Observations on Japanese Society and Culture

The Japanese are very non-confrontational. If you find yourself making eye contact with somebody, they will look down quickly. Street crime is almost non-existent in Japan, and I never felt anything less than completely safe. People don’t talk that much, and everybody is extremely respectful. The submissive culture is very interesting to observe, and right away we felt like we could just completely be ourselves. Even if we were dancing in the train station or doing something else really obnoxious, nobody would even look at us. The Japanese will not stare at all. I’m sure that this will contrast greatly with places like India.

The submission and respect put us at ease right away, but if I were to live here I think it might feel a little different. Everybody is so concerned with not being rude, and staying out of everyone else’s way, that it feels very isolating. I feel like there is an underlying theme of separation and loneliness. I can see why gift giving is so important in Japan, as it helps to close these gaps.

Japan was very clean and modern. There wasn’t any trash lying around, and I saw only a handful of homeless people the whole time. Everybody was wearing nice clothes, especially in the train stations where the thousands of the business men were dressed very stylish. The lack of violence and crime, and the quality of life in Japan is truly remarkable. MacArthur’s social engineering after the war was a huge success. This is an incredibly safe society with a huge middle class that lives very well. This seems to be an example of the perfect society that communism strives for but can never achieve.

The transportation system worked very well. Most signs were in English, and everything ran right on time. We certainly got our moneys worth out of our rail passes. We did get lost a lot, but that is mostly because we were unfamiliar with the area. If the signs at the train stations were not in English, it would have been almost impossible for us to travel.

The language barrier was very shocking as soon as we got off the ship. At first we were like a deer in the headlights, but we learned really quickly about how to communicate. We used lots of hand motions, drew pictures, pointed to maps a lot, and learned a few key words to say to people. Everyone was so helpful, that most of the time we were able to find out what we needed to. In Kyoto most of the people we talked to knew some English, but everywhere else it was a struggle. In all my stories when I say that I talked to somebody, got some food, or got directions, this consisted of a five minute game of pictionary and some acting and pointing to the dictionary. After a while this just became second nature and was not a big deal.

Japanese pop-culture is very puzzling to me. Their comic books and anime shows are extremely violent. They seem to be able to channel all of their violent tendencies into their entertainment. There is a definite dichotomy between Japanese entertainment and how the Japanese actually live. It is really a queer thing to be in such a peaceful society and then see the disgusting violence portrayed in their leisure reading.

People do not talk on their phones in public; instead they are constantly text messaging on their cell phones. On one bus, almost every single person was furiously typing texts in the complete silence. I believe this falls back into the will to not disturb anybody else.

On one of the bullet trains, there were a group of extremely drunk fishermen. On most of the train rides, everybody is either sleeping, or text messaging in silence. This group of drunken guys was being extremely loud and crazy. What I noticed is that all of the people around were looking, and then smiling to each other. Nobody got angry at the disturbance. They weren’t tolerating it in an attempt not to be rude, instead they seemed to be really entertained and happy. They were curious and interested to see somebody acting out of the ordinary. If there were some drunken idiots disturbing my sleep at home I would be pissed. But in an odd sort of way, they enjoyed it. I think that everyone is so subdued that it was a nice break for them. The subdued nature of their culture felt sort of depressing to me. It kind of reminded me of seeing a dog that has been beaten a lot and slinks along hanging his head really low. There seems to be a kind of cultural shame that everyone grows up with. I was only in Japan for five days, but I observed people as best as I could, and correct or incorrect, these were the impressions that I was left with.