In America I bought a used Jeep to cross the country. I came out of a grocery store and found a small rubber duck on my windshield. In Japan, an unexplained object on your car is a message. Your parking is wrong. Your lights were left on. Someone wishes to discuss something. I prepared for negotiation. The duck had googly eyes. Under it was a small note. It said, "Nice Jeep!" That was all. No name. No demand. No explanation. I stood in the parking lot, holding the duck, looking for the person responsible. There was no person. There is never a person. That is the rule. I have since learned the rules, because I asked a man at a gas station, and he explained them like they were normal. If you see a Jeep you like, you put a duck on it. That is the entire system. No registry. No points. No reward. Strangers buy bags of small ducks with their own money, and drive around, and give them to cars they will never see again. Also, when two Jeeps pass each other, the drivers lift two fingers off the wheel. The first time it happened to me, I did not understand, and I waved with my entire arm, like a man seeing off a ship. He honked kindly. I have been practicing the two fingers since. It is harder than it looks. It must say "I see you" and also "this is nothing" at the same time. In Japan we have a word for gifts: giri. A gift creates a debt. The debt must be repaid. This is courtesy, and it is also arithmetic. The duck creates nothing. The duck asks for nothing. I could not accept this. So yesterday I bought a bag of twelve ducks. I found a Jeep outside a hardware store. Older than mine. Well used. Loved. I placed one duck on the windshield, and my hand was shaking, like my first calligraphy in front of a teacher. I did not leave a note. My English is not good enough for what I wanted to say. The duck says it. My duck sits on my dashboard now. People here call that a duck pond. Some Jeeps carry thirty ducks. Forty. Displayed like medals. They are not medals. They are proof that strangers saw you, and it cost them a dollar, and they did it anyway. Americans have more love than they know what to do with. So they leave it on windshields. Mine guards the dashboard now. Eleven ducks to go.