Nihon: 18 Months

Language often provides clues to intrinsic characteristics of its native speaker’s culture.  In the case of Japanese, perhaps a good way to illustrate this is the popular term shouganai, which essentially means “that’s life” or “nothing can be done about it.”  This term is commonly applied, with seemingly a certain degree of indifference, to company decisions and policies, and rules that could have been made by a superior, even if it’s a rule or policy that seems to the individual to be unjust, ineffective, ultimately hindering etc. Of course there are benefits to this way of thinking, group harmony being the main goal in Japan's case, and thus progress and growth resulting from cooperation.  Modern Japan is a very capitalist society, and company employees maintain a high level of loyalty to their company and its hierarchy order to survive against other companies doing the same things.  Perhaps we have to look at the fact that you have over 135 million people living together, by majority, in the compact cities.  Competition is high, and strategies for increasing maximum production and profit are necessary for a company to financially survive in such an environment.  Unfortunately, this mentality leads to overwork and plenty of stress and exhaustion for many employees (also known commonly as a salary men, though the work world certainly encompasses women as well).

 

Personally, although striving for financial gain and such is far from a primary interest and in no way the reason I came, money is often considered largely top priority in modern Japan.  Because companies are extremely powerful entities and deeply intertwined with the modern society itself, an evident drive abounds to continue amassing more wealth (not that this exactly sets them apart from other developed nations). These are not necessarily individual decisions, rather it often stems more from the ambitions of politicians and company heads than individuals themselves.  Seemingly associated with this, for many people in Japan, you’ll find that shopping is the number one hobby. I may see a lot more of this because I happen to live in close proximity of downtown, but I find that a large percentage of people really take pleasure, and will arrange their schedules toward, the act of shopping for the sake of shopping.  I know shopping is nothing unique, but it appears to work on a whole other level in Japan—department stores commonly advertise the idea that money and lots of pretty things are the keys to happiness, usually in a very unsubtle manner. It’s impossible for me to “get into” this aspect of the country, as it were.

Alright, let’s talk about life.  I’ll state here that anything I’ve said or am going to say is not meant to reflect an entire group in any way.  I think a guide book put it best in its introduction when it said that, to paraphrase ‘there is no Japanese, there are a 135,000,000+ individual people'.  This is of course one hundred percent true, and I think it’s important to remember, regardless of how familiar you are with Japan.  If there’s one thing I consistently can’t stand, it is people readily (or more often than not just plain ignorantly) lumping an entire group under one banner of their own interpretation.  Because Japan is a homogenous culture and they all live in the same archipelago, perhaps it’s easy to lump them into a category and think that all Japanese people must be more or less the same.  This is simply not true by any stretch of the imagination.  

Being here has changed the way I look at many aspects of the world, and it’s changed because of the people I’ve met and the relationships I have with them. A very big part of this is my students (and to another extent, the families I’ve come to get to know a bit more through them). They’ve given me a window into their lives and shared their thoughts and their minds with me, purposefully or not, more than anyone.

I think most of us become more guarded of what’s inside when we get older, protective of our own hearst, not just in Japan, but anywhere. I’ve been fortunate enough, after this much time teaching at the same school, to have, I hope, gained the trust of many of those I care about most here.  In my job I teach all ages (I mean all), and in spite of all the challenges that have come along with the nature of such a position, it’s given me an amazing opportunity to interact with youth, particularly, at all different stages of growing up in Japanese society. 

To be sure, in this culture emotions are almost always veiled in public, hidden.  At first glance, that’s what you see—the public face.  After awhile though you can see below that; relationships in Japanese society, whether friends, acquaintances, or romantic partners, involve a gradual unveiling of the “private face,” essentially the emotional side Westerners are showing a lot or most of the time.  For example, in Canada if you make me angry I will likely do something to show you I am angry so that you will be sure to know and hopefully stop what you’re doing.  In Japan if you make me angry I won’t show you directly that I’m angry because if I do you’ll think I’m being childish for unveiling my feelings and then I’ll be embarrassed.  However, in time people open up to you more and you get below this exterior, because that’s all it is: an exterior. It’s all about the degree to which you wear your heart on your sleeve, really.  For this reason it can be really difficult to tell what people are thinking sometimes in Japan, but not at all impossible, and the younger the person is, the lesser the extent to which they hide their feelings and personal thoughts.

Shizuoka: I came to Shizuoka city knowing mainly three things about it: it bordered the Pacific (or more specifically, Suruga bay), tea was grown in the mountains surrounding it, and it was in close proximity to Mount Fuji.  Shizuoka now equals home and I have a deep affection for the city.  The surrounding land is beautiful.  I love to go hiking in the hills and bike to the beach to relax beside the ocean.  There’s a bike road that stretches for miles and miles down the coast that is wonderful to go down on a nice day. There are strawberry greenhouses along there, and at one point a massive stone stairway that zigzags up the mountain side leading to a secluded and hauntingly tranquil shrine at the top. Views of Mt. Fuji abound from different places, the countryside is peaceful, and the city itself has a good nightlife. A nice onsen (hot spring/ public bath) is located a short bus ride up in the mountains where I like to go relax on the weekend sometimes.  It’s just far enough away from the city lights to see a starry sky on a clear night while you soak in one of the steaming pools.

Though often obscured by clouds or haze,  Fuji looms ever over Shizuoka.

The city is a nice size, and like cities in general in Japan it’s very clean, orderly, and peaceful.  Free street dancing and performance shows abound (Shizuoka has some fantastic dancers), the cherry blossom season is just beautiful, culminating in Shizuoka matsuri (festival), with parades and a massive street dance that almost has to be seen to be believed.  In the summer beautiful fireworks shows are held both in the city and the neighboring port of Shimizu, though admittedly because I work Saturdays and my shifts always end late I was only able to go to one of several last year.  Men and women don yukata and kimono (traditional dress) for festival days and firework (called hanabi or “fire flowers”) shows, and so they are a beautiful experience.  Shizuoka’s signature foods are oranges and tea, grown in the hills, strawberries (grown during the winter months in green houses), sakura ebi (a red shrimp caught in Suruga bay, which borders Shimizu port), and unagi pie (eel pie).  Unagi is a particularly delicious food, especially cooked on a stick over an open flame. 

And just like that I come to an end for now.  I don't know if any overarching conclusion can be drawn from what's written above, and I'm not casting about for one.  This is simply an honest account of one expatriate's thoughts and discoveries while learning to walk in the shoes of a new land.