People travel with many different hopes and expectations, but if I find myself somewhere that looks like nothing I’ve seen before among people who behave in ways I don’t expect, then I am completely happy. Japan is one of those places. I think about it quite often, particularly when I see people around me who behave in public with no regard for others. If you watch Fran Lebowitz in Pretend It’s a City, she has a lot to say about people who live alongside millions of others, but seem to exist in a world of one. Actually, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned her at all because I can’t begin to compete with Ms Lebowitz’s quick wit and dry sense of humour. So, forget I mentioned her and I’ll tell you my views on Japan, by way of a story about what happened when I went for lunch at a restaurant in Reading. See, Fran’s beating me already: New York v Reading.
The waitress was showing me to a table near a man who was sitting alone and talking loudly on his phone, with his feet up on the chair opposite him. This wasn’t a fast-food place, you understand, but a nice restaurant. I told the waitress that I preferred to sit on the opposite side of the room and suggested that she might like to politely ask the man to take his grubby shoes off the chair. She looked a bit helpless and shrugged her shoulders. I don’t know why she couldn’t remind him that he wasn’t at home in his own living room, but it did make me think of the Japanese and their impeccable behaviour in public.
They don’t eat, drink or smoke while walking down the street. There are very few bins and no litter – they all take their rubbish home with them. They don’t eat or drink on public transport, with the exception of bullet trains, where it is permissible to eat neatly and quietly from their bento boxes or buy something from the refreshment cart. One carriage is set aside for people who want to talk on their mobile phones. The conductors wear smart uniforms, with a peaked cap, and bow when they enter or leave the carriage. There are signs everywhere asking people to speak quietly. I cannot describe the joy of being on a train without the person behind me shouting the intimate details of their life into a phone. In Britain we’re lucky to see a conductor at all and when we do there’s a definite lack of bowing.
Of course, Japan is far from perfect. Their willingness to conform is a bit unnerving to western eyes. The status of women is low and you see few foreigners, other than tourists. I understand that alcoholism is a problem as well. I was really interested when our Japanese guide said she had lived in London, where she attended Central St Martins art college, and loved it. She said she missed the fizz, energy and creativity of life there. I do see that there’s always a trade-off and much as I liked Tokyo, I would never swap it for London. Perhaps we need to attend etiquette lessons, but people would probably just put their feet up on the seats and shout into their phones. We seem to have become a nation of teenagers, while the Japanese have grown up.
They also wear face masks a lot, do you know why? Are their cities so filled with bugs and fumes? Or is it a way of keeping themselves to themselves 🤔
I don’t think their cities are any dirtier or buggier than anyone else’s. I think they’re just more worried about infection. And maybe they feel safer behind their masks.