Now even more jaded...

I'd really hate to think that the day I arrive back in the States and people ask me about my fantastical journey the most impressive thing I would be able to muster up would be "Well, the buses ran on time" or perhaps something involving the words "attractive" and "girls". Perhaps I left more orientalist than when I came.

It's all a bit anticlimactic. This city has been my home for eight or so months, and while I feel I've become used to being here there's no sense that I am nearer to what constitutes Hirakatashi, let alone Osaka and heaven forbid Japan in terms of people and culture than when I first arrived.

What being here has helped me to realize, however, is that people are people. Not to homogeonize, but to help distinguish and better communicate and attempt to mesh with folk of both the Japanese and foreign varieties. My impressions when I stepped foot into the country were not of geisha and samurai or wholly neo-Tokyo cyberpunk with buxom anime girls and neon signs dotting every square inch of land owned by mega-corporations, but I did brace myself for unbridgeable gaps that might never be overcome. I did find some, but I found just as much common and uncommon ground as I did when I shifted from Chicago to Florida, or from high school to college.


There are temples and shrines. Yes, you can find katanas and geisha, there are blindingly bright areas in Osaka meant to confuse you into buying Asahi Super Dry or a nice new digital camera, but these things are mostly superficial, I've found. Too many people are caught up in living their lives just as they do in the ever-ambiguous "America" to worry about being Japanese.

Even so, my experience here has been as little more than a student. If I return as something else my impressions will most likely change depending on my priorities. I feel that my journey's only halfway done, if only because I've had my share of green tea but have so far missed out on the onsens.

Japanese People: Quite a few in Japan

That high Japanese population doesn't leave much room for cultural sensitivity (aside from the Little Black Sambo book I had to explain to a young lady why "lynch" might not be the best word to use in most situations).

Moving along. One can't help but be amused at the reactions of a Japanese person who hears that a foreigner enjoys eating nattou. Of course I can't be counted among those, never having so much as touched the stuff, but it's entertaining nonetheless. The idea of a someone so devastatingly non-Japanese consuming a Japanese food seems to be quite mindblowing to much of the population.

This glares into the face of many of the resident population whom I've spoken to that recoil at the mere mention of the word nattou, Japanese-ness notwithstanding. It's one of many examples of the citizenry's tendency to self-homogeonizing, painting a stark line between Japanese and foreign. This is not a trait that's uniquely Japanese, but stick with me for a moment.




The peace sign in photos, origami, insane fashion senses, (relative) purity of spirit, group-mindedness, corruption and trickiness in the female population (at least according to some members of my current family), these are also results of the cultural paintbrush that may or may not be withdrawn once someone takes the time to think about themselves as an individual as opposed to a faceless member of a cultural whole which only exists in the most abstract and general sense.

People continually attempt both inside and outside of Japan to define what it means on a whole to be Japanese, despite many Osakans claiming that they can't stand Kantou-ben and many Tokyo-ites complaining that Osakans are rude sons-of-guns (of course, save for the occasional reference to exotic Hokkaido and questionably "Japanese" Okinawa, 90% of the rest of the country is left out of the comparitive equation). They forget that Japanese people are indeed people, and beyond the basic cultural foundation which is itself quite varied, they are themselves and not part of an imaginary, whitewashed block of sameness.

Backlog - Just do it: Sports in Japan

"So I was at the park one morning and there was a dad there with his three sons. They were running around the track and he was timing them."



Hardcore.

Even beyond the rapid fandom of national competition (Hanshin Tigers, anyone?) sports are apparently big in Japan, not just as something to watch but to do. The number of tracksuit clad students and adults alike, both outside but especially on the campus of our wonderful school, could possibly be said to boggle the mind. You do have your requisite sendentary population, but many of the people I've met here do something, from conventional sports such as basketball to the ever raised-eyebrow inducing Sepak Takraw of which I was a member at Kansai Gaidai for several months (with very little progress, I may add)



It sticks as well. Many of the people who join clubs here were doing the same thing in high school and many of the people in high school were doing the same thing in middle school. This is not sports specific, but seems to be a characteristic and any acitivity that has club-potential in it. The sports folk just seem to wear snappier and more recognizable uniforms. Well, if a tracksuit can be considered to be snappy. That and they turn a toasty brown color in warmer weather. And the bag which has a 50% chance of being Puma-made.

Oh, how their smiling faces lie...

I've never been one to adhere to the social rule of avoiding discussion of politics or religion in sensitive situations. Due to this I decided to question my host mother about the issue of Kimigayo and Hinomaru as she was moseying about my room one sunny afternoon. More specifically I asked what she thought of Kimiko Nezu and her crusade against tyranny. The response was immediate and sharp:

"She's a moron"

Ten exciting minutes later I learned that my host mom leans somewhat right-wing, belonging to the section of society that believes that a Japanese citizen's duty is to honor the flag and the national anthem as an innate part of their Japanese-ness. She also mistakenly believed that everyone in the United States sings the national anthem and salutes the flag as proper members of their nation. I was forced once again to dispel another "Ideal America" myth.

She does not, however, oppose people who don't wish to stand or sing during formal occasions. Her not-so-friendly attitude seems to stem more from her personal experience of anti-Nationalist protesters causing a ruckus at both her daughter's graduation ceremonies. Those are experiences that shouldn't include especially disruptive personal agendas on the menu, she said in so many words. Other incidents of flag burning probably didn't help either. Silent protest is golden.



Especially concerning politics there are more than two sides two every story. In fact, each issue is damned-near prismatic. While there is certainly no lack of cause for grief from the side of the teachers and others who stand against compulsory patriotism, one has to be careful of the media and words that come from anyone who has a specific goal in sight.

From the mind of WIll Smith/Bob Sapp/Barack Obama

A friend and out were out celebrating a mutual friend's birthday party somewhere in Amemura when I happened to nod and greet another African-American man who happened to pass by us. The following (paraphrased) conversation ensued:

"Do you know him?"
"Nope."
"So why'd you nod?"
"Not entirely sure?"
"Is it a 'black thing'?"
"Possibly, yeah."
"That's such bulls**t."
"When you're here do you nod at another foreigner if you pass by them?"
"Well, yeah."
"Exactly."

Many of us are most likely familiar with the phenomena of the Gaijin Nod, the sometimes obligatory acknowledgement between those in a country where we all tend to be lumped into the ambiguous category of "foreigner". My experience has been much the same as that of the author: a visit to Tokyo yielded nothing exceeding a quick glance in my general direction while my time in Kansai has sparked many a knowing smile or small wave (or a rather loud "Hey!" in Umeda station) if not a long conversation detailing why exactly said person ended up in Japan in the first place.

Whether or not we have anything substantial in common becomes a moot point much of the time, it's the illusion of that shared experience in Japan that can often breed affinity between two perfect strangers. My friend took my acknowledgement of a person on the basis of skin color as a sign of being exclusivist, but being crammed under an umbrella where one's identity as an individual tends to be washed out often leads us to reach out to those who might have an appreciation of our experience. So long as we try not to forge such connections in order to keep others out of our own personal illusion of what it means to be traveling through exotic locales there should be no problem expending a second or two to let someone feel that they're not alone.

It's like a bag of Lay's brand potato chips...

It's a curious thing, to say the least, that thing being Japan's religious presence. Temples, shrines, protective symbols on the Keihan bus line...perhaps it's my sue-happy origins combined with my you-gotta-be-something-and-only-that monothiestic upbringing, but it wouldn't seem far fetched to think that someone might have raised a fuss about whose deities and religious installations should be on display in public and whose shouldn't. Maybe I'm just a sucker for theological conflict.

Too long a while (you can see the result in the timestamp) I tried to wrap my mind around the best way to describe it. Peaceful coexistence was, surprisingly enough, too violent a term (relatively speaking) to apply to many of this country's citizens internalizing several distinct ideologies without so much the bat of an eye.


Compatibility seems to never come up as an issue. While I suppose it could be compared to Christianity's absorbtion of various pagan holidays and rituals that are still widely practiced even among the secular public or various hybrid religions such as Candomble in Brazil, the aforementioned phenomena usually involves the source material being altered and twisted somehow in order to minimize ideological conflict; despite the alteration a person is still a practictioner of one religion. Here a person is Shinto and Buddhist while wearing a crucifix 'round their neck (of course the cross is almost always strictly for fashion).

The mind warps, but it also helps to take into consideration each person's level of belief in their religion(s) of choice. I spent one fall afternoon wandering about Kyoto with a friend and her associate taking in the sights of the kouyou at various temples. We were speaking about religion and my companion said something to the effect of "A lot of people don't really think about their religion, but they might pray if they're in trouble," along with "We go to temples and shrines because they're pretty." What with my being well familiar with the concept of the Sunday Christian, I can't say I was too surprised. The symbols that surround people and what they call themselves can often have little effect on their spiritual indifference.


A footnote of sorts: This scroll is from a tour that my resident mother and father took with their parents (on my fathers` side) through the temples of the Kinki region. The gold pattern ran them about 3000 dollars.

My host parents (my host siblings are more or less indifferent according to my mother) identify as Nichiren buddhists, but only became serious practitioners after the death of an uncle and several others. Having attended several funerals and witnessed such stunning revelations myself perhaps we are united in the connection between piety and the realization of our own and others' mortality.

Or maybe I'm still confused.

Just so long as it entertains...

Japanese art, as anyone who has been within Japan's borders for more than five minutes will understand, extends beyond Sumi-e and into the infinity of what can be classified as such.

It quite literally lines the streets, though said lining often takes a form of questionable legality



(on a side note I've still to investigate Japan's seemingly disproportionate amount of graffiti...and I still don't know who this Flash is)

It's not hard to find a person near JR Osaka Station, Kyobashi (a young lady I bought a picture from explained that she's there on certain days of the week depending on whether or not she's shooed by the police), or Shinsaibashi (the station or the walkway itself) vending their wares. The vast majority seems to be beyond the scope of what would considered traditionally Japanese; from my experience Sumi-e folk seem to be nonexistent in these places and even Japanese calligraphers tend to take a non-orthodox approach in their characters, going more for personal aesthetic than "traditional" cultural adherance



or prints of pictures in a variety of styles for every nearly every shade of the palatte, so long as one is not looking for anything beyond what might be considered the apparently phillistine. What you can find out on the street seems more reserved for people who would place it on their body or perhaps set up in a small apartment than for those that would discuss a piece over a snifter of brandy.