Onegaishimaaaasu!

Tired, haggard commuters passed by, talking to their cell phones and friends in the cold early evening.
"Should I do it in Japanese, or in English?" I asked the office manager.
"It'll be great, you are native speaker!"
"That's not what I asked"
"Do you know how we say in Japanese?" She asked.
I bowed to her, offering a packet of tissues in both hands, arms extended in front of me and in my best Japanese accent said "Onegaishimaaaaaasu!". It more or less means please.
She laughed. "No, no, like this. 'Nova desu! Onegaishimaaaaasu!"
I shivered in the cold air, in spite of the day-glo green longcoat I was given especially for this task. As the next wave of commuters advanced past the ticket gates, I hung the bag of tissue packets on my left wrist, reached in, grabbed four or five with my right, and as the first of them passed by, proffered them up to the public.
In Japan, people are much happier dealing with real, live people, at least when it comes to business dealings. Also, in Japan, very few restrooms have paper towels to dry your hands, and some municipal toilets don't even have toilet paper. Thus, in the marriage of advertising handed out in person and hygene products is a happy one. People get much-needed tissues and businesses get an advertising venue. Anything from internet cafes to bars, to sleazy massage parlors to language schools advertise on little packets of tissues. Which brings us to the story so far. The last lesson of the day was a no-show, so I called downstairs to the J-staff in the office the office to find something to do.

"Eikaiwa no Nova desu! Onegaiitashimaaaaaaasu!" I called as I offered the packets to the shivering commuters.
"Eye-contact is best! And you should step forward with a little bit when you say it", said the office manager.
"Nova desu! Onegaishimaaaaaasu!"- I handed out another two packets -"There's a method to this?" I asked.
"Eikaiwa no Nova desu! Onegaishimaaaasu", she cried to the throng, and then turned to me, "Yes. You hand them out too fast. It scares them. You don't want to surprise them. More like this, see?"
All those years of University. All that time, frustration and money, and this is where it gets me. Handing out tissues in front of a podunk station on the local line. My only consolation was that some people do this as an actual job.
If you ever find yourself presented with an opportunity to pass out packets of tissues in Japan, remember: First, always say it in the Japanese marketing voice. It's hard to explain, but in Japan, when people are hawking some product or special discount in the street, they change their tone of voice. With women, it invariably goes up at least an octave. It's been explained to me that they can yell louder that way, which I don't necessarily believe, but it's certainly not because it's pleasant, so I'm satisfied with that explaination for the time being. Men are a little more subdued about it, they are mostly just expected to be genki.

Second, since you are offering a product, you must step forward and offer it. It's harder to avoid you that way, and people will take your tissues just to get you out of their face.
Third, and most important is bowing. I've started doing it since a few weeks after I get here. You just start to feel awkward when the 7-11 employees bow to you after buying a single beer, or some other insignificant transaction, and you can't help but follow along. I bow to everybody. Convience store clerks, McDonalds employees, the postman, the random guy in the street who gives me wrong directions. Can't help it. This is another affliction that doesn't effect the ones who don't speak the language. Bowing was originally a Chinese import, by way of Confucianism, and the idea was that you are showing your trust and respect towards a person when you present your head in a position when it could easily be chopped off. However, there have been studies in the field of Anthropology that suggest chimpanzees do the same thing. Chimps will kneel with their hands covering the top of their heads and lean forward toward their superior in a gesture of submission. I really should've studied anthropology in school. Amazing, such a civilized habit is rooted in the behavior of animals that fling their own shit at each other.