Yuna Nagaoka/Sumitada Moriguchi JPN 3Tw2(hangs on), sbs3Lo2A, sbs3T, thr3Lo(step), thr3S(2ft) death spiral 3, 4Li4, 5ALi3 TES 55.50, PCS 62.94, FS 118.44, TOTAL 181.50 into 1st #GPCHN# #GPFigure#

The San-ikukai hospital in Tokyo's Sumida ward is much like any other in the Japanese capital, save for one special feature. It has had, since March of last year, a small room on the first floor with a cradle (and nothing else), where mothers can anonymously deposit their babies, never to see them again. The hospital accepts babies up to four weeks old. They are then cared for until foster families or infant homes can be found. In July, the hospital announced it had just received its twentieth baby, most of whom had been left within 24 hours of birth. The scheme is the first in the capital but not the first in Japan. Since 2007, the Jikei hospital in Kumamoto City has been accepting unwanted babies in its 'Storks Cradle' programme (modelled on the German ‘Babyklappe’ scheme) and claims to have 'saved' 170 babies. ✍️ Philip Patrick Article | | @Pbp19Philip

In Japan, the most important word is "sumimasen." It means I'm sorry. It also means excuse me, thank you, and I apologize for existing in your general area. My coworker Matsuda says it about two hundred times a day. Last year, our company sent him to a small city in Wisconsin. Nobody warned him about "ope." "Ope" is what people in the Midwest say when they bump into you. Or almost bump into you. Or see you from across a parking lot and suspect that, someday, they might bump into you. It is sumimasen. In one syllable. He found this out on his third day, at the coffee station in a Kwik Trip. A woman reached for the creamer at the same time he did. WOMAN: "Ope! Sorry, just gonna sneak right past ya." MATSUDA: "Sumimasen." (bows) WOMAN: "Oh, you're fine!" MATSUDA: "Sumimasen." (He was now apologizing for her apology.) WOMAN: "No, hon, YOU'RE fine!" MATSUDA: (bows deeper) WOMAN: (steps back to give him room) "Ope—" MATSUDA: (steps back to give her room) "Sumimasen—" They both moved left. They both moved right. Then a man holding three Glazers came around the corner. MAN: "Ope." Now there were three. For six minutes, three adults apologized to each other at a coffee station in Wisconsin. Nobody had done anything wrong. Nobody could get to the coffee. Finally, an employee named Sheila came out from behind the counter and directed them like airplanes. SHEILA: "Okay, ope, folks. Ma'am, you go. Sir, you hold. Buddy, you're fine. Everybody's fine." Nobody believed her. They kept apologizing all the way to the register. Matsuda studied "ope" the way he studies everything. Carefully. With notes. He learned there are levels. "Ope" for a small bump. "Ope, sorry" for a medium bump. "Oh, ope, sorry about that, bud" for a spilled drink. And for a true disaster, a long, slow, sad "Ooooope." By his second month, he was fluent. He said "ope" when the printer jammed. When his coffee spilled. When his boss called him into the office and told him he'd been promoted. MATSUDA: "Ope." His boss thought about it. BOSS: "...Yeah. That's actually right." Meanwhile, the office was learning his word. A guy named Brad said "sumimasen" when he took the last donut. Then everybody started saying it. And one day in December, in a break room in Wisconsin, the two words collided, and a new one was born. "Ope-masen." They still say it. Matsuda left in June. "Ope-masen" did not. He told me the strangest part wasn't the word. It was what came after it. "In Japan, when you apologize, the other person apologizes back," he said. "It never ends. You bow until somebody gives up." "In Wisconsin, when you apologize, they say: 'You're fine.'" Matsuda is 44 years old. He said he couldn't remember anyone ever telling him he was fine. Not like that. Not a stranger. Not at a coffee station, by the creamer, for no reason at all. "Every single day," he said. "Somebody told me I was fine." He came home in June. Last week, on a packed train in Tokyo, he bumped into an old man in a gray suit and said, without thinking: "Ope." The old man looked at him for a long moment. Then, very quietly, he said: "...Ope?" Yesterday, I heard a teenager say it at a convenience store. It's spreading. Wisconsin, sumimasen.