Portrait of a Nihonjin: 中村拓 さん

I met 中村拓 さん by chance earlier today as I was crossing the bridge on my way to Hirakata station. I have crossed the bridge many times over the semester but have never really paid attention to who was selling goods from the small moped stand before because I'm usually always in a hurry.

 

 However, today as I stopped to snap a picture of the river from the bridge I noticed 中村拓 さん's friendly and lighthearted demeanor. Even though it was cold and windy, and there were not many potential customers coming up the bridge at the time, 中村拓 さん was always smiling cheerfully. I also noticed that he was young, around my age, so I was wondering what kinds of good he was selling in the covered moped. I hoped that because he was just waiting and not too busy at the time, meant that he was more approachable as a photo subject.

It took a while (I shuffled around some benches pretending to take pictures of the scenery as I waited for him to finish with a group of obaasan customers) but I finally got up the courage to go up and talk to him. First I introduced myself and explained that I was doing this anthropology photo blog project for class. It was my first time trying to hold a conversation with a complete stranger in japanese so I was a little nervous, but he listened very patiently. He was very interested to hear that I was a Gaidaisei and we talked a little about where I was from and what classes I was taking.

When I asked to take some portraits of him, he immediately agreed, saying I should take as many as I wanted. Unfortunately, my camera batteries cut out at this point, so I was only able to squeeze a few shots in. Afterwards I asked him to kindly write down his name in Kanji so I could put it with this  blog and to show me what he was selling. To my surprise it was pastries (and not seafood as I had previously thought). I learned that this was just 中村拓 さん's part time job.

To be polite I selected a Dragonball Z cookie to buy, but 中村拓 さん promptly offered me a discount off of the written price.

It was only later that I realized how much more about 中村拓 さん I should found out, such as his age, hometown, how long he had been doing this job, etc. I think a combination of the camera battery problems and speaking to a stranger in japanese made me pretty flustered and I forgot most of my questions. However this was definitely a good first time experience with approaching unknown subjects directly and I learned a lot from my mistakes. If I ever see 中村拓 さん again on the bridge I'll be sure to say hi and make up the missing information here~