Saturday, May 16, 2009

Why I Love Japan

A few weeks before we went on spring break in March I found a library on Rokko Island that has a few shelves of English books. I checked out 2 Japanese cookbooks, a travel guide to Hong Kong and a novel that had been translated into English that looked interesting. These books were all due back by the end of March.

For those who know me I am notorious for not returning books on time to the library. My parents joke that I funded the new wing at our small library in my hometown. I do not know why I have such an issue returning books, but I do.

So I had these four books and I looked at them when I first brought them home and then they sat on my shelf until Wednesday (May 13) when I finally returned them. My lateness wasn't intentional. I tried to return them once and the library was closed. Then I just kept forgetting to take them. The library has no drop box so you can only take them when they are open.

I took the books in on Thursday and handed them to a lady while repeatedly saying gomennasai gomennasai (sorry sorry!). I pulled out my wallet in fear of what the late fees would be. After al, this is Japan. The lady turned to a coworker who then came up to talk to me (apparently the first lady didn't speak english).

"These books are very late. Please try to return books on time in future. Arigato gozaimas"

She then handed my library card back to me and went back to her book cart.

I love Japan.


5 comments:

Jill said...

Shut up! There are no late fees in Japan?!?! I want to go to there! I started checking out movies from the library so I wouldn't have to pay to rent them AND pay late fees. And the last time we checked out movies, I had $15 in late fees. What the?!?! I suck at the library!!

Louise said...

:) Sweet deal!!

Maureen (maureenb) said...

I have the exact same habit, Alexis - it is unusual for me NOT to have fines at our library. I'm thinkin' we could learn a lot from the Japanese! :)

Terri said...

I have the same problem too. So something awesome about the Japanese, cool!

Melanie Gray Augustin said...

Wow, I didn't know they didn't charge fees. If I'd known that, I might have been more slack about returning mine..... :)