The halfway
point of my stay in Japan has passed a while ago, and as of April 1st seventh
month here has started. At first I wanted to post something “deeper”, some
thoughts about all that Japan-jazz, but I quickly realised that I don’t have
that many of them, pretty much just the realisation that Japan is not a place
for me. And writing tons about that wouldn’t be the most positive thing to do,
more like complaining and dwelling on things that subjectively make this
country not a good one for me.
So I wanted to
try something different, more general. A lot of the things that can surprise in
Japan that I listed here you’ll find in other similar lists, but here are
simply things that surprised and/or continue to surprise me, not what surprises
people with little or no knowledge/experience of Japan (those will probably
find a lot more things surprising, especially the fact that not everyone walks
around the streets dressed like a manga/anime character).
So without
further ado, in random order…
1. The cash machines
Other than their
look, that of something which stayed unchanged since the 80s, the ATMs here are
surprisingly impractical. That’s right. After all the point of a cash machine
is the ability to access one’s money at any time without having to queue up in
the bank, isn’t it? Skipping the queue is working fine, the any-time
availability – isn’t. Most cash machines are inside buildings (banks, post
offices, supermarkets etc.), which means that when they close, so do the ATMs.
There are still some at konbinis, but other than those in 7 Eleven konbinis,
none will be of any use to someone without a Japanese bank account. So if a
tourist runs out of cash outside of the 8am-5pm timeframe, they’ll either have
to find the nearest 7 Eleven, or try to survive without cash. And since cash
still rules in Japan and card payments are very rare (I’ve only ever seen them
at airlines’ stalls at airports or in electronics stores), the whole thing is
even more surprising.
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| http://aaroninjapan09.wordpress.com/ |
2. The love for nature
This one probably
shouldn’t surprise me as much as it does; probably every highly urbanised
country has a soft spot for nature/greenery (in the spirit of people wanting
what they do not have). But it does. In Japan it’s almost compulsory to go to
so called hanami (花見), literally “flower seeing”, when cherry blossoms
start to bloom, just as important going to see the momiji, the autumn foliage,
is. The last full moon of the summer and tsukimi (月見),
“moon seeing”, is pretty much a festival in its own right and for the Japanese
a summer without seeing fireflies is at best incomplete. Trips just to see and
take pictures of Mount Fuji are fairly obvious. In Japan people seem to be
constantly looking forward to some natural phenomenon, so that they can crowd
in popular viewing spots and watch, photograph and be awed by it while eating
whatever the street sellers are selling at a given time. What’s more, most of
those phenomena have their own forecasts, both in national television and on
dedicated websites, so that everyone, regardless of where they live, can know
when the viewing season starts in their area (cooler Hokkaido will obviously
have sakura bloom later than warm Osaka).
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| http://www.jnto.go.jp/sakura/eng/city.php?CI=21 |
3. The noise
Nevermind that
for a relatively quiet nation Japanese teenage girls can squeak just as loudly
as any other ones, but in Japan everything is constantly making noise,
especially in big cities (at those times I really appreciate living on a campus
in the mountains). Rubbish trucks not only announce that they’re reversing, but
also that they’re turning (there are announcements of “Attention! I’m turning left/right!” as well
as a jingle). Train stations have their own jingles for trains that are
approaching or passing by – on those where trains are constantly coming and
going it’s impossible to have even a minute of quiet, so I really feel for
those who live near them. Both the local trains/metro and the buses not only
announce the next/current stop, but also a dozen of other announcements: “I
just arrived/I’m going, be careful!”, “Do not forget your belongings!”, “Leaning
on the door is dangerous!”, “Did you know that there is a bike shop near this
stop? Call on [phone number]” and so on – and it really is loud (when a bus
stops next on the campus, by the stairs, those announcement are heard clearly
from as far as a third up the stairs and can be ‘just’ heard from halfway up!). And many, many more. Probably even those who like
noise and loud city lifestyle would go mad here. Some people think that all
this noise is to drown out the loneliness of the Japanese people (becoming
friends with someone really takes time for them, a lot of people are single,
and probably just as many are living as hikikomori [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori]).
Sometimes I believe this theory and sometimes I just think that some bureaucrat
had too much time to spare and too much love for health and safety regulations.
4. Fashion
Here I mean this
in a good way and am talking about popular girls’ fashion (for those interested
in fashion as an art form or some alternative fashion Japan also has a lot to
offer, I just don’t know that much about it). The thing is, Japanese girls don’t
dress to expose their bodies or to look sexy. Compared to Western fashion,
fashion in Japan (and from what I’ve seen, East Asia in general) is more modest
and girly. A girl should look pretty, natural, with grace, sometimes maybe a
little childish (panda hats or plush key rings)… Japanese themselves would
probably say that it’s all about being kawaii (可愛い),
that is cute, and this describes their fashion best. And even though it’s not always
what I’d wear myself, most of the time it really suits me, if not to wear stuff
like that myself (though I’m more often stopped by money issues than personal
taste), then at least to watch. It’s a lot nicer to see girls and young women,
from junior high students to women in their early thirties, looking pretty and
feminine without trying to have sex appeal everywhere (way too many times have
I seen women in Europe exposing their legs and their chests, and their bums,
not to mention the strong make-up that goes with it). Just to be clear, this
doesn’t mean that Japanese girls don’t wear short skirts or tight trousers, or
lower cut tops – just that there’s more balance and girly charm in this look
than some weird need to make men desire them sexually.
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| http://lazycatstyle.blogspot.jp/ |
5. TV
Some of you
might’ve seen some screen shots of Japanese TV, maybe even videos on YouTube –
and they probably noticed that Japanese TV is at best weird. I don’t even mean
the contents, though that’s not always normal either (prank shows, anything to
do with food, game shows, simply the slapsticky silliness rules in Japanese
TV), but the style of it is weird too. Everything is painfully colourful.
Subtitles jump at you all the time, be it stuff that people said or some
exclamations. If informative tables or charts need to be shown, they won’t be
on computer or any other screen, but on a whiteboard, a big piece of paper
clipped to a board, a cardboard chart or something else which stopped being
used around 1990s-200s. The general feel of it is that of watching very cheap entertainment
for some very unintelligent, immature audiences – regardless of whether it’s a
game show or, ekhm, a documentary. There are good things to be found on
Japanese telly (mainly TV shows and anime), and news programs only use some
toned down subtitles (which can be useful if people are speaking too fast or
even just for people with hearing disabilities), but they do seem to be the
minority. And for that reason I don’t watch it – I feel my brain folds
straightening whenever I do.
Part two will be
published shorty. Too much at once isn’t good and time to digest all this
information is just as important. Surprising things 6-10 will come soon, promise!
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