Changing Impressions of 日本

Over the past 4 months, I have learned more about Japanese culture and cultures in general than I ever expected. My classmates come from numerous different countries on every continent of the world except Antarctica, and I have spoken to many of them about their lives in their own countries and Japan. 

River in Kyoto

Throughout this time, I have done my best to get to know people and learn about Japanese culture, but I feel like I have more to learn now than I did when I first arrived in Japan. There are so many things that I want to know, so much information that I know I'm missing because I never found the right person to ask.

What's the story behind the picture on this manhole cover in Otsu?

Japan is a lot like the US in some ways, and I have encountered some aspects of Japanese culture before in my Japanese American friends, but the majority of Japanese culture is very different from what I would have guessed before coming here. People take for granted that what their family members do affects their reputation and carefully consider how their actions will affect their family's reputation. In the US, while it is true that people are often judged by their families, it is not something that we really think about, and many Americans try to pretend that their families do not affect them in any way, whether or not this is actually true.

Strange English signs in Hirakata

 While I have been in Hirakata, I have found many ways in which Japanese culture here is not the same as the Japanese culture American media portrays. One major difference is Japanese people's willingness to communicate how they feel. I admit it is harder to find out how Japanese people feel than it is to find out how Americans feel since Americans often like to talk about themselves, but my Japanese friends definitely do talk about themselves as well and share things with me that I never expected to learn from them. It is true that my American friends are more likely to tell me how they feel, but the longer I stay here the more ways I find to tell how my Japanese friends feel even when they don't come out and tell me.
As I think about returning to the US, it is strange to realize how much my time here has affected how I see my own country as well as how I see Japan. Before coming to Japan, I never had anything to compare American culture to, and I took many things for granted that I now realize are actually unique to the US. It will be interesting to see in what ways I have learned to appreciate my own country, and in what ways I can now see fault with my culture that I was previously unable to see. In any case, Hirakata has begun to feel like home to me and I will miss living here.

Kansai Gaidai in the snow

Kansai Gaidai courtyard

Fallen Sakura petals

Kansai Gaidai Japanese Garden in the rain

My host family's cat, Rina

Kodomo no hi decorations at my host family's house

Temple in Otsu

Okonomiyaki that accidentally looked like Fujisan

Inari shrine in Tokyo area

Japanese style bathroom

Hikonejo garden with Hikonejo in background

Hikonejo moat

Newly planted rice

Hikonejo castle Museum

The Things We Miss

Sometimes it's surprising how much is right under our noses (or feet) that we don't even notice. I have been walking directly over Hirakata-shi manhole covers every day since I arrived in Japan and hardly even noticed them, but it turns out they actually have a story to tell.

Manhole cover not far from Kansai Gaidai

Today, I happened to ask my host grandmother about the image on this man hole cover, and she launched into a detailed (but unfortunately very rapid) account of the history and culture of Hirakata-shi and the surrounding area. I really wish I had been able to understand everything she said because what I could understand was very interesting. She told me that the flower at the top of the manhole cover is a kiku (chrysanthemum) flower, which Hirakata-shi is apparently famous for because of the annual 菊人形 (kiku ningyou) festival where life-sized dolls are dressed in chrysanthemum flowers and set up in displays like this one:

Image borrowed from hamakazuchan.web.infoseek.co.jp

My host grandmother also told me that the boat depicted on the manhole cover is one of the many boats that transported goods between Kyoto and Osaka along the Yodogawa river in the Edo Period. Or possibly one of the small boats used to sell food to the merchants who were traveling between Kyoto and Osaka.

Yodogawa near Hirakata station

The portion of the Yodogawa river between Kyoto and Osaka was a major trade route, transporting goods and people between the two big cities. Because of this, Hirakata became a popular place to rest along the way, famous for its many inns and restaurants, including the Kagiya inn which was built in the late 1500's and has now been turned into a museum. (http://www.osaka-info.jp/en/search/detail/sightseeing_5171.html)

According to my host family, Hirakata-shi used to be known as “Kurawanka” because that was the call the food merchants in Hirakata used when they sold food and drink to the passing boats. “Kurawanka” means something like “Why don't you eat?” and there are still many things in Hirakata with “kurawanka” in their name, although I never realized where the phrase comes from before and would certainly never have guessed that "kurawanka" was in any way related to the images on Hirakata's manhole covers.

From Kanji to Romaji

The Japanese writing system is an amazing combination of different characters. It is not at all uncommon to see a sign that makes use of kanji, hiragana, katakana, Arabic numerals and romaji/English.  This “Cat Park” sign, for example, is in no way out of the ordinary, although it uses all these.

The hiragana in this photo is a little hard to see, but it is there

In addition to these writing systems, written Japanese (like many other languages) is accompanied by a variety of symbols; some created in Japan and some (like the P for parking in the "Cat Park" photo) borrowed from other countries. Some of these symbols are easily recognized by Westerners, for example, restroom symbols. But some of them are not used in the US and do not have immediately understandable meanings. The red triangle often seen in windows of large buildings, for example. I eventually had to ask some of my Japanese friends what this symbol means because I couldn't figure it out.

Turns out it marks windows that can be used as an emergency exit, but not all my Japanese friends know this so it may not be as useful as one might hope.

There are also symbols that Westerners associate with a different meaning from what the Japanese associate them with. The most dramatic of these is the swastika. Like any American who doesn't know what this symbol means in Asia, my first thought when I first saw a swastika on a map of Japan was that it was somehow related to Hitler. Of course I figured out that that wasn't what it meant pretty quickly and it's not identical to the WWII swastika but, at first, Japanese maps looked quite unfriendly to me:

All these different characters and symbols come together to make a written language very different from written American English. It is true that written English uses the Roman Alphabet, Arabic numerals and various symbols, but it doesn't have the same effect. The visual texture of written English comes mainly from the use of different fonts and colors, not from using different characters altogether, and it seems like more of the information has to be in the words themselves, not how they are written. Using so many different modes of visual communication may seem a bit cumbersome, but it does not slow Japanese people down at all. In fact, if anything they seem to absorb information from text more quickly than Americans do, and it's possible this may be partly due to the additional information they receive from how a word is written. So, what seems confusing and overwhelming to foreigners is actually helpful to Japanese people.