Kyoto: Marshall

Japanese culture values the good of the group over the will of the individual. A good person learns to submit. A good warrior is loyal to his regiment. A good child obeys his parent. We each consent to follow the rules.

So it was especially distressing for our wonderful guide Joyama when one of our group of twenty went missing at the Fushimi Inari in Kyoto. 

Through our audio earpieces, Joyama’s amplified voice had clearly and forcefully told us the instructions. We must stay together. If we get separated somehow, meet at the entrance gate at 11:15. She then counted us and led us through the shrine. We finished at 11:00 and waited another quarter hour for Marshall. Marshall’s wife said she lost track of him. Maybe, in this sacred locus of hidden desires, she had wished him away. She showed Marshall’s photo to one young man in our group who offered to check the toilets. I snickered to JG that he got too comfortable on the heated Toto seat. We all waited another half hour until our charter bus driver called our guide to say that Marshall had turned up at the bus. We walked back to the bus parking lot. Instead of having 45 minutes of free time for shopping or street food, we stood around waiting for Marshall, expecting him to show up any time. As we boarded the bus, many of us out of sorts at having to stand around, Marshall’s voice boomed out from the back. “I’d just like to apologize to everyone,” he said. “To be fair, I had to answer Nature’s call.”  It was such an example of sorry-not sorry from this entitled rich white guy. He still did not get it. It was not about Nature’s call; it was about him not following directions. I wondered what we could have done better.  I ended up believing it was cultural.  In the end, he cost us all some time and our poor guide was distraught.