Staring at rocks and glowing ducks on the other side of the planet |
This Editor’s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI’s weekly update email to members of the Times of Israel Community. To receive these Editor’s Notes as they’re released, join the ToI Community here.
Back home for 10 days from a first visit to Japan, I’m still reeling from the culture shock. A double dose: The assault on the senses that is Japan, and the contrast in returning to Israel.
As some of you will know first-hand, Japan is a land of contradictions — energized and dignified; at once wary and aspirational when it comes to the West; deeply religious but not religiously extreme; its people solitary and uncommunicative by day, but extroverted, warm and garrulous inside restaurants and (especially) sake bars at night.
If you live there or have been there, you might dispute one or all of those generalizations, with valid arguments. Like I said, a land of contradictions.
First impression: Where we started, in Tokyo, there are just so many people — 40 million, the largest city in the world, four times Israel’s entire population. Think of Times Square or Piccadilly Circus and then multiply that I don’t know how many times over to get a sense of how many neon-dazzling shopping, eating and people-watching hubs there are in the capital. Seven stories up, in buildings that range from unremarkable to cutting-edge architecture, there are huge numbers of people in restaurants, electronics stores, vinyl record shops, cosmetic surgery salons. Inside, they thrum with activity and noise.
But even in the most packed and vibrant areas, outside on the streets themselves the traffic is horn-free and disciplined, and there’s an almost supernatural near-silence on the sidewalks.
In our brief experience, people are incredibly polite. Every act and interaction is accompanied by small bows and repeated thank yous (arigato gozaimasu); people will go out of their way to help you with directions, even if they actually don’t know where you should be going; we heard multiple anecdotes of people going to great lengths to return forgotten phones and bags; there is apparently very little crime.
We witnessed only one act of violence, directed at a tiny toy: A passenger on a late-night train took a seat opposite us, alongside a small, glowing plastic duck (it had a light inside) that had been left, alone, in a largely empty carriage, and, with sudden, single-strike efficiency, kicked it off the seat and out through the train doors.
This was quite spectacularly out of (national) character, especially on trains, where signs ask passengers not to speak on their phones, and most people dutifully obey, sitting and standing, again, in near-silence. Almost all are headphoned, watching or typing impossibly fast on their phones — those, that is, who are not asleep; 12-hour workdays are not uncommon; many of the city’s commuters, in early mornings, evenings and later, are out cold, plainly exhausted.
The diet seems heavy on carbs (rice and noodles), and strikingly light on vegetables and fruit. Yet people are not overweight, and life expectancy is super-high.
There appears to be a generational shift underway — a deferential, self-effacing older generation, and many super-hip, rowdy youngsters. Japan is proud and protective of its culture, traditions and history (though its Yushukan war museum notably misrepresents........