Someone once wrote (and it very well may have been Carrie Bradshaw) that the worst thing one New Yorker can do to another is make sustained and unprovoked eye contact. Some New Yorkers have clearly taken this to heart, evidenced by the avoidance of eye contact on all forms of public transportation and in general, daily interactions.
Yesterday (Monday), though, we learned quite a good deal about the importance of both humility and sincerity (and eye contact) in the Japanese culture (the phrase これからおせわになります comes to mind). The idea of this kind of a community, the kind in which you put yourself under the care of your neighbors, and vice versa, is for the most part a foreign notion (no pun intended). And it is certainly foreign in a New York City that is often too fast-paced to remember its manners. Just something I've been considering.
昨日（きのう)「これからおせわになります」をならいました (learned)。
「ほんのきもちです」もならいました。
にほんには、みんなさんは やさしい (kind) ですけど
ニューヨーク（にゅうようく）には、みんなさんはまだ やさしくない。
