Faces

Humility is a virtue the Japanese hold dear: “The heavier the head of rice, the deeper it bows" - The Economist




I didn’t know much about Japan and even now keep living in the same state of ignorance – this is because Japan has never been on my “amazingly, fascinating” places list. This list of mine has to have certain ingridients that Japan didn’t have. If I had to stick to them, I wouldn’t have got to like Tokyo, but Tokyo got to be a lovely January present.

First of all because it came as a huge surprise. As things in my life happen in a strange way – e.g. I had to see a Government falling (the Romanian one, of course), to be recalled to Romania – this time, I had to see my boss taking the decision of not going to Japan because she got pregnant and sent me instead. This chain of events fascinates me. Always.

My first day in Japan was a shock. I have to tell you that Japanese flight attendants are the kindest on Earth, they would do anything to please you or find what you asked for –they treat you with utmost respect, never talk to you standing so you would feel “patronized” by a certain superior attitude but would bent or kneel to your level.




When arriving in Tokyo, I decided at the airport that I didn’t like the place, especially after hearing somebody telling me frightening stories about things that I do not like very much – I know I would sound like an anarchist after saying this, but people who know me, know what I am talking about – I didn’t like to hear anything about rules and systems and discipline. It was toooooo much for me. I didn’t want to hear that the highway from Tokyo to the airport was 60USD, that the “macho” Japanese married men, after work, go have a drink and advertise themselves in the bar so that they can get a new mistress and of course, that women have lovers also (of course, besides being married) – anyhow, if I continue, I will start an endless story with pros and cons, a story about freedom, non attachment etc etc that would definitely go beyond the purpose of this blog.





So, after hearing all these stories and staying in the car for 80km waiting to get to the hotel, I managed to get into my nice 23rd floor room in a nice hotel with a lovely view, with a lovely view of mount Fuji. Apart from being clean, clean, clean, cozy, comfortable and nice, my room had no window that I could open and of course I had to enjoy the 23ºC temperature set at my air conditioning for the whole time. I was not allowed to experience any claustrophobic tendencies that could have determined me to open a window. No, not in Japan.

I was tired after being in airports and airplanes for more than 20 hours and enjoyed my meal – with a delicious corn soup (for those who do not know this soup, I will tell you how they do it – it is simple, I guess very caloric too – you take one can of corn grains, pour it in a pot and then blend it with some milk – until it gets fluid but it is still thick- you can sprinkle it with black pepper – nice and lovely).


The first day we get to go to the Japanese “institution”, everything was as planned, we had to sit around a table, each of us had his/her own name tag put in front in two languages (English and Japanese) – our Japanese guests could read our names in Japanese, we could read their names in English – this is a tiny example from a people obsessed with details. I will not tell you much about the purpose of my visit – which was not, of course, a holiday, but a professional one….but sometimes I might remember nice things that I would like to mention.

The temples

It is funny how I have started to make statements about things that I want for sure and I know I will get. One of them was to go to a Buddhist temple. Actually, before going to Japan, I asked myself what I would like to see and this was the only answer I could give myself, and I told my friends and parents “In Tokyo, I will go to the temple”. Even nicer was that our hosts organized for us a cultural program as well (I loved them for that), and I guess I don’t have to tell you that the very FIRST thing we got to visit was …. THE TEMPLE. The oldest temple in Tokyo, a fascinating world that took me back in time, 25 years back, when I could see myself little in a Buddhist temple in Thailand. I was so overwhelmed with everything, the spirit of the place, the smoke of the burned incense sticks, the people touching the statues for good fortune and all the other things that I did not know what they meant, but I was sure that they were having a way greater significance then what I was thinking, all those hopes and dreams, and wishes and love. That place I just loved. Of course I made my secret wishes there and let the Universe do his job as it knows very well  every single time, but most of all I wished for all to have open spirits and forget about their mundane worries and live life as it was the most precious and beautiful gift of all.





We also had a visit at the Edo museum. Not being familiar with the culture, I didn’t try to get too much information in my mind, I just loved to see the Japanese way of living through the centuries, their tiny houses, the way they used to organize and discipline themselves and so I got to understand a little bit that this was the only of surviving after being hit by so many terrible events (fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, wars) – they learned that solidarity is more important than anything, they managed to save thousands of children during the second World War by sending them to the countryside after being properly gathered together – I guess this is why, now, (if the person who told me this was not wrong), at 5pm, every day, a little song is sang across Tokyo and at that time children would have to go home and stay in the house – so obedient – and they built a country from scratch with HARD work and dedication. For a long time, Japanese people used to work 7 days out of 7, after WWII they starved and were grateful for any additional bowl of rice that they only got to obtain with very hard work, without complaining, without deserting, without being lazy or unhappy for their terrible fate. They built a nation out of HARD work, from a country that practically has no natural resources of its own. The great pride of Japanese is though, water – tap water which is actually so pure that it does not even have to be filtered. I would be myself proud for such a resource, for the respect they have for environment and nature, for their harmony they want to translate into daily life from their beautiful and unique religion which is Shinto. I read that after WWII, of course, the beautiful trees of Japan disappeared so they all decided that they would have to reforest again Japan and each person contributed to this, because they knew that all their energy would come from nature.

The city

I was literally lost in Tokyo, an alien on another planet observing people different from me. Women that look like dolls – women in Japan are of course tiny and extremely sweet and beautiful, they care very much about how they look like, so I was surprised (besides walking in the street and see extremely sweet dressed young ladies-even prostitutes were lovely) to see at midnight, at the subway, tens of young ladies with perfect make-up on their faces, with perfect hair style, lovely shoes, great kimonos and fresh looks. What I found though strange was that many buy shoes that are 1-2 sizes bigger than their actual size – my first thought was that they would do that because they have tiny feet, nooooo…..they do it because they are afraid that the shoes might be to tight for them and hurt them in time…I guess they never thought that shoes can be also uncomfortable if they were too big. In the metro, they most people spend their time watching tv on the tiny mobile phones screens (almost everybody at the metro holds a mobile phone in his/her hands and stares at it for different reasons) or taking a nap – I was fascinating to see that they have developed the capacity of taking a very quick nap standing on the chair and at the exact metro station, they can instantly get out of the train like nothing has happened. Amazing world. Men, though, are effeminate. In the metro train I was trying to take pictures of somebody with lovely fingers and nice face hidden behind a pair of dark glasses – I found out only later that she was actually a he. And besides all these, women and men behave many of them like children – they laugh and laugh and laugh and smile – they look like young spirits whose first reincarnation was in Japan – they have this funny way of starting laughing when they don’t know something –even at conferences, if they forget something or they can’t find the words, they start laughing so that you keep asking yourself whether something was wrong with yourself…..

I would not call Tokyo a romantic city – it doesn’t have anything that would make you think it was romantic. It has tall buildings made of concrete and steel and glass, it has highways built on 4 levels (crazy!), it has trains without drivers, it has a copy of the Statue of Liberty, a copy of everything, it has imitated many building and monuments and this makes you believe it does not have a strong personality……..but , for me, it had a beach, and it had a Rainbow Bridge over a bay, and it had this amazing view during the night that only filled my heart with joy. I got there by train, in the night and I was again surprised by the Japanese kindess- a Japanese guy let me and my colleague sit on the first row just close to the window so that we could get the best view.

I have to say that I had a moment when I wanted to escape, when I realized that I would never be able to fit in this word, or be happy there. Please don’t get me wrong, Tokyo is lovely, Japan was a unique experience and I will be grateful to the organizers of this trip my whole life, but I realized that certain limits cannot be surpassed and the reasons behind them are even stranger, especially for a civilization that is so advanced. I went to the Palace. The Imperial Palace. Before going there, I was picturing myself visiting the luxurious rooms of this place and enjoy its gardens. I was completely wrong. The visit had to last for one hour and we were all supposed to stay in line – more than that we could not stop and the guide told us that the guardians were not very happy with our behaviour as we were leaving huge space between us – crazy, undisciplined Europeans. We just visited the gardens, found out that the Japanese cheery trees actually do not have cherries and that we cannot step close to the bridge rail. Why? the explanation was the following – guardians fear that if something falls from your pocket you will jump after it over the bridge and fall into the river. And yes….I instantly recalled the tens of times something felt off from my pocket and I jumped over the bridge, from my window, mountain, balcony or any other height. I remembered when my phone fell from the 23rd floor and I jumped after it and thanx God, nothing bad happened…..come on….this is Japan – a world where you are not supposed to do whatever you want to do , but a world where you can do only what you have to do, you have to be attentive to signs, you have to watch your step if it says so, you have to climb up Fuji mountain only in a certain time of the year, you have to keep repeating CONTINUOSLY “welcome to our store” in the afternoon etc etc – yes, this I have to mention, as I went in the afternoon to a very popular small super market – I got in and I kept hearing and even shouting every body the same thing. I looked at them. They were talking and doing different things at the same time – most of them were just putting products in the shelves so they were shouting to the shelves the same thing over and over again. I later found out that they were saying something like “hello, welcome to our store” – I have never seen anything as automatic as this though. Even our guide told us it was automatic. And I asked her – ok, if it is like this, why anybody doesn’t ask them to stop repeating this over and over again because it is annoying – and you know what she said – that she got so used to this that she doesn’t even hear them. I was surprised to see them immersed in their own thoughts, making automatic gestures and saying automatic words. Like robots.

But these people are able to organize the most precise events, the most precise schedule and the perfect timing. They wanted to combine Japanese with European so that we would not feel completely estranged. They took us to Japanese restaurants and to European ones. They even took us to the restaurant where the movie “Lost in Translation” was shot. A very fancy, expensive restaurant and the basement of a 5 star hotel. A restaurant where I was not able to eat my tortellini immersed in the greatest quantity of FAT cheese and where I kept admiring the walls covered either in ceramic tiles or other things. This is where I also saw the greatest variety of pickled fruits and vegetables – grapes, grapefruits, lemons, egg-plants, cucumbers please name it. Japan has, I believe, also the greatest variety of dried food – I think they could dry anythng – from fruits and vegetables to any type of fish.

Saying goodbye

Sumo

The last day was again dedicated to discovering some of the Japan “prides”. I saw in our schedule that we were supposed to see a Sumo match (as I was not a Sumo fan and I kind of ignored our guide’s explanation as to the bliss of seeing this – Sumo championships happen only a few months a year – and I would have preferred seeing Japan in spring, when the cherries were in bloom – I was not in my most enthusiastic state of mind). I got there though and fell in love with the ceremony, even admired the Sumo players for their strength, concentration, technique and perseverance. There were thousands of people attending the championship, I found out that one of our tickets was about 80-90USD and I started to understand a little bit why they worship the Sumo wrestlers – they at least behave like men  our last destination before leaving was the Tokyo Panasonic Center, a place useless for me (before seeing it) but extremely interesting afterwards. I found out about the care Japanese have for the environment, I was amazed by their wish to make the world a comfortable and clean place and really venerate nature. Harmony and well-being.

Before leaving, on Saturday morning, I took a very fast walk around the hotel, managed to get to another near-by Shinto shrine (or was it a Buddhist temple??), where of course I exchanged additional smiles with Shinto believers and then got back for another looooong trip. I said good-bye to the cleanest place on Earth, where people have an obsession with cleanness, where you cannot breathe dust or see a piece of paper in the street, where men and women never throw anything in the street for the simple reason that the Government has decided, after the 1995 gas attack not to put garbage bins in the street so that now they would keep the garbage in the purse, pocket, jacket or elsewhere but never leave it in the street. Japan was nice, not a place that you would instantly fall in love with, but a clean and humble one. The place where I heard the strangest English pronunciations so that the word “laboratory” turned out to be “lavatory” and the word “valuables” became “variables”. So now, whenever I want to go to the laboratory, I will have to take care of my variables with me. Too sweet Japan.