“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”: Adventures of a Curious Character

The waitress appeared with our coffee, and Marshak lost his bet.

It turned out I was the only guy who had learned some Japanese—even Wheeler, who had told everybody they ought to learn Japanese, hadn’t learned any—and I couldn’t stand it any more. I had read about the Japanese-style hotels, which were supposed to be very different from the hotel we were staying in.

The next morning I called the Japanese guy who was organizing everything up to my room. “I would like to stay in a Japanese-style hotel.”

“I am afraid that it is impossible, Professor Feynman.”

I had read that the Japanese are very polite, but very obstinate: You have to keep working on them. So I decided to be as obstinate as they, and equally polite. It was a battle of minds: It took thirty minutes, back and forth.

“Why do you want to go to a Japanese-style hotel?”

“Because in this hotel, I don’t feel like I’m in Japan.”

“Japanese-style hotels are no good. You have to sleep on the floor.”

“That’s what I want; I want to see how it is.”

“And there are no chairs—you sit on the floor at the table.”

“It’s OK. That will be delightful. That’s what I’m looking for.”

Finally he owns up to what the situation is: “If you’re in another hotel, the bus will have to make an extra stop on its way to the meeting.”

“No, no!” I say. “In the morning, I’ll come to this hotel, and get on the bus here.”

“Well, then, OK. That’s fine.” That’s all there was to it—except it took half an hour to get to the real problem.

He’s walking over to the telephone to make a call to the other hotel when suddenly he stops; everything is blocked up again. It takes another fifteen minutes to discover that this time it’s the mail. If there are any messages from the meeting, they already have it arranged where to deliver them.

“It’s OK,” I say. “When I come in the morning to get the bus, I’ll look for any messages for me here at this hotel.”

“All right. That’s fine.” He gets on the telephone and at last we’re on our way to the Japanese-style hotel.

As soon as I got there, I knew it was worth it: It was so lovely! There was a place at the front where you take your shoes off, then a girl dressed in the traditional outfit—the obi—with sandals comes shuffling out, and takes your stuff; you follow her down a hallway which has mats on the floor, past sliding doors made of paper, and she’s going cht-cht-cht-cht with little steps. It was all very wonderful!

We went into my room and the guy who arranged everything got all the way down, prostrated, and touched his nose to the floor; she got down and touched her nose to the floor. I felt very awkward. Should I touch my nose to the floor, too?

They said greetings to each other, he accepted the room for me, and went out. It was a really wonderful room. There were all the regular, standard things that you know of now, but it was all new to me. There was a little alcove with a painting in it, a vase with pussywillows nicely arranged, a table along the floor with a cushion nearby, and at the end of the room were two sliding doors which opened onto a garden.

The lady who was supposed to take care of me was a middle-aged woman. She helped me undress and gave me a yukata, a simple blue and white robe, to wear at the hotel.

I pushed open the doors and admired the lovely garden, and sat down at the table to do a little work.

I wasn’t there more than fifteen or twenty minutes when something caught my eye. I looked up, out towards the garden, and I saw, sitting at the entrance to the door, draped in the corner, a very beautiful young Japanese woman, in a most lovely outfit.

I had read a lot about the customs of Japan, and I had an idea of why she was sent to my room. I thought, “This might be very interesting!”

She knew a little English. “Would you rike to see the garden?” she asked.

I put on the shoes that went with the yukata I was wearing, and we went out into the garden. She took my arm and showed me everything.

It turned out that because she knew a little English, the hotel manager thought I would like her to show me the garden—that’s all it was. I was a bit disappointed, of course, but this was a meeting of cultures, and I knew it was easy to get the wrong idea.

Sometime later the woman who took care of my room came in and said something—in Japanese—about a bath. I knew that Japanese baths were interesting and was eager to try it, so I said, “Hai.”

I had read that Japanese baths are very complicated. They use a lot of water that’s heated from the outside, and you aren’t supposed to get soap into the bathwater and spoil it for the next guy.

I got up and walked into the lavatory section, where the sink was, and I could hear some guy in the next section with the door closed, taking a bath. Suddenly the door slides open: the man taking the bath looks to see who is intruding. “Professor!” he says to me in English. “That’s a very bad error to go into the lavatory when someone else has the bath!” It was Professor Yukawa!

He told me that the woman had no doubt asked do I want a bath, and if so, she would get it ready for me and tell me when the bathroom was free. But of all the people in the world to make that serious social error with, I was lucky it was Professor Yukawa!

That Japanese-style hotel was delightful, especially when people came to see me there. The other guys would come in to my room and we’d sit on the floor and start to talk. We wouldn’t be there more than five minutes when the woman who took care of my room would come in with a tray of candies and tea. It was as if you were a host in your own home, and the hotel staff was helping you to entertain your guests. Here, when you have guests at your hotel room, nobody cares; you have to call up for service, and so on.

Eating meals at the hotel was also different. The girl who brings in the food stays with you while you eat, so you’re not alone. I couldn’t have too good a conversation with her, but it was all right. And the food is wonderful. For instance, the soup comes in a bowl that’s covered. You lift the cover and there’s a beautiful picture: little pieces of onion floating in the soup just so; it’s gorgeous. How the food looks on the plate is very important.

I had decided that I was going to live Japanese as much as I could. That meant eating fish. I never liked fish when I was growing up, but I found out in Japan that it was a childish thing: I ate a lot of fish, and enjoyed it. (When I went back to the United States the first thing I did was go to a fish place. It was horrible—just like it was before. I couldn’t stand it. I later discovered the answer: The fish has to be very, very fresh—if it isn’t, it gets a certain taste that bothers me.)

One time when I was eating at the Japanese-style hotel I was served a round, hard thing, about the size of an egg yolk, in a cup of some yellow liquid. So far I had eaten everything in Japan, but this thing frightened me: it was all convoluted, like a brain looks. When I asked the girl what it was, she replied “kuri.” That didn’t help much. I figured it was probably an octopus egg, or something. I ate it, with some trepidation, because I wanted to be as much in Japan as possible. (I also remembered the word “kuri” as if my life depended on it—I haven’t forgotten it in thirty years.)

The next day I asked a Japanese guy at the conference what this convoluted thing was. I told him I had found it very difficult to eat. What the hell was “kuri”?

“It means ‘chestnut.’ ” he replied.

Some of the Japanese I had learned had quite an effect. One time, when the bus was taking a long time to get started, some guy says, “Hey, Feynman! You know Japanese; tell ’em to get going!”

I said, “Hayaku! Hayaku! Ikimasho! Ikimasho!”—which means, “Let’s go! Let’s go! Hurry! Hurry!”

I realized my Japanese was out of control. I had learned these phrases from a military phrase book, and they must have been very rude, because everyone at the hotel began to scurry like mice, saying, “Yes, sir! Yes sir!” and the bus left right away.

The meeting in Japan was in two parts: one was in Tokyo, and the other was in Kyoto. In the bus on the