The Sun Also Sets

Farewell, Japan –

I will miss you.

I will miss your forests, with your pine trees standing so closely together (and so close to the road) that your nature can be every bit as claustrophobic as the streets and alleyways of your cities.

I will miss your customs, such as the belief that a pair of demons visiting each home on New Year’s Eve will scare straight any bad or lazy little children – despite the fact that some of those naughty little boys grow up to play such demons themselves. Perhaps the Namahage did get them, after all, even as they left them with their parents in the village.

I will miss the tatamae politeness of your people, always willing to help a confused-looking gaijin like myself out, even as I wonder about the honne within; do they resent having to use English in their homeland to obtain my custom, when it’s me who is the foreigner, and should adapt to them while I’m in their country?

I will miss the ability to travel a country in cleanliness, speed and comfort, with so much of your culture to wade through at either end of the line.

And speaking of culture, I know Daniel will miss your ads, with their wacky, over-the-top acting and cutesy mascots. He tells me it might well be worth the price of a VPN to continue to watch them once he’s home.

I will miss your ability to juggle four different alphabets – two homegrown (hiragana and katakana) and two imported (kanji and roman) – and somehow manage to get it all to make sense… mostly.

I already miss the smiles on people’s faces, but I admit to amusement at the fact that the girls use them now, not so much to protect themselves from viruses (as if they really could) as to hide their faces when they’d rather not bother with lipstick or blush. Rachel could have taught them how I. M. Pei’s dictum of how “less is more” can apply to makeup as well – that is, if they would have been able and willing to listen.

I will miss the cuisine that’s simple enough that it can somehow be put together in the most humble of mom-and-pop fast food establishments throughout your land, and yet complex enough such that the entire culinary staff of a high-end cruise ship line cannot replicate it with any sort of accuracy. They can make it look right, sure, but there is so much more to food than appearances.

And with that being said, I will miss the devotion to the art of the impermanent. This is demonstrated in the food you create, works of art that are meant to be demolished, and with gusto. Your philosophy of 一期一会 (Ichi-go ichi-e) – “one time, one meeting” – stresses that no single moment is the same as the next; every gathering, even of all the same people in the same setting, is still going to be somehow different, and each one is to be cherished; to you, each moment is it’s own unique work of art. Would that I could take that lesson to heart, and be willing to take the effort to create art that I’m willing to allow to be destroyed as part of its purpose.

I will also miss the things I never got to see. I know that experiencing all you have is an impossible task for a visitor, much as seeing every state of my own union (such as it is) would be back home. But I missed the warmth of Okinawa and the cool of Hokkaido, and many of your more prominent cities in between. And I shall continue to miss them as well.

I will miss the chance to investigate that shiba inu cafe in Asakusa yesterday. Likewise for any of the maid cafes of Akihabara; or really, anywhere in Akihabara, let’s be honest.

I will even miss the things I could not see that you might not be so proud of; your collective honne, if you will. Your nightlife, your pubs, your ‘water business,’ your ‘soap lands’; they all sound so clean, don’t they?

I also fear for you.

I fear for your children. You seem to be aware of this already; a generation hence will each individually bear a multiple of their elders. You know this is unsustainable – they haven’t shoulders big enough to bear the weight – and yet for now, the solution eludes you.

I fear for your safety. Oh, you have prepared yourselves (through the dubious benefit of long and hard experience) to deal with the worst of mother nature’s wrath, from above and below, but you have lost the ability (or desire, perhaps) to shield yourself against the mendacity of men. You pride yourself on being “the land of the rising sun,” where the day begins for the world. Somehow, you managed to forget that the sun also sets, and where – as well as who may be there, and what they may think of you. You seem to be good people, but if good people do nothing, well… you must know the rest of the proverb by now.

Most of all, I fear for your soul. Devotion is all well and good, misplaced devotion is, at best, a dangerous thing. Assuming there is a One True Religion and a One True God, it does you no favors to split the difference. And if neither of those that you practice are that Truth, woe be unto you; wasting your time on those in this life will be the very least of your concerns.

But I still have hope for you.

I have hope in your brilliance, both corporate and individual. You were able to rise from ash before; there’s no reason to believe you can’t do so again. You’ve even been able to create solutions where no problems necessarily existed. For all my fears, you have survived so much; I want to believe you will be able to figure your way out from under those things… somehow.

I have hope that you will be able to combat belligerence by redirecting it. You invented judo; surely you can apply it to the art of war (even though that magnum opus is one from your most formidable adversary at the moment).

I have hope that this is not my last time to see you, and that you will still be standing and thriving when I return. I’ve no particular reason for this hope, only that I expect it to come to pass all the same.

Mostly, I have hope (for now) that I can dot that eye, and that Megumi (whose name, after all, is not unknown amongst your daughters) would be willing, even eager, to meet you with me again, someday. Rachel and I failed to share you with each other; I hope not to make that same mistake twice.

***

I speak to you as the son of a great (or, perhaps, once great) city; we have had our share of writers and poets who had much to say about us. They extolled our virtues, even as they pointed out our vices. They acknowledged that the bad came with the good, but urged us toward more of the latter.

I realize that I am no Carl Sandburg, and even if I was, fifteen days is not enough to obtain an in-depth understanding of your land and cities so as to write you an ode worthy of you. There are language and cultural barriers that I will never be able to overcome, and even if I did, in your eyes, I would still be ‘gaijin’; an ‘outside man.’ I understand, and accept that.

But you are particularly poetic in your unique characteristics, and I wish to bid you farewell for now in a manner suited for that. I refuse to use your expression ‘sayonara,’ as it carries a note of finality that I am not ready to accept. Instead, let me say, “ja mata,” which the suggestion that, in accordance with my hopes, and defiance of my fears, I will see you once again. Until then, be true, seek truth, and find hope.

Itsu mo (Always),