Contrast Between Cultures
As Americans, we regularly encounter a diversity of cultures within our own land. However, many of us do not extend that encounter into any kind of real engagement with those cultures beyond our own. Even fewer of us take the further step of traveling to another country to engage a different national culture on its own turf and on its own terms. Many Americans feel fine about venturing little outside their own cultural comfort zone. However, I believe that life is endlessly richer and more rewarding if we actively engage with other cultures. Either at home or abroad, Americans have valuable lessons to learn from and teach others by engaging a culture outside their own.
I recently returned from two weeks in Japan. Japan is like a second home to me--I have lived and worked there twice and travel there often to visit family (my wife is from Japan) and friends, as well as to sight-see and study. Each time I go to and from Japan, I experience a brief period of culture-shock (on both sides of the Pacific), albeit briefer and briefer as the years go by. The fact is that, although the United States and Japan (like any two countries) have much in common, they are literally and figuratively a world apart and have just as much in contrast. However, I would argue that, like most opposing cultures, they complement each other in that contrast.
Arriving in Japan recently, I briefly experienced a little discomfort adjusting to the change in scale there, the crowded nature of life, the cultural expectation to act and look a certain way--to harmonize, rather than express my individuality. Though much of Japanese cities is gleamingly ultra-modern and chic, so many streets and neighborhoods remain an endless maze of crowded, narrow alleys of small shops, businesses and apartment buildings, lined with menacing power-lines. It is a highly functional, clean, and safe, yet hodge-podge, visual cacophony, abrasive to western eyes used to some sense of city planning and organization. However, because of repeated experience, I quickly adjusted, settled in, and even felt comforted by being a harmonious, tiny part of such a complex, functional sea of humanity and urbanity.
By the end of my trip, I was reluctant to leave Japan. I had been to the heart of the country and back. My last morning in Tokyo, the largest urban center, and most eco-friendly and safe mega-city on the planet, dawned bright. Being early May, this was near the beginning of "Golden Week," a jubilant week-long period of national holidays when the Japanese people vacation and travel, relishing the beautiful spring weather. The weather was indeed sunny, warm, and just humid enough to remind me of the verdant Japanese countryside surrounding Tokyo. Azaleas were in full-bloom throughout the city, even along the narrow, crowded streets outside my small hotel near the center of Tokyo. My wife and I stepped outside our hotel, luggage in tow, heading to the nearby train station, just one-stop from Tokyo's central station. We encountered one of my favorite sights in Japan, pre-school children in school uniform. Two, probably 4-year-old boys, were straggling, hand-in-hand, as their mothers gently beckoned them to hurry along. With yellow hats and blue jackets, giggling joyfully, they melted my heart. Japanese culture protects and nurtures childhood to a degree uncommon in America. Remarkable parental devotion to rearing and educating a child in Japan is a common cultural virtue, and it is seen everywhere--even on the bustling, commercial streets of Tokyo.
Next, my wife and I pulled our luggage through morning rush hour at the nearby busy train station, boarded a train on what is probably the busiest train line in the world--the Yamanote, and headed to Tokyo Central Station. Japanese train and subway commuters possess uncanny coordination in navigating the rush. It's something like a dance. As an American, I'm much less adept. However, as a caucasian and obvious foreigner, so many Japanese gave me a pass, smiling and bowing as they let me through. The endless streams of business men and women in overwhelmingly dark, conservative dress is mesmerizing--such a smooth movement of masses of millions, impressively efficient and functional, it's even graceful. Only in Japan.
My wife sped away on an iconic bullet train (long the world's fastest trains) from Tokyo to her hometown for an extended visit with family. I stayed behind in Tokyo, with a few hours at my disposal before I had to head to the airport to return to the U.S. I decided to revisit some favorite spots in this incredible city: Shibuya and Harajuku, colorful center of youth fashion and pop-culture and popular with such American celebrities as Lady Gaga, Pit-Bull and Pharrell Williams; West Shinjuku, with its towering, brilliant skyscrapers and center of world-dominating Japanese business and commerce; and, finally, Meiji Jingu, the massive, yet serene Shinto Shrine and grounds, a huge forested haven of spiritual calm in the center of Tokyo. The energy of this strikingly modern and hyper-efficient city is electric. Its 37 million-plus population would be daunting, if not for the politeness and harmony that together are, perhaps Japan's greatest cultural virtue and value. Why is Japanese culture so polite and harmonious? Is it the Confucian ethics, the Buddhist principles, long ago imported from the Chinese mainland? Is it something organic and innate to Japan? Is it simply a practical and necessary reaction to the unavoidable reality of a population almost half that of the U.S., stuck in a country smaller than California? Whatever its roots, the harmony and politeness of Japanese culture is admirable and enviable and unique in the world.
All too soon, I had to rush away on an express train to Tokyo Narita International Airport. AIr travel usually involves unavoidable hassle and stress, but Japanese airports minimize any discomfort. Airline agents and airport security staff are pleasantly polite, courteous and as accommodating as possible. They were a final, poignant reminder that I was departing what is, no doubt, the politest place on earth. As I drifted off to sleep aboard the plane home, I fondly recalled highlights of this most recent stay in Japan. After the long, ten-hour flight, I abruptly awoke, remembering that I better mentally prepare for a another round of culture-shock, yet this time, in reverse. After landing at LAX, we had an extended wait while the plane and arrival gate negotiated a rather rough connection. The delay precipitated a few headaches--my two pieces of luggage emerged on two different carousels, the lines at Immigration and Customs were seemingly endless, and I missed my connecting flight. Airlines staff were less than helpful. It seemed like I had to fight for my right to get my travels back on track. And then the large crowds and long lines of air travelers at LAX seemed to annoy TSA staff so much that most of them could no longer contain their frustration and dismay. I was definitely a world away from Japan!
I was a little down that my vacation to Japan was over--a sentiment rudely punctuated by a rough U.S. arrival and entry at LAX. While I was definitely suffering reverse culture-shock, a singular event changed my perspective, almost instantaneously. I was making painfully slow progress in the long, noisy security line to get to my gate for my rescheduled connecting flight. TSA agents were loud, coldly direct, and almost menacing--"Thank God I'm an American citizen," I thought! "What must foreign travelers think of this kind of welcome to the U.S.A.?" Just then, at least two TSA agents discovered a woman without a plane ticket, "dangerously" close to the front of the line. "How did YOU make it up here? YOU should NEVER have been in this line from the beginning!" they boldly, coldly, and authoritatively declared. The young, 20-something latina woman was in tears, clearly waving and shouting to a departing loved one. My heart melted (not unlike when I saw the adorable Japanese pre-schoolers). Only in America, I thought, with emotion and pride. Unlike Japanese, Americans tend to be passionate and wear their emotions on their sleeves--not a bad thing, at all, I thought. Moreover, the visual rainbow of races and skin colors at LAX was breathtaking. While I was keenly missing the hyper-functional, Zen-induced peace, serenity, and harmony of Japanese culture, I, just as keenly, found myself gratefully re-embracing the noisy and chaotic, but life-affirming diversity of America.
At the end of the day, I was happy. I felt blessed. I was grateful, beyond words, for the opportunity to encounter and engage differing cultures. I am an American, but I could just as easily be a Japanese. Most of all, I am a human being. I appreciate the rainbow of races and cultures that make up this entire world. While the cultures of countries like Japan and the United States contrast in their differences, those differences can and should complement each other. There is so much to teach and learn from those who come from cultures different from our own. What is wrong with taking the best from all cultures--embracing, changing, adapting, and making the best world we can, whomever we are, wherever we are...
Scott Dorius
