ArticleKey#31: Hospitality, Part I - An Instant Wonder

In most cases, it takes time, effort and significant resources to create a wonder. Even Nature, sometimes referred to as “the greatest artist that has ever been”, needs decades to grow trees, millennia - to create caves, ravines and lakes, and millions of years - to produce giant stalactites or stalagmites. Manmade wonders are quicker to appear but it's still a matter of years to write a book or a symphony, and it would take several centuries to complete something as distinguished and conspicuous as a medieval cathedral. In comparison, human attention to each other is so quick and seemingly “lightweight” that it's easy to overlook. Unless in Japan, that is, where people would offer their umbrella to a complete stranger who doesn't seem to have one - and it's pouring wolves and leopards - or literally walk such a stranger, whose cellphone is mourning its recently deceased battery, to hir lodgings in a maze of a residential neighbourhood. Heartwarming and utterly mind-boggling, such and similar examples of spontaneous people's solidarity are definitely wonderful and, arguably, bordering on a wonder. Nara Visitor Centre&Inn decisively crosses that border.

Successful hotels are reputable ones - otherwise, they would have had very few paying customers, and remain unsuccessful. Some are known for their great location, others - for modern amenities or friendly prices. Reasonably good customer service would be thrown into the mix in most cases. At the very least, the front desk staff would answer basic questions, advise on a nearby store and/or restaurant, provide a simple map of the town, and explain how to get to a nearby tourist info centre. The hotel in Nara combines all of the above, and - as its name suggests - there isn't much to explain because the big "I" is just across from the front desk. Even in the age of Google Maps, such “I” centres are still important, even if only for the human touch. The one in question makes sure its human touch is well supported by a full-fledged educational program that presents Japanese culture to the visitors in a close and personal way.  

It's one thing to look at incomprehensible kanji and try to memorize their arbitrarily assigned sounds and meanings, it's quite another to be given a brush and an inkpot, and to be shown how to apply the brush to a piece of high-quality paper. It's much easier to relate to a kanji when it's dissected: its every component is numbered, and the number indicates the respective line's order of appearance on paper. About 15-20 basic symbols can be squeezed into a 30-minutes' lesson, most of them corresponding to such all-important words as “house”, “tree”, “fire”, "water"… Then there is a "graduation gift" - the student's name painted by a professional calligrapher, each part of the name transcribed into a meaningful symbol, thus producing several key words associated with the name.

The second part of the lesson is devoted to origami, and it consists of an intense interaction between the clumsy student and the smiling teacher who waits patiently for a piece of paper to be folded into a near complete mess, then applies her magic and turns the mess into a cute deer (it's a Nara program, after all!) that ends up as yet another gift for the student. Finally, it's cosplay time, and students turn into actors (one could choose to participate in any part of the program but the majority of the guests predictably chooses all three). All costumes are Japanese-themed but some are less stereotypical than the others

Upon checking into a hotel in a new city, one might occasionally feel too tired to go out and start the exploration right away. Nara Visitor Centre&Inn presents a more than worthy alternative, likely unparalleled.