reverse culture shock: "irassyaimase" at the store

Coming back from the States, I now find it odd when I go to the store and the clerks say, "Irassyaimase! (Welcome to the store!)", without looking at me. It's as if they were in a musical; when one of them says it, it's the clue. The others, each of them, say it (or sing it, almost, in this particular Japanese-store-clerk intonation) while not stopping whatever they are doing even though they haven't even seen the customer who just came in. Once I was at a store and a clerk started blurting out while putting out some stuff onto a shelf, "We offer a variety of gift ideas for Valentine's Day. Please do take a look!" It bewildered me, as it only seemed as though she was talking to the shelf. That's what she was looking at. The shelf. She didn't even glance at me for one second. But because there was nobody else around her except me, I understood she was talking to me.

The problem is that when someone talks to you without really talking to you, you don't know if or how you should respond. It was much simpler in the States. Clerks greet and talk to you, if they want to, and you know they are because they are clearly looking at you. "Hi, can I help you find anything?" they say. "Oh, no thanks. I'm just looking." Somebody talks to you. You respond. Done. Clear and easy.

But maybe it's not the case in Japan.

I go to another store and walk up to the second floor. It's deserted on a weekday afternoon, but they somehow have five clerks hovering around. They see me and say, one by one, "Irassyaimase!", and--out of habit--I respond, to each, by nodding and mumbling, "Oh, hi." Then I see their puzzled faces and realize it was, if not inappropriate, unexpected. I think of what would be most appropriate and decide most people probably just ignore the greetings, or maybe simply just acknowledge but not really respond.

This avoidance of direct interaction slightly bothers me, though I understand this is deeply rooted in our culture. There's the traditional notion of customers being superior to store clerks; thus the superior need not bother to respond to words from the inferior. But more prevailing than that here, I believe, is the Japanese tendency to avoid conflict and confrontation. Rather than directly staring into eyes and throwing messages at each other, we prefer to look sideways and mumble off, almost to ourselves, euphemistic words that imply what we want to say. This often makes it difficult to get points across, but it's also a virtue, a wisdom to cooperate peacefully in small communities in this small island country. It's about being polite and respectful. It's about keeping enough distance not to step into other people's territories before getting permission. You know, like cats looking away, trying to make peace, and, after some time, softly sitting down beside you without you noticing.

I leave and walk into the next store, and when the clerk welcomes me, I curl my lips into a smile without a word, trying to keep the balance of ignoring and acknowledging. I don't know if I managed the task of juggling those two together. I couldn't tell, for I didn't really look at her face--just a brief glance, half a second. If I failed, well, she just let it pass. After all, that's the whole point of this ambivalent communication, not to cause conflict, right?