My Own Slanted Eyes

For several years it has been my dream to go skiing in Japan, and finally that dream has been realized.  All in all, I spent two weeks in Japan, one week visiting family friends in Osaka and Kyoto, and one week touring and skiing in Tokyo and Nagano. I loved Japan for a number of reasons, but the highlights would have to include watching an official Sumo tournament during a Tokyo snowstorm, eating the magnificently marbled Wagyu beef and surprisingly succulent raw horse for which Hakuba valley is famous, and all the while receiving the most impressive hospitality I’ve ever experienced.

It’s funny that Americans (myself included) tend to clump China and Japan together.  Without even considering the conflicting political histories of the two countries, or the somewhat tense racist friction that subsists as the aftermath of several wars, Japan and China remain quite distinct from one another in a number of ways.  I’ll elaborate by looking at a quotidian activity, such as boarding public transportation, to explain how I think China and Japan differ even more drastically than China and America.

In China, the doors to a bus open, and everyone just pushes in. It’s pretty clear that the thought process is thus, “If everyone is trying their best to get it, then that must be the fastest way to get everyone in. Some people will win for their efforts, and some will lose, but at the end of the day… the bus was loaded as fast as possible because every was trying their best to do just that.”  What is not so clear is how this individualist mindset develops from a communist society… or vice-a-versa.

In America, we instill the idea into our kindergarten-going children the counterintuitive notion that with a little bit of order the collective can actually achieve its goal more efficiently and effectively than in a free for all. Moreover, when sacrificing one’s personal freedom to advance unfairly at the expense of others, one secures the comfort of knowing that justice will be served. Colloquially, this process is known as waiting in line. Nevertheless, all systems have melting points, and during particularly busy hours of the day, or if you find yourself four-people-deep into a subway car as you decelerate to your destination, Americans tend to abandon their precious order for a different ‘line’ of thinking, which at best presents itself as a sequence of apologetic nudges. “Excuse me…pardon me…excuse me…coming through…sorry…excuse me… pardon...pardon me…sorry…excuse me.”

Japan’s civility, however, never seemed to reach a melting point. At the busiest time of day in Tokyo, under 6 inches of fresh snow and 15 minutes of train delays, the Japanese stood stoically in their lines. Then, when the metro car pulled in to the station, the passengers unloaded and reloaded as if they’d been rehearsing for this moment for the last few weeks. First, those within the car who were standing close to the doors spilled out onto the platform while fluidly creating an exit tunnel for those who were inconveniently trapped deep in the over-packed cabin. Once the exiting passengers were out, the loading process was initiated. As one of the all-time strongest testaments to man’s ability to control his animal urges, those waiting in line on the platform continued to wait in line as the overflow of passengers who were previously on board reversed their earlier steps and reclaimed their place on the metro. Then, and only then, did those waiting in the platform lines begin to board the car. There is not even the need for a single “Sumimasen!” (Excuse me) during this process, because it is civil duty driving this dance instead of mere politesse.

America being the median between China and Japan seemed to come up again and again during my travels through Japan. Where the Chinese have trashcans all over the place which are merely used as trash “bull’s-eyes” to be simply aimed for but not used directly, Americans have scattered trashcans which we use when convenient, and the Japanese have extremely few trashcans which they will almost always use. I would sometimes carry a candy wrapper for 15-20 minutes before passing a trashcan. Nevertheless, I was happy to do so, knowing that it was the cultural expectation to be clean and respectful of public spaces.

In conclusion, I’ll never lump China and Japan together again… at least not unless I lump America in there too; because the Chinamerican gap is significantly smaller than the Chinapanese.

Chinese Relativity: West meets East

It has been a while since my last post, and a lot has happened.  I traveled to the east coast of China for a few weeks and for the first time saw the other side of the spectrum here.

The first city I stopped at was Shanghai.  I couch surfed in Shanghai and thus got to see the city from a local’s perspective.  For the first time in my life, I felt like a real country bumpkin as I tried to explain my daily challenges to the Shanghai born and Shanghai bred.  I felt another kind of information gap between other westerners and myself in Shanghai.  I really liked Shanghai because nobody stared at me or gave me particular attention, but other foreigners, who had not yet traveled to the west of China, felt that they actually WERE the subjects of unwanted attention.  This relativity proved to be the reoccurring theme of my travels East.  It seems that no matter where you go in China, you will encounter a malaise of xenophobia, but it will wax and wane depending on where you go.

Also in Shanghai I encountered the phenomenon of an entire subway full of people on iphones.  I never frequented public transportation in America, so I can’t comment there, but it was truly astonishing to see over 80% of people simultaneously engrossed in an identical product. From my conversations with the Shanghainese, I learned that there is similar superficiality in many different areas of Shanghai life.  Supposedly, according to a Shanghai resident, Shanghai girls will project that they are high maintenance in order to be more attractive. Also, within the city there is some prejudice against those who come from the suburbs.  To me, this all seems to be the unfortunate symptoms of materialism of American proportions in conjunction with strongly superficial class distinction.  To summarize Shanghai in a sentence, I’d have to say that it is not the best place to travel, but definitely a great place to live; The subway was super convenient, the international influence was apparent, and I felt more or less comfortable being myself.

I also got to visit Beijing during vacation, which seemed to be a pretty solid medium between the estrangement of western China and the modernization of Shanghai. In contrast with Shanghai, Beijing is a fantastic place to travel, but a terrible place to live. The day I arrived and the day I left had so much unbearably horrible pollution that the air could be chewed and tasted. Fortunately, the two days I was walking around the capital city, it was all blue skies and clean air. It was really easy to get from place to place, and with some Chinese language skills, the whole city became my playground, including a lake next to the Forbidden City which was frozen over.

As far as anecdotes go, one sticks out in my mind. While in Beijing and Shanghai, I saw a total of four dogs poop on the sidewalk, and each time the owner picked up the poop to put it in a trashcan. (Not going to mention how totally absurd it is to call that a healthy man-animal relationship) However, in Kaili, I have seen countless times, a child poop on the sidewalk, and the mother just wipe and walk. This disturbing parallel really encapsulates the West-East dichotomy over here. The spectrum China covers is huge, and my travels have really taught me that it is quite shortsighted to think of it as only one collective.