When I came to live in Japan back during the first Bush Presidency, I brought many things with me, including a suit, long underwear, and extra shoes, since I was sure I couldn’t find my size here (turns out I had nothing to worry about there). I also brought a suitcase full of preconceptions about what life in Japan would be like, many of which turned out to be wrong. First of all, I expected Japan to be a fairly un-religeous place, but when I got here, I was immediately invited to attend the Japanese Baptist church in our city, where I learned that studying by reading the Old Testament in Japanese is very, very hard. I was also surprised at the existence of Jehovah’s Witnesses handing out local versions of The Watchtower and polite Mormon missionaries riding mountain bikes while wearing ties, which they’re famous for here. I was also pretty sure I wouldn’t encounter any guns, since everyone knows that there are no guns in Japan, right? Imagine my surprise when a Japanese friend of mine who built high-performance racing bicycles turned out to be a hunting aficionado who owned several new and antique Remington rifles. Getting a license for a gun in Japan is very difficult, and prospective owners must undergo several months of training in their use and safety and be able to pass background and vision checks, but gun owners do exist here. I guess that’s the way of it: for every impression you have of something, there are always counter-examples, waiting to prove you wrong.
Haha, love this picture. Click to enlarge.
