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January 10, 2019
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| A young man came to the counter and showed him a piece of paper, it read, "I can't hear or speak so I'll use this tablet, ok?" The guy showed him a small plastic tablet. He was familiar with that type of tablet which is for children who study letters. Using a plastic pen, you can write on it, like writing in the sand. And you can erase it by one push of the 'clear' button, like wiping over the sand. He worked at a tourism counter which was located on the second floor of the station. His XXX city was the capital city of the prefecture. The population wasn't so big, although the city had a station at which bullet trains stopped and had some historical tourism spots. He had started to work here several months before as a part time job two days a week. The guy was young, in his early twenties, kind of handsome. He wrote something on his tablet and showed it to him, it read, "I want to see YYY shrine and ZZZ temple. Tell me how to get there." It was for the first time that he had dealt with a physically challenged person at the counter. Tourists who came to the counter could be categorized into two groups. One type of people are those who know about some places that they want to go. They  researched in advance, and come in to ask about directional details, like this young guy. The other type of people are those who just come in and ask something like, "I have time until 4 PM. What do you recommend me seeing?" He had lived in this city for a long time so he had some knowledge about the city. There were two female coworkers who were young but also had a lot of knowledge. So if he had something that he didn't know, he could ask them for assistance. This time's demand was easy. YYY shrine and ZZZ temple were popular destinations for tourists and located near the downtown area. He spread a tourism map of the city on the counter, took a bunch of paper for memos, and started to write on one of them. He wrote, "XXX station, we are now", "YYY shrine" and pointed the station and the shrine on the map. When he was about to write on the next memo paper, the guy stopped him. He wrote on the tablet and showed it to him. It read, "I'm sorry but I can't see your writing." Then he wiped it and wrote, "Please use a thick marker pen." The guy had tinted glasses. He remembered that when the guy came, he had had a white walking stick. He had forgotten about it when the guy started to use his tablet. Maybe the size of writing that he could recognize was the size that he wrote on the tablet. "Ok…" he said and remembered that the guy couldn't listen to his voice. He was a little bit confused. He took a black marker from the drawer and circled the station on the map and wrote next to it in big letters "XXX station." Then he circled a bus stop and wrote, "No.15 bus stop for loop bus." Then he circled another place and wrote, "Main street 1st Avenue bus stop." The young guy stopped him again and wrote on his tablet and showed it, "I don't understand." Then he erased it and wrote, "XXX station → Main St. 1st Ave. →" He figured it out. He wrote on the map, but the guy couldn't see any information on the map. The map was useless. He gave up using the map and took a memo paper and wrote, "XXX station, No.15, loop bus, → Main St. 1st Ave. bus stop, get off." Because he wrote in big letters, the sheet was soon filled. So he took another sheet and wrote "walk → YYY shrine → walk → Main St. 1st Ave." As he repeated this, he was confused to what part that he had finished. Sometimes he wrote it wrong and he had to cross it out, and rewrote things several times. The guy showed his tablet to him, it read, "Please calm down." The guy's face was warm. Strangely he didn't feel embarrassed or offended. "Ok," he said to himself and nodded. He went to the copy machine and took a sheet of A4 paper. He thought for a second and breathed deeply, then started to write. After 5 minutes or so he finished it. The paper was used vertically: XXX Station (Loop bus 'SNAIL', No.15 (clockwise, every 10 minutes' ride)) ↓ (about 10 minutes) Main St. 1st Ave. bus stop (get off, pay $1) ↓ (walk 500m North) YYY Shrine ↓ Main St. 1st Ave. bus stop (the same bus stop coming) ↓ (about 10 minutes) Bus Center Nannak (get off, pay $1) ↓ (walk 700m South) ZZZ Temple He gave the paper to the guy. The guy looked at it up close to his face. After a while he gestured for him to pass the marker. He did. The guy wrote on the paper adding after ZZZ Temple, "→ Bus Center Nannak (counter clockwise) → XXX Station," and smiled at him. He nodded strongly smiling back. The guy wrote on the tablet, "Thank you very much!" He wrote on the paper, "You're welcome. Have a good trip!" The guy took out his folding type white walking stick, and lengthened it back out and left. He was looking at his back for a while. He said to his female coworker next to him, "Tough world, huh? But, I'm amazed that he doesn't give up what he wants to see even if it might be difficult." She replied, "Yes, indeed." |
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*bullet train :新幹線
*deal with :対応する、扱う
*physically challenged :障害のある
*tinted :色の着いた
*lengthen it back out :伸ばす