Farewell Japan - feeling humbled, thank you
JAPAN RECAP
Japan, you have touched me. With language barriers, I am not confident that I have understood your culture accurately. From my observations, this is how I feel leaving your beautiful country.
If I had to choose one word (or two) to summarize my experience with your people, I would choose RESPECT. With a close second being PEACE.
I witnessed ZERO conflict in your country. Every child I saw seemed to be at peace. Every conversation I had was met with a smile and a slight bow, a head nod and a body notion of a bow.
I feel humbled by your country.
To see the mass population working with such EFFICIENCY is something I could not imagine without seeing it for myself. It seems there would be no crime here. People mind to themselves, people not bothered by others’ business, unless engaged. When spoken to, it seems people meet each other with a kind, helpful spirit.
It seems each individual is driven within themselves to become their best self.
Everywhere is clean. I did not witness any high-end housing but possibly it is farther out from downtown core areas? Or maybe all the high-end housing is in apartment buildings? Penthouse suites?
Leah told me that she saw a dog owner wiping up the pee after their dog peed outside. I mean… I have def never seen that before, that is over the top clean.
Interesting too that there is no tipping in Japan. Everything costs less than I had imagined. And one surprise is the giving of receipts. For every purchase, you get 3 receipts it seems. Seems a little archaic for such a forward country.
One other thing to note is that every single toilet in Japan, regardless of fancy restaurant or back alley, each toilet has a bidet, with countless options on how you prefer it. And almost every single toilet also has a heated seat.
To have a country with 124 MILLION inhabitants, who are at peace, content, and respectful is quite unbelievable. I wonder how they have accomplished this.
In my small town of Kelowna, population 161,000 – it is not possible to go downtown without witnessing countless people living on the streets, and high on drugs of some sort. Screaming, writhing, and full of inner conflict. I would say people are generally not at peace, though living in the most beautiful city in Canada. Drinking is heavily promoted in our city, being a wine region. Most kids try marijuana at a young age, and many smoke it regularly. I wonder, are we numbing ourselves in the West? I don’t know. It seems we are all drinking and eating, and medicating with Western medicine and I am not confident that we are in a peaceful place as a result.
I love my city, don’t read this the wrong way please. It is breathtakingly beautiful.
To put this in perspective
- Canada has just under 10 Million square kilometers of space with a population of almost 41 Million people
- Japan has 125 Million people in 378,000 square kilometers
That computes to 4 people per square kilometer in Canada, over 329 people per square kilometer in Japan. I saw high rises in every city in every direction as far as the eye could see. I guess that is how you achieve that number since not every square kilometer has anything built on it, so in the cities that number would be significantly higher.
Maybe on this trek through Asia, as I look to find my own inner peace, it may become slightly more clear as to how to achieve that.
AFTER I WROTE THE ABOVE PIECE, which I will leave as is – I met Oda (pronounced Uda) from Norway, in Fukuoka. She would bring some insight into some of my questions. She has been living in Japan 6 years and is doing her Masters here.
She explained that the Japanese culture is contained the way it is because of the education system. People are taught from a young age all about behavior. They do very much care what others think of them but in a different way from the West. She explained that these countries have horizontal individualism, which means each person strives to be the best human they can be, never hurting anyone in the process. No competition, nobody outdoing the other, everyone is equal mentality. The result is that people do not truly become their creative selves. Their behavior trumps everything. They believe they must be accepted by their behavior. This is one of the reasons on a train you might see everyone essentially behaving identically the same way. Respectfully. She explained that nobody wants to be seen differently than perfect behavior. As well, she explained this is government control.
They goal for every Japanese citizen is to live in HARMONY. They want to be seen as living in harmony. They want to be a ‘good person’. As a result, you get an entire culture which seems very chill and nobody acting out. Again, the upbringing definitely causes suppression to some degree, to ensure each person fits the mold of a harmonious, good human. This is everything.
She explained how in the west we have vertical individualism, where everyone is in competition with each other. The positive in one way is that people have the ability to be creative and become who they dream to become. The real negative is that people don’t care who they hurt in the process. People speak how they feel like speaking, they behave how they feel like behaving, there are essentially no rules in a vertical individualism society. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and everyone is trying to keep up with the Joneses… and do more than the Joneses. In the West, the more you have and can do, the more it seems you are valued to some degree. Or at least, the more that individual feels they are in status, which is everything in the West.
I guess each system has pros and cons. I do feel however, that in this type of society that I have just witnessed, I feel like there is a concept of having ENOUGH, due to the fact there is no competition. In the West, it seems NOTHING is enough. In the West, we are consumers, huge consumers. It seems in a place where there is not so much competition, less is more. People are minimalists.
I lived basically with one outfit so far in Japan, and strangely loved that. The insignificance of wearing different clothes every day was not lost on me. Tho in the hot countries, my neighbours may thank me for changing my clothes more regularly. I must say, living with a carry on only for 10 weeks is somewhat liberating! What if we could all feel that what is in our lives… that little is enough.
I will say, leaving Japan after 10 days, I am consumed in my own affairs now too – not making as much eye contact. Interesting, I guess I feel nobody will respond so I have retreated to my own world too. It doesn’t feel terrible, I don’t mind it.
I leave Japan with mixed emotion. Happy to be off the rail system for a while, or maybe ever… it is a lot to get accustomed to. A little sad to leave the beautiful people of Japan. I must say I was pleasantly surprised to learn more about the people. Oh, and not to mention the fresh fish / sushi every day, thank you for that!!
Japan, thank you for showing me a different way of living. This I will take with me.
PICS BELOW
Shopping, my new Citen bag
Visiting Shrines
Visting Shrines
Visiting Shrines
The boss at the rickshaw business
One more memory of the floating shrine
I landed in Tokyo, got off the flight and before customs, this was the line-up. Little did I know, this would be nothing compared to the masses I would encounter
Sweet Lisa asking if she can draw for me in my book
Tokyo Disneyland
Lavish malls at every turn in Japan
Every single city looked like this. The amount of rooms in one city would be staggering
Crowds everywhere, yet no conflict, always peaceful crowds
The rubber toe thing that has SAVED ME!! Best investment ever!
I hope I lost a few pounds in Japan with al the stairs up and down every day
The handy-dandy mini meals you can buy every few feet you walk in Japan. On this train ride I had stuffed chicken tenders and tuna sushi roll thing
The Louis Vuitton where the lady employee very much looked down on me as though I did not fit their shopper criteria, looking like a foreign backpacker
More stairs
The endless markets of deliciousness!!!
I never did gather the courage to eat one of these squids they put a flame to, filled with eggs.. everyone was eating them
Just more stairs - to get the feeling of how many each day haha
The best laugh I had in a long time when I accidentally pressed a button while FaceTiming with Jado and turning into Fabio
A reminder of my travels in Japan moving around
Thumbs down to the many mistakes I made in my travels
Ending on a respectful Farewell - I loved this country more than I imagined I would that is for sure!
