Japan can really be a place of contrasting images. On the one hand, it’s a modern, technologically advanced country that makes some of the most amazing products in the world. On the other hand, other aspects of Japan can look — at least to my outsider’s eyes — quite backwards sometimes. Up until three years ago, when my son entered the first grade, students were assigned a number in alphabetical order, and all the boys were numbered before all the girls. Starting with the year my son started school, however, the system changed, allowing boys and girls to be numbered and seated together. Before my wife went to the U.S. to study English, she worked as an OL, an “office lady” in a Japanese company, where she was required to put in several hours memorizing which green tea cups went with which male employees, which male employees liked their green tea served a certain way, and what order to hand the tea cups out in. Sometimes the tendency of Japan to preserve the old ways is good, though. Although I can buy incredibly advanced electronics less than a kilometer from my house, it’s not uncommon to hear the voice of our local ishiyaki imo (EE-she-YAH-kii EE-moh) seller, who drives his truck around selling delicious stone-baked sweet potatoes.
Sometimes it does seem that the often-repeated idea that Japan runs a decade or more behind the West socially might be true. At least, Japan always seems to be in a state of imitating the U.S. and Europe in its institutions rather than taking the lead. Laws requiring child safety seats or forbidding sexual harassment in the workplace seem to have come a steady 10-15 years behind the U.S., and when Japan implemented a 401(k) type of system they gave it the original name of “Japan 401(k).” The next social change seems to be smoking: over the past few years, Japan has done a lot to limit where people can smoke, although usually tying this to politeness and good manners rather than fear of legal penalties. Now in most parts of Tokyo it’s illegal to smoke while walking outdoors, and as a result, there are special “smoking corners” in parts of the city, establishments where all you do is walk in, sit down and light up, happy in the knowledge that you’re “Smokin’ Clean” (Japan Tobacco’s slogan for smoking with good manners).
You’ve been in Japan too long when you air-drum in your car while listening to the U.S. Military radio news opening, which goes “here’s what happening…around the Kanto Plain.” The only English radio available in the Tokyo area is the Far East Network, the AM radio station that serves the U.S. military forces stationed in Japan, and it’s a staple of civilian gaijin here, especially when driving somewhere. In addition to NPR news and other programming, FEN serves up top forty and country music countdowns on the weekend, an hour of Rush Limbaugh every weeknight, and the occasional football game. Because it’s a non-profit station, in place of radio commercials they play short pieces on “our proud military heritage” which give interesting tidbits of military history from the past. As a result, I know quite a lot about the history of the U.S. armed forces.
