The Wrong Slippers

Ella Brooks was twenty-four, and Japan was her first trip outside the United States. She won it in a contest at work, and she was excited and nervous at the same time. For weeks, she read about Japanese customs. She learned to say "thank you" and "excuse me" in Japanese, and she even practiced bowing in front of the mirror.

Her hotel in Kyoto was not really a hotel. It was a ryokan, a small traditional inn with paper doors and floors of tatami, a kind of thick straw mat. The inn belonged to Mrs. Ono, a small woman in her seventies. She lived there with her grandson, Kenji, who was nineteen and studied English at the university.

At the door, Ella took off her shoes, just like the books said. Mrs. Ono gave her a pair of soft brown slippers, and Ella felt very proud of herself. "I'm doing everything right," she thought.

That didn't last long. An hour later, she went to the bathroom, and inside there was another pair of slippers, green plastic ones. Ella put them on. When she finished, she walked back down the hall and into her room with the green slippers still on her feet.

Kenji saw her and tried very hard not to laugh. "Excuse me," he said kindly. "Those are toilet slippers. They stay in the bathroom." Then he pointed at the floor. "And on the tatami, we don't wear any slippers. Only socks." Ella looked down. She was standing on the tatami in the toilet slippers, and her face turned red.

That evening, there was a second problem. Mrs. Ono prepared a hot bath for her in a big wooden tub. Ella got into the water and washed her hair right there, with lots of shampoo. Later, Mrs. Ono looked at the water full of bubbles. She didn't say anything. She only smiled and quietly emptied the tub.

Kenji explained it the next morning. In Japan, people wash first, outside the tub, sitting on a small stool. Then they get into the clean, hot water just to relax. And often the next person uses the same water.

"I'm a terrible guest," Ella said at breakfast. "No," Kenji said. "You're a guest who is learning. That's different." Mrs. Ono put more rice in Ella's bowl and said something in Japanese. "My grandmother says everybody makes mistakes on the first day," Kenji translated. "When she visited America, she forgot to leave a tip in a restaurant, and the waiter followed her down the street." Ella laughed so hard that she almost dropped her chopsticks.

Ella had one big plan for her trip. She wanted to see the bamboo forest in Arashiyama, in the west of the city. She knew it from hundreds of photos: tall green bamboo on both sides of a narrow path, with soft light coming down from above. But she also knew that by nine in the morning, the path was full of tourists.

"You have to be there at sunrise," Kenji said. "Then it's quiet. I can take you there by bike, if you want." They agreed to leave at five the next morning, and Ella set two alarms on her phone.

But she was still very tired from the long flight, and she slept through both alarms. At a quarter past five, someone knocked on the paper door. It was Mrs. Ono with a cup of green tea. "Kenji is waiting," she said in careful English.

Ella got dressed in two minutes. Outside, the streets were empty and blue in the early light, and Kenji was waiting with two old bicycles. They rode through the sleeping city, past closed shops, small wooden houses and a quiet river. Ella wasn't a very good cyclist, and she almost fell twice, but she laughed the whole way.

After forty minutes, they arrived in Arashiyama. They left the bikes and walked to the start of the path. Then Ella stopped. The bamboo was much taller than in the photos, and it moved slowly in the wind with a soft sound, like the sea. The only other person on the path was an old man with a broom, who was sweeping the leaves.

Ella took out her phone to take a picture. Then she put it back in her pocket. She wanted to remember this with her eyes, not with her camera. They walked slowly to the end of the path and back, and for a long time, neither of them said a word.

When they returned to the inn, Mrs. Ono was waiting with breakfast. Ella took off her shoes at the door and put on the brown slippers. At the door of her room, she left the slippers outside and stepped onto the tatami in her socks. Mrs. Ono watched her and nodded, and Kenji clapped.

On her last day, Ella bowed to Mrs. Ono at the door, and this time she did it perfectly. Mrs. Ono gave her a small package in blue paper. Inside, there was a pair of green plastic slippers and a note from Kenji: "For your bathroom in America. Please don't wear them in the kitchen." Ella laughed all the way to the train station.