We have one person who speaks a little Japanese on this trip, another who speaks Mandarin relatively well, and two who speak neither. Despite this, I occasionally find that my hand gestures manage to trump the language skills of the others.
When we were looking for The Lockup in Shibuya, nobody could manage to communicate to a friendly police officer exactly what we were looking for, until I put my wrists together to indicate being handcuffed.
"Oh!" said the officer, "Lockup!" And then he gave us the directions. This was an especially risky maneuver on my part, as the handcuff gesture is generally not one you want to make with a policeman.
Today I was ordering some fries from McDonald's (I was still hungry after dinner, and have found that American fast food places serve as my late night snack source in Asia.). And in order to communicate "to go", I feigned leaving the room like a cartoon character. The server laughed at me, but I got my food in a bag.
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