RIP The Cynic In Me

There are many, many things I love about Japan.  Well, of course there is; I wouldn't fly thousands of miles from my native country and spend so much money, time and effort setting myself up here.  Admittedly, over time the delights of Japan fade into the background of daily living, but they're always still there, albeit more subtle.

One of these things is the lack of cynicism in Japan.  It's true that I am a naturally cynical person: you can ask anyone who knew me back when I resided in the UK that my default mindset was that of being mildly irritated.

I wasn't the only one.  It seemed to me that so many things exist in the UK just to make you angry or frustrated.  Television, for instance.  It was quite telling, for instance, that one of the programs on just before the New Year's countdown was 'Most Annoying People of 2011', which we actually watched for a few minutes.  It seems I, along with so many other people, get a grim kick out of sneering and sniping at others, and I play right into the provider's hands time after time.

I cannot even describe to your the overriding atmosphere of cynicism in UK, either.  Maybe it's because the native tongue is my first language, and I understand all that I hear, that could be a factor.  But that couldn't just be it: on the two occasions I've returned to the UK to visit family, within days I feel my new sunny outlook clouding over with it's old feeling of annoyance.

But this simply doesn't exist in Japan.  Much is made of the unreadable Japanese, but I will tell you something, there can be no doubting that the people are definitely happier.  There may indeed be a level of putting-on-a-face, but even with that, I can guarantee that if you could measure how mollified and calm people are, Japan would rate higher than the UK.  Far higher.

It just seems that whenever something nice happens in the UK, or there's a great idea, it gets moaned over and shouted down.  The Olympics, for example.  I'm as conscious of white elephants as the next man, but anyone who denies that the Olympics are a force for good are kidding themselves.  Yet kid themselves they do.  Ask any man on the street in the UK, even London, what they think of the upcoming Olympics right now, and there's a good chance your majority response will be a negative one.  There won't be an overriding reason for the negativity, it's just that cynicism and pessimism are the default.

And this is for something big, mind.  I feel like the UK misses out on so many good initiatives because of towering cynicism sometimes.  We Brits can't seem to welcome anything that won't be free, of benefit to everyone and have an amazing point to it.  Take the Melody Roads in Japan, for example.  Here and there, in Japan, is a stretch of road covered in strategically-placed ridges, and if ran over at the right speed, the reverberations in the car will sound like a song.

Is it useful?  Hell no.  Does it benefit anyone or have a point?  Or course not.  But it's a lovely little touch that can put a real smile on your face.  There's thousands of examples like these in Japan, little visual and interactive trinkets that would never have worked in the UK for moaning about eyesores or pointlessness (and of course, for the chance of a good old moan.  People famously complain about things they have no idea about).  But it's these little touches, these little curiosities, that can really lift your mood.  Doesn't that make them worthwhile.  Look at the huge Gundam statue in the picture above, for example.  You just couldn't get away with this kind of thing elsewhere.  But you can in Japan, and Japan is all the better for it.

Naturally, being more passive to crazy ideas has pros and cons.  Japanese people could be accused of being easily swayed into agreeing with something they don't necessarily agree with.  For example, nobody could deny the brilliance of the train system, from a pedestrian's view they can be terrible eyesores sometimes, carving right through a city like a river.  Chances are it was met with minimal resistance, too.

But on the whole, I love that Japan and it's people are, on the whole, less cynical than the UK.  Some things may be so mind-numbingly daft and stupid but I can't help but roll my eyes sometimes, but on the whole it's a nice feeling to be less angry at everything all the time.

The Long Haul

As March approaches, we are approaching the period known in Japan as 新生活 (Shinseikatsu, literally meaning new life).  It's a time of general upheaval and change for people's lives, be it starting a new school (school years start in April in Japan), a new job, going to university, and/or moving to a new place altogether, probably to cater for the former.

Well, after nearly two years in Japan, it looks like I will be experiencing my first real 新生活.  Don't get me wrong, I've already become accustomed to spring-time being a period of major changes in my life (two years ago was when I moved to Japan, and last March...well, I think we all know what happened there), but this will be my first proper physical move within Japan.  I will have a new job and a new apartment, and generally, my circumstances look set to get much better - not that they were bad in the first place!

I'm stupidly excited, but also quite nervous.  True, this isn't the plunge into the unknown as it was two years ago, but it feels like I'm properly settling myself into Japan now, no longer in limbo.  I'll admit, the toughest period for me was around October/November time, when I had to do some serious soul-searching to decide, as Mick Jones once sung, "Should I stay or should I go?" It was the hardest decision I had to make, far harder than the transition from 1st to 2nd year, because I knew that if I decided to stay this time, it would mean Japan for the long haul.  There comes a period when you have to start calling a place home.  Was I ready to call Japan that?  In the end, I found the answer was, yes.

Since then, it's been a flurry of activity.  The next couple of months will be hectic, stressful and vital, but ultimately, I know I've made the right decision now.  I miss the UK, my family and my friends there, and if I had Zeus-esque powers I'd move the UK and plonk it nearer to Japan so I'd be closer to them (and cheaper too!), but in the end, I found I just wasn't ready to end my time in Japan quite yet.  I'm quietly proud of just how far I've come in just two years, how much I've seen and experienced, and I'm not ready for that to end yet.

To all who read my blog, I hope you will join me as we plunge deeper down the rabbit hole...

My Town - For Now

And so, the harum-scarum nature of my blog continues by finally introducing the town I live in - the one I've resided in for some two years, and will soon be leaving for the bright lights.

Welcome to Namegawa.  It's a small, laidback town that lies about 40 miles north of Tokyo.  Now, as you perhaps know, being 40 miles away from 'Tokyo' doesn't mean anything, and indeed, I could walk from my house to central Tokyo without leaving an urban area.  But Namegawa sits on the very edge of the city scape, where it bumps into the mountains.  To say it has the best of both worlds is something of a stretch, but there is definitely an element to that.  Because Namegawa's trump card isn't what it has, but where you could be in a very short space of time.

But first things first, Namegawa itself.  It is very much a town of two halves.  In the south, surrounding the train lines, is the built-up area.  Not too built up, though: it's mostly suburbia and some low-rise depots, but it is very pleasant.  The area where I live is especially pleasant, because it is a band new area: even in my short time here, I've noticed at least a couple of dozen new houses sprout up, and one school.  The downside?  There is nothing else here.  Okay, so you've got the train station, supermarket and home centre within easy reach, but by and large it's a largely featureless grid of houses.

To the south, it's very much the 'inaka' (countryside).  The grids of houses give way to grids of paddy fields, with only the occasional wooden house, and the gentle hills are topped with thick mops of trees.  While I wouldn't call the settlements here rundown as such, you definitely wouldn't mistake which area was newer.  It's all very charming in it's own way, but it's remote, and there's not much to pull you out there.  With one very big exception - Shinrin Park.

Shinrin Park is a huge quasi-national park that takes up at least a quarter of the town.  It is huge, full of features too many to count (including a bouncy castle that looks like a weird mountain, but the best thing about it is the sprawling network of cycle lanes, running through the park like a web of mini-roads just for bikes, and my word, is it fun.  With friends barrelling along beside you, it's many-times over as entertaining.  Is it worth travelling far and wide for?  Yes.  Absolutely.

There is one more feature to mention of Namegawa (and, sadly, it really is only one more).  That is the observation tower, which sits atop a wooded hill in the middle of the town.  While not as essential a visit as Shinrin Park, it's definitely worth a look if you have the time, especially on a clear day, when the views are spectacular.  You can see all the way from the mountains of Gunma to downtown Tokyo.

Which leads me neatly onto Namegawa's trump card.  You see, Namegawa doesn't really have a lot going for it beyond the basic aspects for getting by.  At night, I despair as I watch my area basically turn into a ghost town.  Seriously, the blackouts that blanketed Japan after the earthquake last year made minimal difference in Namegawa.  There's much to be said for the slow, relaxed pace (indeed, after a hectic weekend, returning here can be a very soothing experience), but as it sits on the edge of the city and countryside, it can't really boast to be either.  What it can boast, however, is insultingly easy access to both.

Hop on a train and you can be in Tokyo in one hour.  Go in the other direction and you can be in Gunma in one hour, too.  And properly big cities and malls lie only half an hour away.  And, if you live in the southern suburbs of Namegawa (which most are likely too), then a train station lies only a 5-10 minute away.  Not many places can boast such a proximity to a train station with a line that can have you in either the urban jungle or, err, rural jungle in no time, and with a low fee to boot.

It's not a perfect town by any means, but I have seen far worse, and when I leave it, I will miss it.  It may be a bit too sleepy and featureless for my liking, but my life in Japan, whatever it will amount to, started here, and it will always be precious to me for that.

Small-Minded

"Japan is a small country."

You hear this phrase with surprising frequency in Japan, often with no context at all.  It leaps out of nowhere like some kind of stealth proverb.  It made me wonder why it's such a big deal to the locals.

First of all, my own answer to this phrase is "NO IT BLOODY ISN'T!"  Plonk Japan in the middle of Europe and it would be the 5th largest country, bigger than either Germany or the UK, and by head count, there would be no contest.  Europe's most populous country is Germany with 82 million.  Japan is 128 million.

The trouble is, Japan doesn't compare itself to European countries.  For you see, Japan has it's very own World Map that provides a cunning optical illusion.  Instead of the World Map we're all familiar with, which has GMT 0 down the middle, the Americas to the left and Asia and Oceania to the right, the Japanese World Map places Japan in the centre of the world, with the Pacific Ocean squatting right over the proceedings and pushing all of the land masses off to the edges, like the fat kid pushing everyone else out of focus in a family photo.

The result of this bizarre reshuffle reveals Japan to be surrounded by largeness:  the USA, Canada, Russia and China loom around poor lil' Japan in the vast ocean like circling sharks.  Poor old Greenland is either cleaved in two or, in this case, ceases to exist altogether.

But let's look at facts, not perceptions.  Japan is in the top third of the world for countries by land mass, and it's the 10th most populated.  Now, some of my American friends may side with the Japanese here and back up the claim that Japan is indeed small by a size relative to which they're familiar.  But there's no avoiding the fact that smaller and less populous countries the world over rarely, if ever, hoist up their smallness as a banner to rally under.  If anything, they're more likely to be beating their collective chests and talking themselves up.

So where does this insistence on smallness come from?  I think part of it might be to do with the population density: you can't help but think small when there is so little space to go around.  Even I have to admit that my refusal to recognise Japan as 'small' isn't the whole story: a large portion of the land is mountainous and therefore impossible for the urban sprawl to gobble up.

The other explanation is that Japan doesn't like to appear outwardly aggressive.  This relates back to points I made in my 'Kawaii!' post.  Japan doesn't like to inflate it's own ego, but rather humble itself, to the point of being churlish.

"But wait!" I hear you say, "If they don't want to appear egotistical, why push their country front and centre of the map?"  That is a very good question, and one I don't have a straight answer to here.  The Japanese have a curious mixture of a superiority/inferiority complex when it comes to comparing itself to the rest of the world.  On one hand they will point out something they cannot do "because they're Japanese," and on the other they will point out something you cannot do "because you're not Japanese."  It's a bewildering contradiction, one that I am yet to understand.

Still, no biggie, eh?  After all, Japan is small...

Show Me The Money

The image of Japan as a tech-driven, sci-fi wonderland is in some ways absolutely true, especially in the big cities.  Towers drenched in neon leap over you, vending machines scan your face and recommend a drink for you, and bullet trains zip you from one end of the country to the other in no time at all.

But there are just as many examples of the lesser-developed Japan that may just surprise the uninitiated.  I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but some things we may take for granted in the West are rare or even non-existent in Japan.  Radiators, for instance.  And insulation (if you hadn't guessed, I'm feeling cold right now!).  But nowhere is this more evident than with money.

Before I left the UK, I'd grown used to reaching for the plastic when paying for my goods.  Even the most tumbledown, backwater shop has a creaky card-reader they can dust off these days.  Not so in Japan.  It is still by and large a cash-driven society.  You want to buy something?  You will be paying by cash, my friend.  Only in the biggest chain stores are card payments a sure choice, but even then, if you're paying with an international card, it can be more awkward than you'd think.

It can be a real pain when ATMs are so few and far between.  A Japanese person would be shocked to see that our ATMs are out in the open, as in Japan they are all indoors, which can make looking for one harder than it should be.  And even then, you need to look out for the time and day: you could be charged for the privilege, even if it's your bank's own resident machine (as if there are little people inside who demand the extra pay for the inconvenience of working the ATM pulleys and levers on a Sunday...).  Worse still, the ATM could be closed altogether.  Therefore, you get into the habit of taking advantage of a free ATM whenever you can, so it's not uncommon to be walking around with huge wads of yen in your pocket, something you could only get away with in Japan.

In some ways, though, I kind of prefer it this way.  You feel more in control of your own finances, and you will always have a good idea of what you have in your account.  And because you never pay by card, you don't have to worry about rogue card payments you'd forgotten about suddenly plunder your balance dry.  It also encourages you to be more sensible, too, and less prone to impulse-buying.  If you go for a night-out, you'll be pegged by the money you pulled out for the occasion.

The system is inconvenient, yes, and it is steadily changing.  And it needs too: Japanese people find it WAY too easy to save and aren't spending enough to keep the economy ticking over, apparently.  Maybe removing these bottlenecks is a good start.  But, for now, I'm glad I don't have my money on tap 24/7.

"Demons out! Luck in!"

 

Today, February 3rd, is the day of a delightful little Japanese festival/custom known as "setsubun (節分)".  It literally means "season partition", because it signifies the end of winter and the start of spring (at least, that's what the calendar likes to think.  There are many more cold weeks ahead!).  But it's perhaps better known as the bean-throwing festival.

It's closest Western relative is Spring Cleaning, only that is a physical clearing of the home, whereas Setsubun is a spiritual one.  The tradition is for a member of the family to adorn the mask of demon (or a full-on suit if they're feeling up for it), and dash around the house while everyone else in the family pelts them with beans.  The beans, called "fukumame (福豆)", which means 'fortune beans', and throwing them at a cosplaying relative while chanting "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" (鬼は外! 福は内! "Demons out! Luck in!") signifies the purifying of the house of all the badness built up over the past year, giving room for, hopefully, some good luck for the year to come.

I like Setsubun.  It's a fun little tradition that isn't obtrusive, and sits just right on the balance between fun and meaningfulness.  Shops everywhere sell cute little demon masks for kids to wear, and supermarkets sell big bags of beans and nuts for throwing and eating.  Even my school lunch today had a little packet of fukumame with it.

In the West, I feel that we are sometimes over-cynical of traditions, for being pointless, meaningless or just an excuse for shops to make money.  Japanese traditions aren't necessarily any deeper or significant than other celebrations around the world, but they're definitely approached in a more pragmatic way.  Do the Japanese seriously believe throwing roasted beans at a family member in dress up wards off evil spirits?  Of course not.  But they might see it as a harmless bit of fun that can tighten family bonds.

Flu season

 It seems a bit backward to talk about something very specific about winter-time in Japan without really mentioning the season before.  But trust me, I could be here forever and a day talking about Japan's relationship with the weather and the changing seasons (even now I'm bursting to talk about the legendary 'Japan Has Four Seasons' slogan), and besides, winter ain't going nowhere for the time being.

No, in Japan it is now 'flu season'.  I remember this period all too well last year.  The second one student slouches off to the nurses office and shows the signs of インフルエンザ (Influenza, so terrifying it is referred to in full name here, like Voldemort, only the other way around) then the school launches into quarantine/siege mode.  Tables with hand sanitiser sprout up on every corner like some kind of Red-Light District for hygiene, the windows are bolted shut, and a Whiteboard Memorial chart tallying the fallen students goes up under the school schedule.  It's a teacher's grim duty to erase a '2' and write a '3' sometimes, as though sending a telegram to the parents.  Then, of course, sanitise their hands after.  Dirty, dirty whiteboard marker.

 I can't speak for other schools, but in our staff room, stoves are wheeled in.  You see, Japan doesn't do radiators.  If there was anything I could introduce to Japan, it would be a toss-up between radiators and Dandelion and Burdock.  But stoves are the next best thing.  They do the job reasonably well, except they can often befoul the staff room with the stench of oil (this includes classrooms too).  This, however, I can deal with.  What I find hard to abide is how the tops of our stoves have hulking great bowls of water boiling away on top of them.  This, combined with the lack of air-circulation due to everything being shut, means that some 30-plus adults sit in a stew of each others exhalations for several hours each day, which is a recipe for catching the flu if ever there was one.  That, and the humidity makes me feel oddly giddy.  Add to this the tea-lady's well intentioned serving up of hot lemon, and I even I wonder if I'm already ill.

I don't mean to come across as though I know better by default, but I have to admit I find the 'flu season' in Japan fascinating, not just in how it copes with it, but how it prevents it.  Everywhere you look, for kids and adults alike, are signs encouraging you to wash your hands, gargle and mask up (see above).  No doubt, Japan works harder than any other nation to avoid falling ill, and yet just as many students seem to tally up on the flu board as I recall during my own school days, if not more so.  Make of that what you will.