Today I did the unthinkable. I looked like a crazy clown in a foreign land without the regular existence of clowns. Willingly!! I never in a million years ever saw myself doing what I did today, but I did with great joy and enthusiasm. For more context, here’s the backstory.
As a child, I was the most extreme introvert you will ever meet. I would always hide behind my mother with friends and family friends. I would not talk much at all, not even to my friends. I was so quiet and very against public actions and nerve-racking experiences. I was even held back a year from beginning my school years out of worry that I would be destroyed by public school. To this day, I am still pretty shy in nature. All the math doesn’t add up to what I did today, where I was today.
Here I am, in Japan- a foreign country with people who have a very different culture and speak a very different language from what I can speak. Despite all that craziness, I was willing to do something pretty ridiculous in the name of working on a project. You see, today was built with purpose, the tagline: “Think to build and build to think.”
We were to follow a randomly picked objective as a purpose for our contraption to serve. Each group was given around 3,000 yen or so to build using the given materials we were to get at a local dollar store, Daiso. (Yes, quite literally a dollar store where there are in fact 100 yen items.) We were to try and take the ambiguous prompt and think outside the box and give this basic, ambiguous idea some flair and uniqueness. Our team’s prompt? To try and record the various emotions of people… at the Shibuya Scramble Crossing. For context, that is the world’s busiest crossing with enough people crossing in two minutes to fill a football stadium.
Without thinking twice, I jumped into the challenge with my team. Instantaneously, we were brainstorming ideas. As it’s said, the first idea is usually not the greatest idea. This was true, but what was curiously surprising is how fast ideas and be generated and spit out. Lots of ideas were flowing from sheet mental creation, and more were created stemming from previously said ideas. In fact, passing certain objects at the store triggered even more refined ideas. We had 25 minutes to shop for the ideas we needed. Before we knew it, time was up but we had our idea: taking a foam mat to my torso with 5 hooked bins stuck through cut out holes, each bin labeled colored paper that is associated with an emotion which corresponds to the color of plastic balls we had in a separate bin as mobile storage. Trust me, it looks more wacky than it sounds. Now I had to travel around Tokyo with this contraption strapped to me (and the crowded subway system)!
I took this challenge with admirable enthusiasm. My class was quite shocked at my willingness to do this, and we all thought it was quite a humorous situation. Everywhere I went, I was getting crazy looks, dirty looks, and confused looks. This didn’t faze me. I wore a big smile and carried on to the crossing.
When it was go-time, it was quite difficult to start trying to try and get participants in our project. I was at a mental black. I didn’t know where to start! However, with a couple of brave souls who tried, the small victories gave me enough courage to speak up louder and be more confident with my advertising. There were roles that each member assimilated into. I became the recruiter, shouting for people or join in on the project and try it out. My partner Lily was the recorder. She was jotting down observations from improvements to feedback, to things she noticed. My partner Ko was helping communicate and advertise the game to the interested people. Even though it was hard at first, we slowly gained momentum and got a surprising number of people to participate. We successfully tracked the emotions of the square, and I’m happy to report that the most common emotion was Joy. The least common was angry. In the time that we had to advertise, I learned a lot from what I observed. Here is what I found as we went on, and at the end, when I reflect:
This whole gig was a little embarrassing. It sorta of looks like we were beggars or clowns with the cheaply and haphazardly made contraption we had, and thus many people didn’t take us seriously. We had to accept the fact and run with it with confidence. Bigger smiles got bigger results.
On that note, confidence is key. Wearing a big smile goes a long way. Smiling and standing up straight and speaking loudish and yet gently was what really got the people to come over. We had more Japanese people than Americans come over, and that was interesting since we noticed Japanese people were quieter and more reserved. Having a friendly demeanor and great smile, coupled with the excitement, really helps bring them in and have fun with us.
Plus, showing lots of emotion and excitement conveyed our gratitude for their participation and made them happy.
We noticed that making something simple, effective, and versatile (like how our thing was built super fast and was super mobile) was AWESOME. I could move around with ease and adapt to our situation well.
Lastly, sometimes grabbing crazy amounts of attention is a good thing!! It gets people looking our way and then curious about what we are doing. Plus, it’s just fun to spice up someone’s day with a crazy sighting of something new.
In the end, this was an amazing experience and I’m glad I did it. I really try to grow myself and my abilities by riding outside my comfort zone. This activity credibly took me outside of my comfort zone. I was in a foreign place speaking a foreign language in the busiest center of the world, all the while looking like a clown. Despite all of that, our project was a big success and worked super well! My little, shy self would be super freaked out to see what I’ve done, but also quite proud of how far I’ve come. I, myself, happen to be really proud of my team going as far as we did and being up for the challenge, too. We did amazing!!