Random Topics in Japan
April 19, 2004
The Power of Simplicity
We took the family south last Saturday for a day trip to Hiroshima and Miyajima. At Hiroshima’s Peace Park I took special care to sit down with the children and explain why we were there and the significance of the place. It is funny how sometimes kids can just cut to the chase. I carefully explained the context for World War II, the history and causes of Japan’s aggression leading up to Pearl Harbor, the nature of combat in the Pacific Theater, the factors that led to Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the horrors unleashed by the bomb. I also related to the children how one of their grandfather’s was living with the Japanese in Yokohama during the war while the other served in the Pacific in the U.S. Navy. After all this carefully worded and balanced description I asked if any of the children had questions and Alex raised his hand. All he wanted to know was, “So Dad, who won?”
Cultural Insularity
I find it very amusing to witness Japan’s very creative forms of protectionism. I remember reading in business school about how U.S. and French ski manufacturers had a hard time getting the Japanese to allow imports of their products (Japanese snow is very special). Now we find that our GSM phones that work everywhere in the world don’t work here (Japanese airwaves are very special). ATM cards that work great everywhere else in the world are rejected by Japanese banks (yeah, yeah, I know – Japanese ATM cards are very special).
All of this stems from what the guide books describe as a “very insular” culture. I’ve heard people describe it as racist but I don’t think that’s the right word. Certainly, one doesn’t find the overt form of racism that we in the U.S. are famous for – “We don’t allow your kind ‘round hee-ahr.” Rather it is a more subtle form that you might find in blue-blood English society – “I say! There is a tall, ugly gaijin standing next to you and I think it wants to talk with us!” “Ugh, you’re right! Let’s ignore it and maybe it will go away.” But examples of this behavior exist in every society and describing it as racist doesn’t recognize the many instances where people have been friendly, generous, and very forgiving of my frequent cultural faux pas. I think xenophobia is the better description of what I witness on a daily basis. One can argue that Japanese society thinks of itself as superior to all others, but in any event it is very sensitive to non-Japanese behavior. A book that we bought on Japanese etiquette illustrates it best when it reveals that “some Japanese become nervous wrecks when exposed to Westerners for only a few hours.”
What’s funny about all this is that it doesn’t
bother me. In India I was treated like a king, but I much prefer exploring Japan
even though sometimes one is treated like something you would find on the bottom
of your shoe after a walk through a cow pasture. Maybe, this stems from a version
of the Stockholm Syndrome where a kidnapping victim starts to identify with
their captors.
Impact
Both India and Japan have the same population density - around 870 people per square mile. The impact of both societies on their respective environments, however, is radically different. We've witnessed these impacts both by living in the cities and getting out to see the countrysides. All of Japan is carefully engineered, sculpted and controlled almost as if it is one big Japanese Garden. The rivers are thoroughly channeled and confined. Refuse is carefully tucked away and glimpsed only briefly in the shadows. People everywhere are continually cleaning up. I saw a shop owner picking-up cigarette butts in front of his shop, not from the sidewalk but from the street!
India, by contrast, looks beaten down. If Japan is engineered, India is bludgeoned. Catherine described the country as if it was one large, old, desiccated udder hanging down from the belly of Asia. The air, the rivers, and the landscape all suffer from pollution and waste. Even India's National Parks appear beaten down. Both countries appear to lack the relatively untouched areas that we enjoy in the U.S. I can't make a firm conclusion, though, since I obviously haven't seen the majority of either country. To some extent in my current state of Washington and to a far greater extent where I grew-up in Alaska, our country benefits from large areas where one can go to enjoy escaping the impact of man on the environment, neither overengineered as in Japan or overused as in India.