“[the average Westerner] was wont to regard Japan as barbarous while she [Japan] indulged in the gentle arts of peace: he calls her civilized since she began to commit wholesale slaughter on Manchurian battlefields. […] Fain would we remain barbarians if our claim to civilization were to be based on the gruesome glory of war. Fain would we await the time when due respect shall be paid to our art and ideals.”
(The book of tea, Kakuzo Okakura)
Sometimes I perceive myself like I was a reflection of the Raising Sun Country.
It’s an odd sensation that I can describe as something very elusive which grew inside through the years, becoming deeper and stronger. This “undefinable” is the reason for my interest in thoughtfulness, beauty, and harmony.
My Japan experience isn’t a great adventure… it is most similar to a love story.
- The first time I visited Japan to watering my thirsty curiosity.
- The second time, to taste her flavors using more awareness than the experience I had before.
- The third time – in 2020 – I’ll be there to fully understand my previous experiences and close the circle: it’s about instinct more than rationality.
What happened there moved my Soul which finally understood how real was the deep, savage and ancient recall it heard inside for so long.
Our physical meeting took place after 20 years of waiting. The first time I heard about Japan I still hadn’t live a decade on this Earth: first there were the judo lessons and then anime, manga, videogames, dorama, documentaries… but not a single book because at those time I didn’t like the “Japanese writing style”.
In recent years – when you’re expected to act like an adult – I felt some kind of “jealousy” about Japan. I didn’t want to see or to hear anything about this County coming from who was able to get there: making so, I was preventing to be hit by a metaphorical punch in the stomach.
I strongly believe that a lot of people are feeling this way. We can search for thousands of rational explanations… but at the end of the day there is only one reason: we simply need to be there. It doesn’t care “when” or “how”. It’s an “as soon as possible” that keeps a piece of us suspended and faithful, waiting for the right time. That’s the reason why I choose to write about Japan in this pretty sentimental way.
I want to think that everyone feeling this way lived there yet, in another time and in another era. Maybe he (or she) carries a mark left inside from beautiful or extremely true experiences… and today, at the right moment, the sign starts to pulse again.
DISCLAIMER.
- Please understand that these articles are only opinions. I am conscious that you could have a completely different experience living in the same place at the same time, like we visited parallel universes. As human beings we are billions of different planets with different interests. All I can convey here is my experience: the colors that my eyes had seen and the words that my ears had herded. I only lent attention to the things that cached my senses.
- This is the story of an extemporaneous experience, happened only twice. I have no idea of the japanese real life standards.
- I visited only the essential to discover the higher number of places in the amount of time I had. Somewhere I stayed less than a day, somewhere else I come back twice or trice to know them better. Every city had a completely different energy: some beautiful and some less than that.
THE FIRST TIME.
When I visited Japan for the first time I didn’t find what I had dreamed about for so long. A lot of things were different than expected (today I am incapable to come back to the shape of those first expectations). Most important, the impression I had touching the ground was about “recognizing” and not “knowing for the first time”.
THE EARTH.
The soil of Japan doesn’t seem to be easily workable. If it isn’t dark and muddy it is probably dry and cracked: the oceanic climate isn’t mild nor gentle like the Mediterranean one. This land asks to be loved and masterly worked before giving its fruits. Maybe it is the same for the deep essence of the Country, maybe it is only shown to the person who gives him/herself first.
A PICTURE.
Japan is: landscapes; painted sky; sea and hills; pink during March, red in October, gray and white in December, green in May; large buildings looking all the same and different small houses; croaking crows and frogs; silence in the most unexpected places.
BEAUTY.
It is told that Beauty was generated here, at the end and the beginning of the World. In the West, the same concept was developed differently: not better nor worst. Talking about things created by men, before visiting Japan I used the “beautiful” adjective only to proportionate items, symmetrical buildings, houses carefully embellished… then I changed my mind: Beauty can express itself in many tastes and shapes. The void (mental or physical) matters more than before.
I also learn another lesson: modern Japanese cities give a messy first impression, but here are the wonders. Metropolis aren’t harmonic and are a place where train yourself to find the beauty in the smallest places: for example, a flower in a pot along the street or a red torii stuck between two anonymous and identical gray buildings.
TO BE SECRETIVE IS NOT TO BE SHY.
I have heard so many times that Japanese people hardly talk about their private life. It seems to be true. But I have to admit something here: for some reason, I always thought that to be secretive is exactly the same to be bashful, and I was wrong.
I observed a lot of Japanese people interacting with strangers (even with foreigners/gaijin) even to share a few words; someone was visibly starving for social interaction. So, I developed my unscientific and personal hypothesis: those simple words are socially meaningful because build a net that gives people the unconscious sensation to be bound to something in a Country that is not individualist… but is surely rich in solitudes.
WE ARE JAPANESE. WE ARE AN ISLAND.
They repeat often “We are Japanese” and “We’re an Island” to (apparently) justify their behaviors with a foreigner uneducated about the right kata (shape) of the specific context … respect of manners, culture, right times.
TECHNOLOGY EVERYWHERE… OR MAYBE NOT?
Japan is often painted like a country that only lives “in the future” or “ is stubbornly bound to the tradition”: totally white or totally black, without the mediation of shades of gray.
Coming here I expected to see robots and automated services everywhere and the reality is not so far: a not-so-advanced-but-persistent-technology confines the human interactions to the essential… if you choose it. Otherwise, you can turn you back and visit the nearest shop or restaurant to find out how many people work there (spoiler: often, there is more employee per shop than in the West).
MATERIALISM.
Is Japan risking sinking in the abyss of total materialism? Yes, and it happens here like in many other countries. The shape of the future and its values are written every day by people’s choices: sometimes they are aware of it and sometimes they are not.
THE JAPANESE CHILDREN ARE QUIET.
Not at all. Certainly, more in Japan than elsewhere, schools and families teach the child how to behave in public places but they are children like all the children of this Earth. During my frequent and long train travels (where a child is forced to stay sit and quite more than his little and energetic body would do) I saw a lot of mothers trying to calm down their screams in the space between two coaches.
PROPAGANDA.
We’re all affected by the “not-said” of the national propaganda, in variable sizes. I think it never existed a place where people wanting power didn’t try to bend others’ will using basic words to drive “belly decisions” of the folk. So, when I hear something about Japanese propaganda I remember myself that it exists everywhere and we must be aware of it.
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