The difficulty with traveling abroad, even for a bit longer of a period of time, is that making comparisons between your home culture and the place you are visiting is difficult. Especially on tours, your time there is never enough and your visits are fairly managed such that one can end up in a bubble of tourists in a foreign culture. Meals are very often with other tour groups. Tour groups flock to the same locations for viewing.
The short hybrid experience I have in Japan is not quite that - for example, we are not in a tourist bubble and we take more local transportation and are exposed to more local things. And there is a gentleman's agreement amongst ourselves that, at least for that time, the "Real World" will not intrude, Still, being in a more local neighborhood, going in stores not specifically aimed at tourists and dining a bit more locally, one has the opportunity to at least note some differences or at least things that seem noticeably different. Here are a few observations:
1) Trash: Japan, as is reported by almost everyone that goes, is clean. The litter that we have become used to as part of life in urban/semi-urban/rural America simply does not exist. Yes, the odd piece of trash makes its appearance in a train station, but there is simply no comparison.
Interesting subpoint: There are no public trash receptacles either. Not even in some semi-public facilities. People simply take their trash with them. We learn to do it when we are there.
The contrast of largely trash free and no public trash cans may seem to be an odd disconnect; I think it reflects on how Japanese culture emphasizes the responsibility of the individual to the larger culture.
2) Virtue Signaling: There was none that I could see anywhere. That does not mean there was none going on - after all, I am a foreigner with the vaguest grasp of the Japanese language and Kanji. But no business told me anything about anything they believed, other than the products that they offered. The only "virtue signaling" - if you want to call it that - was a kamidana, the small Shino Shrines one sees in businesses.
3) Quiet: We spent somewhere between 45 minutes and 60 minutes on trains almost every day. Beyond just the fact that trains are always clean and almost always in better shape (maintenance and cleanliness) than my local mass transit, there is almost no conversation on the trains, and certainly no public phone calls. People just sit or stand silently, looking down at phones or books or with earpods in listening. Even in the crush of a couple of rush hour trains, there is almost no conversation. It is as if everyone is in their own little private shell, which can get compacted down to their body size - but remains intact.
4) Tips: There are none in Japan. What you are charged is what you pay, and there is none of that awkward "There is going to be a screen coming up in a moment..." nonsense. That said, in all my trips to Japan (7 as an adult) I have never, ever had bad service.
The contrast of largely trash free and no public trash cans may seem to be an odd disconnect; I think it reflects on how Japanese culture emphasizes the responsibility of the individual to the larger culture.
ReplyDeletePersonal responsibility is core to the differences you've seen.
The quiet manners are part and parcel.
BTW friend, from your ongoing story about your area you live in is very civilized compared to Portland, Seattle and NYC.
Michael - It strikes me that it is both personal responsibility and responsibility to the larger culture as a whole. I have known those with great personal responsibility that feel they have limited responsibility to the larger culture and those with cultural responsibility that do not feel the pull of personal responsibility. Perhaps one can beget the other, or perhaps they simply need to be taught in tandem.
DeleteI guess that is why I have yet to go to a foreign country with a group of tourists and organized by someone else. I don't like being in bubbles. I like being out in the thick of things trying to immerse myself in the culture around me.
ReplyDeleteStill, in all those trips I hadn't thought about virtue signaling until reading what you wrote. Yet is has been absent in nearly every foreign country I have visited and yet as you allude to, is nearly ubiquitous here. I hope it remains that way for the rest of the world and that we aren't just ahead of the times like seems to be the case with other social issues.
Ed, there are pluses and minuses. As you say, exposure to the local culture is limited. On the other hand, I cannot imagine having seen all things we are able to see on our trips by us having to manage all aspects of it. I am always a little surprised by how much "work" it takes to organize even a one day trip in Tokyo to decide what we are going to do and how to get there.
DeleteI cannot fully say that virtue signaling is purely an American thing, as I have spent enough recent time in Europe or other Western based countries to comment. I can say that it was completely absent in Turkey, Cambodia/Singapore/Vietnam, and now Japan. At best, there is a religious aspect that is far more prevalent in those places, but it is not in the sense of signaling: it is simply part of the culture.
The quiet that is present on the trains, probably no one wishes to disturb others around them even by talking in any manner. When I walk around the nearby lake the people I hear talking even over a block away are on their phone, talking among two people walking .is almost always quieter. Japan hasn't had the influx of so many different groups over the decades that the USA has had. Plus having a monarch up until the end of WWII played a part. Cognizant observations there TB.
ReplyDeleteNylon12 - I also wonder if at some level the fact that there is such density so often means that individuals value the quiet any time they can get it.
DeleteThe longer we go, the more the Computers In Our Pocket become a true curse. An inability to regulate our volume in conversation is the most recent of examples.
W. in CA
ReplyDeleteWe would love to travel back to Israel. Our mission/church/tour group was a bubble on a tight schedule. We met wonderful staff at many hotels and venues. We got to see some human side of the culture that way and when we popped into a service at The Great Synagogue in Jerusalem. They made us feel very welcome. It would be nice to go and be a part of the life and culture on our own schedule.
I started reading Hostage by Eli Sharabi yesterday. Very captivating recount of his kidnapping and fear and faith while in Gaza.
While in Japan, what was the political culture like before their landslide election just about when you returned home? Quite a lot was made about the amazing win of the conservative candidate and party, surprisingly called The Liberal Democratic Party.
W - As noted above, I find pluses and minuses about group tours. The minuses are simply you are never in any one place for a long time and you get a very surface view of the culture. On the other side, you can see many places and a lot of the planning is taken care. I doubt we could ever see so much in so many different parts of a country on our own.
DeleteAs it turns out, the pre-election campaigning was going on during our stay. It is quite different from the US: there would be small vans with speakers that were parked or individuals with microphones/speakers/loud speakers talking about their candidate (I assume), and individuals handing out paperwork. No angry protests, no confrontations. Interestingly, the parties seemed to be identified by colours on their paperwork and their vans, only remarkable because there are so many more Japanese parties than in the U.S. and thus, many more colours.
One of the most difficult concepts that I have found for Americans in particular is the idea that the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is in fact the conservative party.
These are the kinds of observations that make culture study so fascinating. The underlying theme I see is respect. Respect for the environment and for others. Even the no tips probably represents a respect for the worker, who likely gets a fair wage. When I worked as a waitress, we were paid sub-minimum wage on the rationale that tips made up the difference.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, I have read that the average salary for positions like salesfolks and servers is higher in Japan than, say in the US, but I do not have any data beyond colloquially to support that. A quick look at Countryeconomy.com is not terribly helpful, as it gives the average wage by country ($82,933 for the U.S. versus $35,850 Japan 2025) - and I don't think that tells the full picture. For example, small businesses are still plentiful even in a large metropolis like Tokyo, while in the U.S. it often seems like we are more and more into large chains.
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