The week in Japan passed by swiftly.  Since our schedule was packed with visits and we spent what little free time we had exploring Japan ourselves or catching our breaths, I wasn’t able to develop blog posts for publishing.

Everyday I would collapse into a deep, dreamless sleep and somehow wake up as early as 5AM for another day action-packed day.

We learnt, experienced and interacted with such a diverse range of things: foreign policy, domestic policy, indigenous peoples’ history, peers our age, a traditional Japanese inn, Japanese food of all sorts, and even simply the tempo of the cities we were in.  I could not have imagined seeing this all on my own so I am thankful to the Japanese government and JICE for making this experience possible.

Now, I’m bringing back a section of the first post I wrote for this blog: my pre-departure predictions.  It’s time to review them and see how my perceptions have changed.

Pre-departure Predictions Evaluation

Prediction 1: We will consume many, many bento boxes and very little fish or meat.

Actuality: Our group was fed very well.  Our breakfasts were at the hotels we stayed at and often were buffet style.  This is definitely not representative of daily life for people.  In fact, I never had a bento box.

I did learn through seeing side dishes of pickled things consistently at every meal that this was quite common.

Prediction 2: People will be very polite, formal and reserved.  There will be a lot of bowing everywhere, even if we don’t really know the person.

Actuality: The people that we interacted with were polite and did bow as we said, “Thank you,” to them for whatever reason, but I will not extend this statement to cover all Japanese since we mostly interacted with people in the service industry (hotel staff, guides, sales people at stores).

As such, I can say it was impressive how orderly and polite the service industry people we saw were.  One extreme example would be what I saw at the Toyota MegaWeb (their ride experience and information centre) before opening hours.  Their female staff, who assist visitors and do scheduled presentations about the various cars in the building, lined up in two lines facing each other, precisely mirroring the coworker across from them.  Their legs were placed in a perfect “T” shape and hands folded neatly in front of them.  For about ten minutes, they went through a variety of vocal exercises in perfect unison, including greetings. 

Prediction 3: I imagine the mix of cultural and historical landmarks amongst business in Tokyo will be reminiscent of London’s mixture of old and new.  Tokyo will be a high energy place and the commercial areas we’ll visit will feel quite similar to Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay or Tsim Sha Tsui.

Actuality: Historical landmarks were certainly in the midst of the city.  I did not spend much time going around Tokyo on foot since we stayed at in Shin-Yokohama outside of Tokyo and I was sick on the last night that we stayed in Tokyo, but I saw the Imperial Palace quite in the centre of things and a grand kabuki theatre in the busy shopping district of Ginza.  Tokyo indeed is a high energy place.  The large number of people constantly moving around in Shinjuku struck me – to even cross a sidewalk to get from the bus to the hotel entrance was a struggle against a ceaseless stream of people.

On to commercial areas.  Ginza to me is much brighter than Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay, but perhaps it’s because Hong Kong is much more humid and damp.  Another difference is that there are a lot of very narrow buildings housing a shop per level, whereas there would be larger buildings in Causeway Bay and even Tsim Sha Tsui. 

The number of signs in Shinjuku is something incredible to behold.  In narrow streets off the main road, vertical signs light up the street and stretch far above your head.  It’s simply sign after sign after sign, signs on top of each other and below each other, all competing for your gaze.  Pedestrians compete with cars for the road.

Read more about Tokyo in my earlier post: Yokohama and Tokyo city sketches.

Prediction 4: Sapporo will be the coldest place I’ve ever been (the coldest weather I’ve experienced so far has been up on Whistler, a ski resort two hours’ north of Vancouver, it was probably -5 at its lowest).  It’ll be pretty dark and its tempo will be similar to Vancouver’s.

Actuality: Sapporo indeed was the coldest place I’ve ever been.  It was dark early but the mornings were brilliantly white.  The pace of pedestrians on the street seemed a bit slower than Vancouver’s, but the Japan Rail station was a hub of activity even late after dinner.

Read more about Sapporo in my earlier post: Sapporo city sketch.

I’ve been writing about things I thought were interesting for myself and hopefully to you too.  Now, it’s time for you to let me know if there’s something you’d like to know more about!  Put a comment below and I will answer as best as I can.  I will also consider writing additional material to cover it!

Other than that, this will serve as my last blog post.  Thanks for reading and I hope you have a better sense of Japan and its various aspects from The Travelling Yam.

Cheers,

Verna

Over the Sosei River

Sapporo – the prefectural capital of Hokkaido, Japan’s snow country.  Powdery snow coats all surfaces and where people or vehicles travel, it is packed down into a slippery layer, forcing people to step carefully.  Despite this, people wear normal shoes with seemingly little grip and not boots, cycle around and run to catch buses in heels.

Sapporo’s population is roughly the same as Metro Vancouver’s.  Downtown is centred around its Japan Rail Station and the city is easily walkable with its grid layout.

Wherever we went, be it a university or museum, the people spoke proudly of Hokkaido’s “frontier spirit” as a defining characteristic of the region.  At first, I  thought it sounded a bit antiquated in placing a bygone era on a pedestal, but upon reflection I see that this spirit is still alive today.

The snow that covers Sapporo for a solid few months is problematic is so many ways, but people here have overcome the unique challenges associated with it in order to live.  Major roads and intersections are heated to melt ice and prevent accidents.  Roofs are flat so snow blows off of them, instead of slanted, which would pile snow into a neighbour’s lot.  Snow that is cleared off roads and other places by the morning rush hour is trucked away to a dumping ground just outside the city.  

I think all the pains taken to resolve these problems, as opposed to simply moving away, shows that Sapporo’s population has some sense of pride and belonging to the city.  

And here, a few more shots depicting Sapporo’s “frontier spirit”.

A common sight in Sapporo

Sapporo Clock Tower, built in 1878. Its design follows American frontier lands architecture of its time.

We didn’t get much of an opportunity to explore the cities on foot as we were shuttled from agenda item one to agenda item to by tour bus.  However, from travelling on the expressways, I still got a sense of the cities.

Yokohama is a major port city just south of Tokyo.  Its history as a port city stems from the opening of Japan for trade in 1853 by US Commodore Perry.

Yokohama and southern Tokyo are cities on water.  Massive, wide canals wind around sections of warehouses and industry, stretching inland.  We travelled over bridges that flew over flats of reclaimed land.  Many roads and intersections were built on supports extending from the water.

Tokyo itself is a city of levels.  The expressways crisscross each other and go so close to residential buildings that it’s hard to imagine their residents getting any decent sleep or peace with all the vehicles that ceaselessly roll by their window.  The monorail curved alongside us and skimmed over water along with the web of expressways we travelled on.

In the districts I saw, the workforce is dressed formally in simple suits and low heels.  It is a stark contrast to Vancouver’s casual dress code – I have gone to my co-op job downtown by Burrard Station without a blazer many times, even in dark slim-fit pants and a cotton tee.

How much of a fetish do you have?

Before this trip, I would have said, “None.”  Now, I will honestly tell you that yes, I do indeed have a fetish.  And I daresay you have one too.

A fetish is an obsession or excessive devotion to something.  This observation that I do indeed have one came gradually over these last few days from a number of experiences.

On February 16, our group visited Hokkaido University, where Dr. Seaton of the Modern Japanese Studies Program facilitated discussion on topical issues within his research, namely content tourism.

Content tourism refers to tourism that is driven by popular culture influences. For example, if a tourist chose to travel to a destination because it is significant to a certain anime or manga, that would be content tourism.  Its impact is quite significant, as Dr. Seaton illustrated through the following example.  In the anime Gin no Saji (Silver Spoon), the credits include a request to the audience to not attempt to jump fences or trespass on property in order to visit the farms that the anime is set in.

Having grown up reading, watching, admiring and loving Japanese popular media like manga and anime, I am strongly motivated to buy certain things or travel to certain places based on their connections to my favourite mangas or animes.  However, my desire to immerse myself in “Japanese culture” doesn’t stop there.

When my friends and I entered Bic Camera, a department store chain, we found our one-stop shop for souvenirs.  For me, it was unique DIY candy that I had seen featured by Youtubers or “Japanese” flavours like green tea.

At Bic Camera, there are few sales people to approach you and convince you to purchase things.  Our fellow tourist shoppers (I could tell as I overheard Mandarin and Cantonese), like us, needed no direction in buying souvenirs.  Our fascination with Japanese products, thanks to our previous exposure, were our little engines that drove us to buy things.

Buying souvenirs isn’t typically seen as unusual or even proving that you have a fetish.  However, to buy things that we believe are essential and representative of a culture so excitedly, so driven by our obsession, is indicative of something beyond a simple desire for a memento or appreciation of a product’s uses and benefits.

Having a fetish is not automatically a bad thing.  Wanting to visit a location because of its cultural importance (e.g., where an author lived) is understandable. 

To let a rabid obsession overcome you without recognition is dangerous though.  It colours all opinions and perspectives you give and disseminate to others whose little exposure to a culture may be only through you.  Fetishes also typically reduce a culture to a few points and may inhibit you from accepting other aspects of the culture.

So, how do I resolve this topic?  My fascination with Japanese candy cannot be resolved strictly rationally (the heart is fickle and stubborn).  What I can do is do the entire culture justice by learning more about all its aspects and therefore can present a less warped sense of it.  

I’m glad to have learnt more than just facts and figures on this trip.

We landed at Narita late afternoon today (Feb 14, Japan time).  By the time we finished a delicious nabe (Japanese hotpot) dinner and had time to roam around our hotel, it was already 9:30pm.

It’s awfully cheesy to say this but it definitely has not hit me yet that we’re in Japan.  I think it’s partly due to this strange suspended state I am in from being tired, and partly due to the fact that we have not encountered many people yet.

The area around our hotel, Shinyokohama, was very quiet.  Perhaps it’s because it’s between Tokyo and Yokohama and on the outskirts of both, or perhaps it’s because it’s a Sunday night.  I hope we find out tomorrow!