Aquarium Line-up Calm: Only in Japan

    One weekend in late November 2021, due to insistence on the part of my daughter and one of her school friends and the low covid numbers in Miyagi, my family took a trip to the Sendai Aquarium Umi no Mori. The aquarium was nice and the trip itself is very fun, but the Only In Japan moment that I saw happened before we even got into the building. When we arrived, there's a little bit of a line already. This as just before the Aquarium opened on a Sunday, so it wasn't a total surprise as that had to be one of the most busy times for museums, zoos, and other family fun activity centers in any city. We stood in a line that wound around a wheelchair ramp for a few minutes to get tickets and then moved to the much longer line for the entrance.

    I didn't bother trying to count the people in line, but it went back and forth across the front of the building many times, turning into a curved row at least five lines deep. Even with all of these people in this long, complicated line, there were no markers. There were no barriers demanding where one part of the line would go or where any another must not go. It was not marked in tape on the sidewalk or by cones and poles or any other means that I've seen in Japan for delineating such details. Instead, people were just listening and following directions.

Check out that curving line. No barriers or markers. Just people being decent. Amazing! Only in Japan.

    There was only one aquarium staff member outside at the very end of the line. In a stark difference from similar line management jobs I've seen in Sendai at different points before the pandemic, this guy wasn't just holding a sign saying the line ends here. He was engaging with the people as they came up and telling them that this is where the line would be ending with no sign in sight. He might also have been reminding them to behave and be nice, because everyone was behaving and being nice, but I'm not entirely sure. In a tidy queue, we walked into the building. No one rushed or bumped or cut. I didn't see one instance of anyone grumbling at the size of the line. Everyone who came to the aquarium that day and saw the length of the line also noted that it would take time and that they should stand and move when appropriate.

    It was a lovely thing to see in Japan, and after 13 and a half years, it is one of these special random moments that remind me why I love living here. It was one of the least stressful times I've had in a large group of people in my whole life. I felt more at home in a line in Sendai moving quietly and thoughtfully on that I have outside of family gatherings the last few times I visited the states.