By Helen
I love maps. My love of maps has been ridiculed by pretty much everyone I've ever travelled with. Criticism such as "You look like a tourist" falls on deaf ears and suggestions like "We can just ask someone" will receive a defiant glare. I will not leave my youth hostel without at least one map tucked safely in my backpack.
This map is always painstakingly re-creased to include my origin and that day's various exciting destinations to prevent having to constantly unfold and refold the map. While others may be embarrassed to carry around an origami map, I will shamelessly stand on the busiest street peering at the backside of a paper crane trying to determine whether I need to turn left or right. I am female and I take pride in my sense of direction, my ability to read maps and my ability to fold them. Well I did, until I came to Japan.
I have no less than 10 maps of Osaka. They are all the free kind that is thrust in front of you if you ask for directions at the train station or the local tourist information bureau. Some are public transportation guides, some are for tourist hotspots and while it is fantastic that so many maps are available in English, in general, they are at best, vague.
Coming from Perth, Australia, a city with 2 main roads, Osaka was always going to be a geographical challenge for me. Even the smallest country town in Japan is a veritable maze of roads, rivers, mountains, rice fields and roads masquerading as footpaths. Having studied geography at university, I have enormous sympathy for anybody attempting to map the endless confusion that is Osaka. This is why it's not surprising to me that your average tourist map is a little oversimplified. It will clearly reveal the main body of water blindly following its cemented path through the city but fail to acknowledge the existence of numerous tributaries that are there purely to deceive a lost foreigner. Living in Japan has meant that I've had to admit defeat and ask for directions quite frequently, despite the 10 paper cranes lined with roads, parks and rivers cluttering my bag.
I soon found that Japanese people also do not rely on those freely available maps. On occasion I have poked a map under the nose of that elusive Japanese person who actually has enough time to stand still for 2 seconds and asked them to pinpoint my location. I have never once come across someone who could show me even my approximate location on one of those maps. If I am lucky enough to be able to explain where I need to go, I generally have to follow directions such as "go straight until you see a Lawson opposite a 711, then turn left, go straight for about 3 or 4 traffic lights and when you get to the pachinko parlour next to the karaoke bar, ask somebody else". Even though I have always found what I am looking for from directions like this, I would still love to know precisely where I was on that map.
Apart from the foldable map there exists another kind of map in Japan that is both free and often in English. It is the map on the wall in the station. I swear my ability to get my bearings is skewed purely from being in the northern hemisphere. The sun just isn't where it's supposed to be. While above-ground-Japan is difficult to navigate, subterranean-Japan (especially when battling 50 others to see a map and claustrophobia is an issue) is virtually impossible. When underground with no sun as a guide at all, most people, myself included, have no ability to orientate themselves. The obvious solution is to use the map on the wall at the station. These maps are usually extremely well detailed and in both Japanese and English. With one small catch. They don't always have north at the top.
One particular day I was on my way to a job interview. Just to get a visual perspective of where I was going I decided to compare the written directions I had from my prospective employer, with the map in the station. I studied the map until I had some reference points to look for once above ground without thinking that a reference point below ground might also be useful. Having deduced that north was to my right (north being where I needed to go) I headed towards the exit. The 3 signs above my head blaring "East exit" were clearly too far away for little old myopic me. Such is my faith in maps I chose to ignore all other relevant information around me! Luckily I didn't go too far out of the way before my common sense finally kicked in. Despite the setback the rewards on this day were twofold. Firstly I got the job and secondly I learnt never to assume that the top of a map is north.
After all these mis-haps I have thought to myself that maybe I should fork out some money for a decent map. The maps in the local bookstore have every minor road, shrine and 711 marked on them. I haven't seen many of these purchasable maps in English, however, these days I recognise most of the kanji for places in Osaka anyway. So why is it that I haven't bought one yet? Maybe it's because the thought of knowing exactly where I'm going saddens me in a way. If I knew all the streets of Osaka inside out, I might as well be at home. There's always a small adventure involved in getting myself thoroughly lost. Give me the vague map and I'll have a slight structure to work from but I get to fill in the details with my experiences. If I know exactly where I'm going, where's the challenge?
