I am a foreigner. Foreigner. F.O.R.E.I.G.N.E.R. I am a foreigner in Japan and in Japan, I am a foreigner before I am anything else. I have no country, no self. The very word ‘foreigner’ describes and identifies me. The title is burdened by meaning, always interpreted only by others. The label ‘foreigner’ is loaded with connotation contrived only by others. I can barely remember what it was like to once exist as a whole person. A time when I had reference points, friends, family, location, language. In Japan, my once real existence is a faint memory in a past dream. It all seems such a long time ago. Now, I occupy a space in which there is no familiar language to log on to and give me entry into a physical world. Now, I live in silence and exist in darkness. But in this world, I have shaped a new way of seeing and hearing. I have intuited a heightened sense of observation where visual cues are my language of communication and aural cues give me insight into a world beyond the physical. Is it possible to hear in the silence and see in the darkness?
In the often painful, always stressful world of a foreigner, I see the beauty, the genius, the modern, the magnificence of Japan, and a mirror is held up, a looking glass through which I see my own reflection and that of my country; a vast cinema of moving images depicting my country, warts and all. You see, in traveling, we can often learn a great deal about who we are and where we come from. We can discover what makes us tick, what makes our home country tick, our own country’s vices and shortcomings. Here in Japan I find myself careering along the learning curve of a new country and a new culture. Some days my slide is downwards, other days, I climb a tiny bit higher, but always, everyday, I negotiate the trials and triumphs of survival in a foreign culture and in the process I find myself on a parallel learning curve, seeing bits and pieces of my own home country with my eyes wide open.
Beauty.
Sitting in the cafe overlooking the station concourse, a concrete edifice which serves as a transitory thoroughfare for the lives of a country’s people to move along a time line from beginning to end, I watch Japan pass by. I watch casual men and smart women in their rush to and from. I see picture perfect families strolling, loving, caring. Expressive, happy, laughing teenagers and clipped and dangerous Yakuza dealing. People going about the business of life. And then I catch a flash, a fleck. It’s a ‘foreigner’. A tired-looking man of about thirty years of age, wearing a creased and tired expression to match his faded and jaded clothes. Seeing him, all crumpled, moving slowly, moving lonely, looking for something to look at, makes me feel awkward, self-conscious, ordinary. A hint of tension filters through the curious air. Everyone (or so it seems) sneaks a quiet double-take to check to see if the two foreigners know each other. The world being so small and all. He moves on, to Starbucks, probably, or somewhere else familiar where he can pretend to be. And Japan moves on. And I think, I wish I could be someone. I wish I could be as inspired as the Japanese. The dazed, scruffy foreigner has disturbed me and I begin to wish to absorb Japan’s confident sense of expression and the understated beauty that I see all around. You see, Japan has a perpetual belief in the notion of beauty, a true loyalty to beauty. You can see it. You can see it in the dedication to the slow process of their art, in the painstaking creation of ikebana and the tea ceremony, so concentrated and precise, slow and methodical, that it becomes existential. You can hear it. You can hear it in the ethereal pleasure of their traditional music. The haunting shriek of the shakuhachi is the blood of Japan as it pumps with the beat of the tsutsumi and taiko. You will find it in the fluidity of Kabuki. Kabuki, like watching time flow through the centuries, and you will participate in it every time you sate your appetite. In Japanese food there are untold beauties. Food in Japan is a conceptualized art. This art form holds the essence of food, an essence in which we the audience/consumer are given the freedom to evoke the meaning of Japanese cuisine. One does not eat in Japan; one involves oneself in the artwork. We are all expected to contribute to the creation. And beyond the art of Japan? Beyond the music? The food? Well, let’s see, aah yes, the Cherry Blossom.
Cherry Blossom. Spring snow in the sunshine, emerges gracefully once a year like royalty from its protected enclave. The buds peek out at us, teasing us and tempting us with pink wonder. Japan prepares for it like one would prepare for the coming of royalty. Throughout Japan, rugs are laid down, red carpets if you like, in parks and gardens, and people ring through the streets regaling and celebrating the prospective balcony appearance. And then the time arrives. A pink veil casts a mist of color, the glowing bride enters and for a brief moment the world stops to gasp at a moment that will quickly disappear. Cherry Blossom viewing is a time when Japan is at its best. Is Japan a little intoxicated? Yes. A little silly? Of course. A little happy? Absolutely! Japan is happy! That elusive quality which we all spend our lives in search of visits Japan. For a short time. Maybe the ethereal beauty of the Cherry Blossoms lies in its fleeting existence. The transitory, natural beauty is something we mere mortals cannot ever possess. Been. Gone. All beauty in Japan seems fleeting and fragile. It is this fragility that adds to the mystique perhaps. It is a precarious beauty. The Cherry Blossom appears for only that wisp in time and then it is gone.
Trembling flower on a delicate branch,
leaf tickling petal, brief breeze,
brief love.
Can I compare this beauty to an Australian sensibility? Australians love art! We do! Dressed up the elites sashay to the opera, the theatre, the concert. The rest of us read the reviews. I have never been to the opera. What a pity. But in everyday life, do we value beauty? Do we playfully flirt with aesthetics in our day to day business? Do we find meaning in the everyday? I wonder. Japan does. Japan understands the fragile and the fleeting. Maybe Japan understands the fragility of life. Maybe it is being born onto unsteady ground. Maybe it is being born into natural elements that can tear away existence in a fashion as violent and magnificent as it was created. I don’t yet understand what it is that is rooted deep inside the Japanese psyche that causes such attention to life and beauty. I am a foreigner, so perhaps I will never know. But what I do see is beauty everywhere in Japan. It is conscientiously worked at in every tiny nook and every tiny cranny of everyone’s world. And then…gone.
Today is April,
Tomorrow will be May.
The fine times duck through the clocks quick ticks,
while the shadows cast over the slow shifting of the dial.
One can never tell. How is time running today?
Genius.
How is time running today? Need one ask? The genius of it all. The genius of time. The genius of controlling time, collecting it, wrapping it in fine paper and delivering it to one of the greatest assets of Japan. The Japanese railway system. This is an infrastructure of true wonder and awe. A fully operational precision tuned web of sheer genius. I am Australian you must understand, and modern Australia is a country still in its infancy, only two hundred odd years since the British arrived to claim it theirs, and modern Australia has yet to design a practical, serviceable public transport system. For the Japanese, commuting is a hell of fiery anguish, at best, but for me, with the good fortune of ‘outsider’ observation, the Japanese railway system is a marvelous thrill. The trains, big huffing, puffing iron horses, arrive, arrive frequently and arrive on time to shift people to all corners of far-flung suburban outposts and back again. And lest we forget all the peripherals to this wonderful stamp of mankind. Ticket machines! Tickets! Conductors! Station staff! People employed, doing their work with an unflinching focus to their job at hand. To an Australian, these are all abstracts of thought. Dreams. Fantasies. La-la land. What a pity. My mother, a practical woman who, even though she lost friends to the Japanese POW camps, claims still today that Australia would have been better off if the Japanese had been successful in their endeavors to claim Australian soil. ‘At least we’d have a decent public transport system!’, she has said, time and time again. I give this some thought. Maybe she’s right. The Japanese could have been our Romans. Not only would we have a decent public transport system but probably a well thought through road infrastructure, a land management plan, irrigation, a sustainable environment, water management and a blue-print for the future. Dreams of the impossible dream? Not for the Japanese. Japan. Beautiful. Sensible. Practical. Genius.
Service.
May I remind you again that I am a foreigner, and as any foreigner will tell you, we can live from day to day purely on the kindness of strangers. That kindness can be our breath, our lifeline, our saviour from isolation and tragedy. A kind word from the bank teller, ‘hello’ will do it, or a gesture of communication from a sales assistant. These small acts reach out across the oceans and touch my heart and tickle my soul back into the light. These are small acts of kindness that can keep a foreigner’s spirit alive. Then, there are the great feats; demonstrations of the human capacity to be overwhelmingly good. Nowhere else have I ever seen such magnificent humanness than in Japan and, I want to be specific here, the Japanese Post Office.
The local post offices, those tiny nooks of smiles and efficiency dressed in crisp uniforms offer professionals and counter service unparalleled in any other modern world that I have visited. I have bought stamps, sent parcels, made collections and dispatched postal orders, all tasks done with next to no Japanese language ability, but, at the same time, no stress. A stress-free post office?! I am from Australia remember, a land where a trip to the post office requires mental preparation, physical stamina and an elite level of focus and determination rivaling any Olympic gold medalist. Our post offices were once like Japan’s. Our post offices were once efficient and beloved. Now they are ‘organizations’. A visit to an Australian post office means long queues often meandering out onto the street and a dogged belief that one’s postal needs will actually be achieved. But in Japan, the postal service offers an untiring, forever dedicated, deep-rooted passion to service. Home visits to deliver parcels, mail delivery on public holidays, carefully handwritten, meticulously considered English notes giving me information I need to know, delivered to my door. Such attention to the job scrambles my Australian head, and my brain tumble-turns into temptation to sign off always with ‘thank you, I love you’. I do love you, I think. Is it possible to fall in love with a postal service?! It offers support, comfort, inclusion and care. Why not?! But I am getting carried away. Remember, I am a foreigner, an Australian and unaccustomed to such magnificence in service. What a pity.
Love.
So I turn my foreign head to that notion of ‘love’. A dangerous word in any language. Love equals elation, pain, joy, sadness, loneliness and hope. Wait a minute, that’s what I am going through here, in Japan. And I want to talk about Japan so much that my heart breaks out onto the paper in front of me. There is so much to talk about. Two thousand words?! But I have only just begun! Like anyone who has a new lover, I want to talk endlessly. Don’t you want to hear? Do you know about the grace of the Japanese heart? Have you heard of the calm found in the nature? The stillness contained in the countryside? How about the frenetic mayhem of the cities? Do you know? The throbbing nucleus of Tokyo? A city which holds all the questions and is sure to have all the answers. Do you know? Have you heard? There is too much to talk about. And what of Australia? Australia, I loved you, but you have changed. We have grown apart. You don’t pay me any attention any more. You stopped giving me what I need. And I have found someone else. Someone who does pay attention, someone who does still try. You, Australia, stopped trying. You sank back into the couch ‘relaxed and comfortable’ and stopped noticing the growing cracks in the walls, the holes in the roof, the leaking taps and the broken furniture. What a pity. So, I’ll leave you to it. Maybe one day you’ll visit and we can talk. I hope so, for I do still harbor a secret desire for reconciliation. In the meantime, I shall bask in the honeymoon glow. I shall value my new love and learn from its brilliance and beauty, genius and magnificence.
Thank you Japan.
PS: I love you.
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