Chromophilia

Japan: A story of Love and Hate

“Because I need her. It’s not for history. It’s not for life. She is my life. You’ll know what I mean when you get old.”

Japan is ‘technologically’ the first world, but ‘mentally’ it is a third world nation. 

I remember an english teacher telling me when I first arrived. ‘The problem with the Japanese he said is that they always live up to their worst stereotypes.’

Japan is so demanding in so many ways that we in the West do not appreciate. I’m beginning to sense the pressures of living here now.

I know that as a `gaijin` (foreigner) I can get away with it, but I don’t want to stand out. Japan has that effect on even me now. It is not a fear from the authorities punishing me more from the people around me. What will they think, or say.

But fear brings social order which brings safety as well. And I feel incredibly safe here.

Occasionally I look over my shoulder when I hear a bang or crash, when a car pulls up close I get nervous. Living so long in lawless Iraq has left its scars and they are hard to erase. So I appreciate this safety now. Even if it means that its citizens often appear like wind-up dolls or robots, no one challenges, no questions … they just do. Why? Forget the word why? They just do. But I can’t forget why? It is my favourite word, and I’m beginning to miss it here.

It is estimated that there are 25,000 homeless in Japan, although the real figure is expected to be twice that. Many of the homeless feel free of the pressure of being in the rat race. Some described their life in tents in parks as ‘free’. Free is my favourite word in Japan. I think about it everyday as I watch this machinelike society plough ahead; where to? No one really knows or seemingly stops to think.

Society here steamrolls ahead, this powerful economy is all about moving forward at whatever cost. It never stops to question or take heed from the past, it just moves ahead.

(Source: tenfootfilms.blogspot.com)