Isshuunenkinenbi - My 1 Year Anniversary

Today marks one year in Tokyo for me. I've lived other places in Japan, but they were all something like "yeah, I live here, but Tokyo is where I'm headed." And every time I went to Tokyo, it was reaffirmed that it is an amazing place. I fell in love with it. Originally through pictures and books and anime scenes of the city (that's why I'm living in a place with a view of Tokyo Tower). I've lived here for one year now, and the excitement hasn't ended.

I'm sick of the posts I've done trying to defend Japan against all the negative. There's a real difference between trying to disprove a naysayer and actually living the positives that come in your life. So, I hope my next few blog posts will be able to clear myself from that state of mind.

There are so many positive things that I want to write about Japan and about Tokyo. Some of them seem like negatives until you really look at the situation. I'm thinking now about writing books. I'm happy that a number of people have told me that they read my blog, but in reality, I usually come to the blog with too many ideas to put down in the small time I have to type them out. The depth involved in this, for me, in terms of the importance of trying - not to bridge cultures but rather to see ourselves in other cultures and learn from it - involves more than the sort of internet "soundbyte" knowledge that people acquire. So, I'm thoroughly thinking about 4 book projects and I'll get started on them soon.

So, on with my first bit of news. Today or yesterday, a guy got on the bullet train here, and suddenly he realized that the train wasn't going where he wanted to go. He hit the emergency stop and the train stopped and he got off to get where he needed to go. I imagine some of you might think "fair play" or "yeah, I'd do that if the situation fit" or similar. The thing is, he got arrested.

And that's what I love about this country. Who are you to think that you can disconvenience thousands of people for your own self-important little problem? In this case, the worst thing is that he was just basically inconvenienced - he didn't have any real emergency to head to. And that's how Japan treats a person that thinks their little problem is everyone else's little problem.

It's why everywhere you go, everyone is polite to you. Everywhere you go, things are just how they should be for you to have a pleasant experience. And this brings me to one of the books I'd like to write.

Everyone learns that Japan and similar countries are "group" cultures whereas American and Western countries are "individual" cultures. But I find the balance tends to go either way, depending on how you look at it.

In America, you can sue anyone over anything. If you fall down on ice, you sue the government that made the sidewalk or the store in front of which you fell - they should be responsible for having that sidewalk shoveled and clean and so on. Where is the personal responsibility?

In Japan, personal responsibility is very important. You won't be cut down or chastized or any other problem if you accept the blame for something. At work, if something goes bad, and you think maybe something you did had some part in the problem, you "confess" and accept total blame for it. You'll have a rougher time for the next few months, but your coworkers will know that you did something to the benefit of all of them, and they'll treat you better so the rough time will be easier.

I don't understand how an "individual" culture can just allow people to be selfish and that's basically the end of the story. We interact with people, we meet people, and even the people that we don't meet are affected by the things that we do. The bizarre thing to me is that in other countries than where I am in, it seems to just be taken for granted that you can do whatever you want, yelling at a girl at an ice cream shop that got your order wrong, taking up 20 people's time in line because you don't agree with what you're charged even though it's on the tag.... Whatever it is, there's so much screaming of "ME ME ME" whereas the real truth of an "individual" culture should be one where a person is CONTRIBUTING as an individual and respecting other people as individuals. And this seems to me to be more where Japanese culture is at.

Imagine the people you meet as like two pearl necklaces rubbing past each other. when the pearls are against each other, the action is smooth - something like all of the people that you walk past on the street in a day without even recognizing them - without realizing that they're there, or they're human, or they have feelings like you, or without even knowing that they happen to have the same favorite movie or music as you - but once the surfaces of the pearls breaks away, there's a *clack*, where you actually come face to face with someone, and there is some interaction that happens between the two of you.

Maybe your personal space got invaded, maybe you said thank you as they held the door for you.. maybe the girl at the coffee shop gave you extra service, or the clerk at the hamburger shop asked if you wanted to take home some things for free they didn't sell that day.

Whatever it is, there are these constant chances we have "between the pearls" where interaction between other humans can happen. Often we ignore it, we shove them away, we try to avoid it. We might give a polite smile and walk away. We might pretend along with the rest of the pearl that they don't exist. But they do. And our actions affect others. And we shouldn't be so selfish. And we shouldn't be so wrapped up in our own existence so much that we bother people around us that have nothing to do with us but also have their own problems, and good times, and so on, to think about and worry about.

And that's one thing that Japan has taught me. The rest for another day.