MotA

There's a word in Japanese that I need Americans to know. Osekkai. It means helping someone who did not ask for help. Giving advice nobody wanted. Fixing a problem that belongs to a stranger. In Japan, it's a little bit rude. We even have a polite phrase for refusing it: "yokei na osewa." Roughly: "That's unnecessary help, thank you." I'm telling you this because I have come to a conclusion. America is the osekkai capital of the world. Here is my evidence. All of it comes from Japanese people I know who have lived in your country. A man in aisle 9 of a Home Depot explained cordless drills to my coworker for twenty minutes. Brands. Batteries. Torque. A story about his brother-in-law. He did not work at Home Depot. He has never worked at Home Depot. He was just there. My coworker went back six times that year. The man was there every time. (Texas) A woman at a grocery store took the cantaloupe out of my friend's cart, smelled it, put it back on the pile, and handed him a different one. She did not say one word. She did not work there either. (Ohio) A stranger at a gas station told my cousin his back tire looked low. Then he got down on the pavement and checked it. Then he filled it. Then he checked the other three, "since I'm down here anyway." (Kansas) My sister-in-law tried to parallel park on a busy street. Three men on the sidewalk stopped what they were doing and talked her in like a pit crew. "Cut it! Cut it hard! You got it! YOU GOT IT!" When she made it, they applauded and walked away. She has never seen them again. She thinks about them weekly. (Illinois) A man at a Little League game walked over and told my brother he was holding the bat wrong. My brother was 41. He was not playing. He was holding his son's bat while his son tied his shoe. He fixed his grip anyway. (Pennsylvania) A woman at a Target told my wife's friend that her baby needed a hat. Then she went and bought the baby a hat. (Minnesota) I laughed at all of these. For years. Then my coworker's daughter, Riko, got a job in Denver. She was 26. She lived alone. Across the hall lived a woman named Arlene. 74. A retired school nurse. Widowed. And, as Riko put it, "the most osekkai human being in the state of Colorado." In October, Arlene told Riko her coat was too thin. She taped a note to Riko's door explaining the recycling schedule. With diagrams. She asked who Riko's doctor was. Riko didn't have one. Arlene looked very worried about this for a whole week. She gave Riko her phone number, "for emergencies." Riko thanked her politely and had absolutely no intention of ever using it. Riko told her father, on the phone, that her neighbor was very kind and a little bit exhausting. In January, Riko got sick. A cough. Then a fever. Then she couldn't get out of bed. She didn't tell anyone. She didn't call in. In Japan, the worst thing you can do is be a burden. She thought she would sleep it off. On the third day, Arlene looked out at the parking lot. It had snowed twice that week. Every car in the lot had been dug out and scraped. Except one. Riko's car was still buried. Three days of snow. Untouched. Arlene knocked. No answer. She knocked again. She called the building manager. She told him to open the door, right now, and that she would explain later. They found Riko on the bathroom floor. Fever of 104. She could barely say her own name. Pneumonia. The doctor said another day or two alone and it could have been much, much worse. Arlene rode in the ambulance. She stayed in the hospital all night, in the plastic chair, in the coat she had told Riko to buy. When Riko woke up, the first thing she did was cry and apologize. For the trouble. For the night. For everything. Arlene took her hand. "Honey, this isn't trouble," she said. "I've been waiting since October for you to need something." Then she said the sentence Riko wrote down that night, on the back of a hospital menu, and still has. "Where I come from, minding your own business is how people die alone." Riko lives in Tokyo again now. Last month, a young man moved into the apartment next to hers. On his second day, she knocked on his door and told him his coat was too thin. He looked at her like she was out of her mind. She says that's how she knows it's working. So, America. You're the man in aisle 9 who doesn't work there. You're the lady who knows a better cantaloupe. You're a retired nurse looking out a window at one car nobody has dug out. The whole world thinks you're a little bit nosy. Please. Never mind your own business.