kind of offended my first hobo

Homeless folks and panhandlers are a pretty rare sight to see in Japan. You spot the occasional guy sleeping in the subway station but...they never talk to you, and for all you know they're just night owls who've missed their last train.

Well, yesterday morning, as I'm heading to the bus stop, I meet my first hobo in Japan. Keep this in mind: I've been here a year and a half, living in a decent-sized city in Japan, and I have never encountered a bum. I encountered several a week when I was attending college in LA.

So, I'm walking, and this guy comes up to me and asks me for the time. Too sleepy to even think numbers in Japanese, I flash him my phone. He thanks me, but walks awkwardly next to me for a beat...and then he asks me for change. But, he uses a word for change I don't understand. He tries to explain: "You know. Change. For example, would you happen to have...500 yen or something...?"

[ For the record, 500 yen is, with the current craptastic rate of exchange, like FIVE DOLLARS. This shows you how having $5 in coin-form rather than bill-form can change your perception of its worth (and thus your sense of attachment to it). This also gives you an idea of how spendthrift Japanese society is, on the whole. ]

Once I realize what he's asking me, I'm quite shocked. His Japanese has been infallibly polite. Sure, his appearance is slightly disheveled -- crooked teeth and a bandage around one injured hand -- but I still had had no clue that he was begging for change.

In my surprise, I do an "Oh. What? OH! Oh." kind of thing. He jumps in with his own heavily accented English, "Ah, sorry, sorry, sorry..."

The reluctance on my face as I contemplate such a large piece of money turns his curiosity to other things. He wants to walk and chat with me until my bus comes. We sit on a bench, and he pulls out a folder of poetry he's written. It is all very sweet and nice and idealistic -- vast expanses of blue sky, birds flying free between the clouds, idyllic aspects of the natural , etc. He then pulls out a rainbow collection of markers and asks me to write a message in his notebook (in Japanese). I take the his notebook, and I can't help staring at his bandaged hand.

I'm struggling to write something nice and inspirational and not totally douchey, so he peppers me with personal questions in the meantime (personal for an American, maybe not so much for a Japanese person). "What's your ethnicity?" and "Do you have a boyfriend?" and then, "How old are you?" I tell him my age, after which he remarks, "Ahhh, so young! How old do you think I am?" I tell him I'm horrible at this sort of thing (really), then I venture, "Thirty...... (shocked look comes over his face)...three?" He looks crestfallen and abruptly says, in English, "NO." He's 27.

I lie through my teeth and assure him that, after reading his poems, I was thrown by his mature writing style and way of thinking about the world. I don't tell him that, once I'm close to him, I can see the weathering strain of hard times in his body, his posture, his hair, his face, and the delicate skin beneath his eyes.