Yesterday we bought some rice

We were walking through Nezu. There was a calmness. On every corner there was a temple, a cemetery, a few art galleries, lots of houses, a flower store and a rice cake store.

Then, in a side street, in front of this store, I hesitate: I want to know what he sells, in those oversized bags. I pull out my phone, the translation app is my best friend these days. It works that I write, I translate, and then I pick up the phone and show the screen to the other person. Sometimes the other person does the same thing on their phone and a conversation comes up, let's say. Not that the system is smooth.

We ask for three ounces of rice, the gentleman smiles amused. I ask if I can take some pictures. He asks if we want the brown or the white rice. He fishes the rice out of the bag, puts it on a scale that has a kind of funnel, with which he then carefully pours the rice into a bag. He does not leave a grain out. Finally, with a machine, he welds the plastic of the bag and seals it: then he puts an austere, black label on it, with several golden kanji.

We pay in cash, as I do in many small businesses. Those who receive the money generally treat it with care: the change is almost always passed back to me with the bills fanned out, that it is easy to see how many there are. Maybe it's a formality, I don't know, maybe a habit.