Japan is a strange, alien country for a lot of people. Its exports are popular around the world and some generations are more familiar with Japanese manufactured goods and their accompanying, poorly translated text descriptions. Other generations know Japanese cultural exports – anime, manga, J-pop, cinema and video games. Regardless, Japan – from a western viewpoint – is about as culturally far as one can go without too much hassle. Japan is sometimes fetishised, sometimes misunderstood, sometimes adored and often exaggerated to comical dimensions. No doubt, Japan is a very interesting country.
I looked forward to my trip there, in May 2023, and I had several items on my personal agenda. Shinkansen (high-speed rail), the Suzuka motor racing circuit (host of the Japanese Formula 1 race), Godzilla, Fuji-san, the minute-perfect trains, the Playstation, robots and many others.
For connoisseurs of international travel, Japan is travel on easy mode. Everything, everywhere is set up for the international traveller. Granted, the assumption is that your language skills include English, Mandarin or Korean but in most cases, things are set up for your success. The global tourism sector took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic and is yet to recover to 2019 levels. Japan is similarly affected. The United Nations’ list of the ten most popular countries by tourist arrivals does not include Japan. UN data puts the number of foreign tourist arrivals (2022) in Japan at around 3.8 million – around 5% of the comparable number in Spain. This was surprising to me because the tourism sector in Japan appears large, active and profitable. The implication – surprisingly – is that most Japanese tourism is domestic. Despite this, many things are geared towards the foreign tourist, something I valued and used fully.
My perspective on Japan is certainly not Western but it is close. As a child, i unwittingly watched several cartoon shows that were from Japan. They were dubbed in Arabic so I had no clue as to their origin, having discovered the truth only as an adult. I am myself Asian – my ethnic roots trace to India, which is part of Asia. The North American usage of “Asian” refers to ethnicities from East Asia, which is strange although, not entirely surprising. Many North Americans continue to refer to indigenous North Americans as “Indian” despite having access to accurate maps.
From my perspective, Japan is one of those countries that is simultaneously very familiar and unfamilar. The bustle of a city like Tokyo is similar to that of Bombay. The cleanliness is alien. The crowds are familiar, the absence of the associated stench is not. The misogyny is (unfortunately) familiar, the way it manifests is not – maid cafes, lewd comics sold behind curtains. The conservative society is familiar, the conformist pressure is familiar. Alien to me are the safety-valves for pent-up pressure, the outlets for suppressed creativity. Dear reader, I encourage you to investigate what the Tokyo salaryman gets up to after hours and how gaijins are spoken about behind closed doors.
I enjoyed my time in Japan. I love the infrastructure, the roads, the trains, the shinkansen, the attention to detail. I enjoy the manageable portion sizes, the quality of ingredients, the focus on simple flavours. I enjoy the high standards for punctuality, for polite conversation, the respect for public space. I admire the thought put into ensuring equal participation for all – the accessibility at every train station, the man at the ticket turnstile guiding the deaf and blind. I admire Japanese society’s ties to its past, the respect for those who came before while simultaneously aiming for a better future for those yet to come. Japan is truly a remarkable country where many things work and work well. It is a sort of ideal country for someone of my persuasions.
I would never live there. Japan is a homogeneous society with significant uniformity in thought. Not many Japanese people travel abroad – 2019 saw more Canadian tourists abroad than Japanese. This despite the fact that the population of Japan is three times that of Canada. Japan does not see significant immigration and is famously xenophobic. I observed the number of Nepali restaurants in Tokyo and wondered how bad things are in Nepal that Nepalis are driven to the famously insular Japan, of all countries. Japanese society also has a problem with misogyny. Set your smartphone’s location to Japan and notice that you cannot disable the camera shutter sound. Why, you wonder? The uncomfortable truth is the tendency of many Japanese men to capture unsolicited and invasive upskirt pictures of Japanese women. Japan also has a complicated relationship with its own past, especially the horrors the state committed and the symbolism attached to historical imagery – see the rising sum flag controversy as one example.
Japan is a complicated country and I knew this. During my stay, I tried to get a sense of what life there is like. My stay was not guided and I ventured both on and off the tourist path. It was certainly memorable and I look forward to visiting again.