Because Japan...

Is this a toilet or the captain's chair
on the bridge of the Enterprise?

Whenever I travel to a new place, it always takes me a week or two, after returning, to feel like I have fully digested the experience enough to give people a full impression. (Except for, when you live in a place for a year.) Japan is certainly one of those places, and yet in a lot of ways it also defies my attempts to define it. It is a strange, yet inviting land, that embodies a lot of contradictions. The most common question I have gotten since returning to the States is, "So how was Japan?" Unfortunately, I never quite know how to answer that statement. I usually mutter something like "It was good, or it was interesting." A generic answer for a generic question, but it's more than that. Everyone already has their own ideas on what Japan is and isn't. (You know what I mean. In fact you're thinking it right now.) They have this misconception that it is a country full of robots and panty-vending machines, where the weird gets weirder, and the weirder get downright crazy. Those aren't really true, and yet they're not really false either.

For instance, the country is fascinated with technology, yet we could not find a single ATM that took American bank cards, and more than a few places that wouldn't take credit cards at all. Yet, the best story I can give to illustrate this point is when my friend (and traveling companion) Doug and I went to check into one of those capsule hotels. First off, the very idea of sleeping in an enclosed bubble-like capsule for the night is very appropriate for the country. It encompasses that right mixture of strangeness and brilliant practicality that rings true in many places of Tokyo. All you need is to throw in a dash of adherence to traditional customs and you got yourself a perfectly baked Japanese cupcake. Sure enough, this place delivered that with sprinkles on top. After lugging our baggage through two trains and eight city blocks, we arrived at the hotel which was located on the twelfth floor of a very tall building. (There are a lot of very tall buildings in Tokyo.) It was at about floor nine that Doug noticed a sign written in English that said "Guests are not permitted to own tattoos."

He pointed it out to me and we had a moment where we both dumbly stared at my leg, emblazoned in black ink with a stylish Captain America shield. "Adam, cover your leg."

Apparently Karaoke is a large problem in public parks.

I dutifully slapped my giant suitcase over my leg, hiding the offensive ink, and wondering why I suddenly didn't decide to wear long pants in the 90 degree heat of the city. The doors opened up and we hobbled our way into the main lobby, with me walking awkwardly in an attempt to keep my suitcase between us and the reception desk. Of course, that task proved much more difficult than first believed. Upon entering the hotel we were expected to remove our shoes, and then stow them in lockers about ten feet away. We weren't made aware of this until we had already stumbled about halfway to the reception desk. We were then forced to stumble backward to the elevator. Take off our shoes there, and then make another awkward march to the lockers, all the while I had to keep my 25 pound bag pinned firmly to my right leg. With that feat accomplished we finally made our way to the reception desk.

As we began the check-in process all around us men walked around in towels (and some without them.) The place held the heavy humidity of a spa or sauna, and the heavy decorum of a 1950's rent-by-the-hour motel. Finally, the woman behind the desk, (the only woman in the place,) spoke rapidly in Japanese to another man who came over and apologized several times before telling us that we couldn't stay there. "You're friend has tattoo," he said to Doug. "I am so sorry. This is Japan custom." 

After some argument amongst ourselves, where Doug refused to stay in the hotel without me, we both made our way back toward the elevator, but first we had to stop to get our shoes. I fumbled with the key in the locker and walked my shoes back toward the elevator and put them back on only to realize I still had the locker key in my hand. I then walked back toward the lockers, only to be yelled out that I still had my shoes on. So I walked back to the elevator, took my shoes off, walked back to the lockers, returned the key to the appropriate spot, walked back to the elevator, and then put my shoes on again. All the while, I still kept the suitcase pressed against my leg, as if I was suddenly ashamed of my tattoo, but Japan has that effect on people.

It has this way of making you feel like you are doing something wrong. Everyone in the city of Tokyo, dresses in formal greys, blacks, and whites. Even the cars came in only two colors, black and white. My companion and I were the only two people in bright colored shirts, as if to further mark us as "foreign." I've been in countries where I have been the only white person, the only English speaker, and even the only one taller than six feet, but I have never felt as out of place as I did sometimes in Japan. It was like everything I did sent up a flare declaring how worthy I was of a disapproving head shake from the locals. As an American Nerd I like to wear my differences proudly, but this felt different somehow, and for the rest of the trip I found myself contemplating long pants. We did discover later that tattoos in Japan usually mark people as members of the Yukuza, the Japanese Mafia, and that is one of the reasons why they were so restricted, which brings me to my next point.

I am not Yukuza, and I am pretty sure that guy at the reception desk knew that. He couldn't make an exception, even though it was a pretty safe bet that the six foot, two inch white guy with the Captain America tattoo was not part of the local crime gang, because in Japan rules are made to be followed. People wait at the cross walks until the lights tell them they can walk. They obey every rule, every custom, and don't risk doing anything that let's them stick out. I often compare Tokyo to New York, but I would not compare New Yorkers to Tokyoians.

Truly this is a land of plenty.

However, no generalization is completely true. Japan has their outcasts, their otaku, who wear crazy colors, get piercings and tattoos, and sometimes dress as outlandishly as they can. In fact one of my favorite nights was our visit to Akihabara, or Electric Town. It is the section of Tokyo set aside for geeks like us. There is a five-story video arcade on every corner, and the place is bursting with manga, anime, and video games. This was the one section of the city where everyone seemed to be dressed in colors, and where conformity mattered less than having fun. We even went to a multi-story store dedicated entirely to Nintendo, where each floor was reserved for a different generation of the console. (NES on the bottom, and Wii/GameCube at the top.) Akihabara was like Las Vegas for nerds. It even had women in stereotypical anime costumes handing out business promotions to men as they passed by. (Doug and I argued over what type of businesses they were selling, and the only English on the flyer I grabbed read "Forest of Dreams," which didn't help to settle what sort of establishment they were working for, but is par for the course in Japan.)

Even though I did not come across one used-panty vending machine (And there were a lot of vending machines,) there is an under current of fetishism to the outwardly respectful culture. In fact, the capsule hotel was a men-only establishment, because there seems to be a fear that drunk businessmen cannot handle being around women, so it is better to segregate them. I will admit that I did get a creepy uncle vibe while we stood there pleading our case as to why we should not be thrown out. Even our hostel had a strict curfew of midnight, and two separate wings, one set aside for men and the other for women. However, it's not like Japan is the only country with its perversions. The US has plenty of our own, and in some ways, we objectify women just as much as they do. (I'm looking at you Hooters.)

Located conveniently right next to the Voltron Bed & Breakfast

I also don't want to end this post by giving anyone a bad impression. I had an amazing time in Tokyo. We walked all over the city. We saw beautiful gardens and shrines. We walked through the Imperial Palace, we visited the craziness of the Tsukiji Fish Market. We visited a war museum and saw hand-crafted Samurai armor and swords, and even read fascinating personal accounts from kamikaze pilots. We ate breakfast watching one of the busiest crosswalks in the world, and we had some of the best seafood and freshest sushi that I have ever eaten in my life. And through it all, whenever we were lost, the people were never too busy to help point us in the right direction or to stop and see if we needed help. Because that is also part of the nature of the Japanese people. They are genuinely good, honest, respectful, and helpful people. I think we forget that sometimes. 

In the West we often like to paint Japan as weird, but the majority are not. They are just people, like you and me, who work, raise their families, struggle to find their place in our crazy world, and just want to be happy. When we hear the strange news and crazy things people do in Japan, most of those people are fringe elements to an otherwise respectful and amazing culture. That would be like if America was judged by the Tea Party, or by our reality shows, or by any of the other ten-thousand crazy things our people do, (and maybe we sometimes are.) What I am really trying to say is that it is hard to boil one place down to a single sentence that will aptly answer the question "So how was Japan?" It was amazing, dull, weird, boring, perfect, flawed, historic, modern, confusing, understandable, sexist, respectful, monochromatic, colorful, and so much much more. It is definitely a place I will be returning to, and a place I recommend to anyone. There is much to see and even more left to experience.