it together.  Of course, the only time that we could all do it together was a Saturday afternoon... after contract hours!  Funny how no one felt bad about asking me to work extra (unpaid) hours and spend more time away from my family.  So I spent several days trying to fill the time answering questions on Yahoo! Answers and other pointless activities waiting for Saturday afternoon to arrive, when we could all do the job together. 

This is not the only time such a situation has occurred and on Sunday morning, I found myself again thinking about how the yard work around our apartment/mansion could have been completed more efficiently.  The first thing to come to my mind was, of course, a lawn mower, which would have cut back the manpower needed by, oh, 99% I suppose.  The time required would have also likely been cut back by a significant amount.  The other thing which kept coming up in my mind was that in the States at least, the building would have a groundskeeper or someone whose responsibility it was to keep the grass and the gardens looking nice. 

As I squatted down in the grassy area, hunched over, cutting blades of grass with my little garden knife, or whatever it is called, I listened to the conversations of the people I was working with.  Some of their conversations began to shed some light on why this method of doing things was chosen over something that would have been easier and a wiser use of time.  One word I kept hearing fairly often was 交流 (kouryuu), meaning exchange, or interaction.  The word made me think about the benefits of working like this, as opposed to one person doing it all alone.  Although I had to give up a significant portion of my Sunday morning, it allowed me to get to know my neighbors a little better.  Up till now, I had said little more than “good morning” or other simple greetings to them.  The longest conversation I had was with our downstairs neighbors when they complained that our children are too noisy.  I also think that doing the work and cleaning ourselves, gives us a feeling of ownership and pride that we might not have, if there were a groundskeeper to do all the work.  Therefore, perhaps we take better care of the property.  (I believe that is part of the thinking behind having students clean the classroom and the school each day as well.)

I have thought for a long time now that whenever we change our habits for the sake of convenience or efficiency, we are giving up something else in exchange for that.  We gain on the one hand, but lose on the other.  For each person it is different, and sometimes what we gain is more important than what we lose, but I think just as often, what we lose is sometimes more important than what we’ve gained. 

Interaction with our neighbors and the community is an important part of life.  The better you know someone, the more understanding you become.  I think 99% of conflicts, arguments, even wars or the result of misunderstandings.  More Kouryuu might cut back on some of these misunderstandings.  But perhaps I will suggest to our condo association that next year, we have our exchange and interaction over a barbecue at the beach, rather than hunched over cutting blades of grass.

Freddy Benstein's Profile

I am a language teacher working at a private Junior High/High School and College in Western Japan. Since I earned my undergraduate degree in 1997, I have spent nearly half of my time living, working and studying in foreign countries, in Asia and Europe. Since 1995 I have visited Japan nearly every year and spent two years living here from 1998 - 2000. I am now working again in Japan for an unspecified length of time.

Interests: Japanese, taiko, music, photography, German Romanticism, 19th century history/literature

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