Being dressed as kachi

Festival Princesses

Futagawa Honjin Festival

Settling In

Japanese Dinner

Futagawa Honjin Festival

First Impressions

Japan is a completely foreign place.  Most people come with some pre-conceived notion of what awaits them after they arrive at Narita or Haneda and, usually, they’re right.  From the quiet serenity of Kyoto’s many temples to the bustling technological metropolis that is Tokyo, Japan is perhaps the personification of contrast.  On one hand, Japan is leading the word through the technological age: smart phones and iPads are the norm.  On the other, 24-hour ATMs are still a work in progress and clothing is almost always dried on the front porch.  The language barrier is perhaps the most impenetrable it could be and the signs are all but impossible to read.  Cash is the way of the land, cars drive on the left side of the road, people point and giggle at you on the train, mothers take pictures of you with their children, and you hit your head on EVERYTHING.  The challenges you expect are very real but  this is much of the reason I chose to come here.  I wanted to live a life 180 degrees opposite of what I’d become accustomed to.  Japan has certainly delivered. 

Perhaps the most challenging of adjustments for me personally is the standard door height.  Most American doors are a standard seven feet or so.  The Japanese landed on 1.80m or 180cm.  Put your calculators down, I’ll handle the conversion for you: 70.866 inches or just under 5’11”.  Forehead bruising aside, this is a great way to break the ice with your new students or with fellow passengers on the train.  A little over a month in now, I’ve learned a standard duck that is effective enough most of the time and I’m usually able to make it through the day without grasping my head and rolling on the floor.  After all, I’ve found a new battle to fight.

Without a doubt, the most dangerous aspect of any country is something to consider when planning a trip.  Japan presents a unique challenge to its visitors that will surely catch most off guard.  Proper form should be practiced long before your departure date so that you may avoid as much trouble as possible.  Also, you should always remain aware of your surroundings and be prepared for anything that may come your way.  I’m speaking, of course, of the delay on automatic doors.  Americans usually fly through automatic doors.  From Target to Best Buy, we never consider how dangerous such instillations can be.  In Japan, I’m convinced, the government found an easy way to prank foreigners as a welcome into life in their country.  All automatic doors have a split-second delay.  Without stopping before each door, you look like one of the birds in a Windex commercial.  The worst is when both previous door issues team up against you.  At the Hotto Motto take-out restaurant across the street from my school, the automatic doors are the slowest of all AND they are the standard 180cm.  I will move on now, because I can feel myself getting emotion just talking about it.

The cash dependency is something that also still feels surprisingly foreign to me.  I’m not a person that chooses to carry large amounts of paper money around with me, so having tens of thousands of Yen in my pocket at any given time is strange.  Any smaller denomination than ¥1,000 (essentially the Japanese equivalent to a $10 bill) is in coin form, usually making for a very musical walk to the ¥100 shop (Dollar Store). 

Fact of the matter is that the Japanese people view the world in their own way.  While this is perhaps the most foreign part of traveling here, it is also the most refreshing.  To the modern Western tourist, Japan is a treasure trove of new ideas and new ways to appreciate things we too often take for granted.  At home, we too often find ourselves swimming against the current as a means of keeping control of where we are headed.  The Japanese seem to embrace this flow and find comfort in preparation and an open mind.  It’s very true that the language barrier will be a challenge, but I’ve never come across a country more excited to attempt to bridge it.  The locals understand the difficulty of learning their complex tongue and show more patience with clueless foreigners than I have come to expect.   

These are the kinds of differences that make travel to the Far East so incredibly interesting.  Literally every small aspect of daily life is different, if not the exact opposite.  Experiencing differences and overcoming challenges are a huge part of why I travel and Japan will never fail to catch me off guard.  It is truly one of those countries that require a lifetime to even attempt to grasp.  I will never understand the Japanese, but I can hope to continue to learn and embrace the different.