Temple guardian, Ninnoji, Kyoto. 1986
[from FB post: January 16, 2012]
Just found out my neither of my mobile phones will roam in Japan. Sudden rush of bad memories -- "This is Japan". For my friends who lived there.... you certainly know what I'm talking about. Oh well -- there's always email, unless that doesn't work there either?? LOL
[January 19, 2012]
In Kyoto....it's cold and rainy. Japan might get more modern but wow.... it also doesn't change much at all! People still can't speak English. hahahaha
Twenty-six years after arriving in Sendai to my first job after college, I was back on a vacation in Kansai with Brian. We had both lived in Japan and experienced, "this is Japan", so not much surprised us. "This is Japan" was how foreigners described the Japanese attitude of "take it or leave it - this is the way things are done here". The fact that I took mobile phone roaming for granted world-wide by 2012, but it did not work in Japan (basically, we would have to buy a tourist SIM card for the length of our stay and that was expensive and complicated - I am sure few people bothered) did not surprise Brian and I at all. We were annoyed, but not surprised. We had both lived in "This is Japan" and resigned ourselves to it more or less immediately.
All countries claim some degree of exceptionalism - after all, how could a nation-state even exist if the inhabitants didn't feel they were somehow unique in the world? Japan displays this exceptionalism to one of the highest degrees I have ever experienced. I sometimes railed, cursed, and threatened to leave when I lived in Japan in the 1980's dealing with some arcane cultural rule or governmental bureaucratic task that I simply did not understand nor seemed to serve any purpose. Japan could be maddening that way. But, it worked for the Japanese and it WAS Japan.
That being said, however, there is one country that leaves Japan in the dust in regard to exceptionalism - the United States. Now, Americans can make a lot of excuses like "Our country is huge. It only has two neighbors, one of which is culturally and politically almost identical. If North America has developed its own way of doing things, well, that is to be expected. It is a whole continent. Why even learn a foreign language? A person can drive for DAYS and only meet other English speakers." I used to believe that on a pragmatic level. The world has changed, however, and globalization has unified many aspects of it - except America. The metric system stands out as a glaring example of America's failure to join the rest of the world in something that is better (e.g., vaccines or free/compulsory education). Americans often are shocked on trips abroad to find out how much BETTER some parts of the world work (even in the developing world) than "back in the States". American exceptionalism these days almost is an excuse for living in the past. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Well, if the world changes and one country does not, I would say that country is, in fact, "broken".
I may have suffered through many instances of "This is Japan", but it can't be any worse that "You're in America, now" for everyone who sets foot in the USA.
The world has globalized - kind of, with exceptions.