Time & Distance Make A Great Lens

IT’S BEEN almost two years since the Year Of Debauchery, which peaked with a month in Japan where I felt completely lost in an alien landscape. 2 years and several thousand miles later I finally understand why I need to go back there.

Originally I posted a series of articles on my experiences out there in the land of the rising sun, which you can read if you wish under the category of “Japan“, but ultimately I came back from Japan feeling a bit unfulfilled and confused because I knew as much upon my return about the place as I did the day I arrived there, or at least it felt that way to me at the time. This was – as you can imagine – not the reaction I was expecting.

Then recently I found my little black notebook which I had faithfully carried around with me during my stay in Japan and I started to read the often terse and cryptic observations I had made, and gradually as I traversed the pages I realised that actually I’d only begun to touch the tip of the iceberg that is Japan, and that basically I need to go back there to really immerse myself in that alien landscape again because there is no other place like it on this spinning rock of ours.

Take the initial observations from my first few hours in Japan for example:

“Breezed through the most quiet and efficient airport I’ve ever seen – How is this possible?”

“Masked people wandering aimlessly around the airport, presumably in search of some germs and a virus. Airport cops trundle along like toy soldiers, in packs of no less than 3 for some reason, in their perfect white gloves and oversized 1970s action man suits. The guns seem awkward on their hips, almost comical”

“Gulliver has arrived in Tokyo, exhausted, confused but here at last!”

The accommodation of course was a challenge too:-

“Collapsed in the smallest hotel room I’ve ever seen and grabbed 4 hours sleep before heading out to Old Tokyo”

“Gulliver Indeed; Bathroom is tiny – sink only reaches to my knees! Shower is tiny – Acrobatics required. Towels are tiny – more like face cloths and Toilets are just weird, warm and musical”

My first impressions of the cities and people were also confused:-

“Cleanest streets I’ve ever seen – but no bins evident. Anywhere?”

“Massive and modern road infrastructure, but bicycles use the foot path for some reason?”

“Language barrier not a problem; pointing skills are all you need here!”

“Just when we got the hang of the metro, we hit Tokyo Station and got lost for over 2 hours in the most bizarre, chaotic and wonderful train station I’ve ever encountered”

“The nation is apologetic for some reason; nothing is logical but everything is for the group. The group succeeds where individuals fail. It’s like a hive-mind approach I suppose. Mens clothes are too big for them. Women all behave like 12 year old school girls. The city is pretty safe, but somehow sterile as a result. Everyone walks like they are on the set of a Thunderbirds episode”

“All the salerymen read 12 year old schoolgirl porn on the trains in the morning on the way to work, but the porn is pixelated so what exactly are they looking at? What’s the point? ”

“What lies beneath the culture and intractability? Surely there is more to this than porn, procedures and rigid social structure? Where is the heart of Japan? What does it mean to be ‘Japanese’ in a modern world?”

The more time I spent in Japan the more I realised that I would never really understand it properly. I was a foreigner, an outsider and would always remain so. People there were doing things because that’s the way things have always been done. They never questioned it, they just got on with it. The more questions I asked the more answers I didn’t get.

I left Japan with an uneasy sense of having missed something important, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I had spent a lot of time trying to understand Japan, as I would when visiting any country or culture, but of course that was the problem.

2 years later I realise that I was wasting my time. Japan is not something to be understood by western tourists. It’s not an enigma waiting to be explained. It is simply Japan, take it or leave it. It is the most alien place I have ever been to on this planet of ours and I look forward to going back sometime soon to immerse myself again in it’s many confusing, bizarre and wonderful oddities.

In a world that is so packaged and predictable, Japan stands out on its own and insists that it is the centre of the universe and everything else should revolve around it. And I love that about the place.

Finding my notebook has only rekindled the desire to go back and prompted me to reflect upon the trip from 2 years ago with the benefit of time and distance from the place, but I wonder if my experiences there are similar to anyone else? Has anybody else gone through the same lunacy and come to the same conclusion?

Let me know…