Sunday, 2 January 2005

Evolution

I've recently become aware of several changes that I have undergone since being back in Australia. One (which I'm happy has happened) is that I'm now ready to return to Japan. I love Australia, and firmly believe that as a country and people we have it over Japan in every conceivable way, but now I'm refrshed, reenergised and ready to finish what I started... though perhaps for not as long as I originally thought, simply because... well, Australia's better.

It's far too easy to start bitching about Japan (as anyone who has lived and worked in, not visited Japan will tell you). Racism, lying, aural hygiene, lack of self worth and identity, a completely decimated environment and lack of understanding of other cultures and countries...

...the positive features of this country are so artificial and emotionally sterile that I'm physically cringing while writing this. I'm returning because:

a) The money's good.
b) Travel to other countries (especially Asia) is shit cheap.
c) A deep sense of denial wherein I believe that a country as famous as Japan has got to be better, right? Maybe I just missed out on something in first few months?

Japan is a country which has actually benefited from it's stereotypical image shared by the rest of the world. Ironically most of this image is positive where the actualy issue is the opposite.

1) Japanese people are so polite! (While I have met some genuinely nice people in Japan, I've found the majority to lie and completely rewrite their own memory so they can see themeselves in a positive light. Plus there's the profound racism which is simply accepted as a part of life in Japan. They love Tom Cruise, but they wouldn't sit next to him on the train.

2) Japan is so clean! (This really depends of your definition of clean. Yes the shopping malls and stations are cleaned on a regular basis but the citizens constantly spit and urinate in public, 80% of the population appear to smoke and 0% of the restaurants and bars are smoke free. My health has been seriously affected by my stay here.
Something else worth mentioning is the disrespect for nature. Most people see it as a force to be controlled (hence the concrete parks) and think deforestation is a sign of social strength and that whales are the cause of fish shortage (nevermind the fact that Japan eats about 2/3 of the world's consumed seafood). Littering is common place, as are backyard burnoffs despite them being illegal. We have a river near our house with numerous carp that constantly jump here and there out of the water. We joke that they're trying to escape from the pollution.

3) Japanese people are so smart! (70% of high school children didn't know the Earth revolved around the Sun & in school, they deemed Pi as being too hard so they replaced it with "3".)

4) What about the technology! (Don't even go there. In most aspects of day to day life, Japanese society is about 20 years behind Australia).

As I said, it's far too easy to bitch about Japan. I forgot where I was going with this...

Anyway, I'm heading back and am looking forward to saving up at least AU$10,000 by December and traveling to other parts of Asia and maybe even a trip to Europe (I bought myself a Teach Yourself instant Spanish set today and a Teach Yourself French One Day Course CD to help me prepare myself.)