Politics

Politics in general is hard for me. I'm not really open to hearing about it in any context and usually try to leave the room whenever politics is brought up so it's very hard to make myself think about it. I also see a separation between politics, government, and the functioning of a country/town/whatever that I think is a little strange. I'm obviously not looking forward to the election year.

I honestly know next to nothing about the way the government of Japan is structured or how it runs and who does what. I need to get around to doing some research eventually. (Hopefully writing this here will be my reminder.) Completely disregarding the 'government' I've seen in dramas, all my knowledge comes from overheard comments, the campaigning I saw here in August and September, and the knowledge that the Prime Minister changes often. The Imperial family is aiming to be the ideal nuclear family within its situation, the parliament (is that the correct term??) takes a little too long to react to everything, and the campaign method is ANNOYING. And my host mother thinks that Japan needs to get itself some younger politicians, especially in the higher levels.

That's really all I can offer on politics.

Sports

Sports are a much more personal aspect of life in Japan than in America I think. Sports are huge worldwide and in America they're huge on the national and professional level (in my opinion). I think sports are the foundation of more personal bonds in Japan though. One of my theories about this is that because an extra-curricular activity is mandatory throughout much of the Japanese school career, there are simply more people who play sports together as children and so learn well how to form strong connections quickly as team. I also think that having to develop the ability to survive in a team in a (relatively) competitive context while children are maturing and dealing with all that problems that entails emphasizes the existence of the bonds within a sports team and makes them stand out more in people's memories.

Another of my theories focuses on the worn out stereotype of Japan ad a group based social system [really, all societies are group based so it's a little off] and so the group building and bonding aspects of team sports somehow unconsciously draw people to be interested.

I see a lot less of the 'boys play sports and girls dance and play the piano' division in Japan than I do at home. I think that because everyone does some sort of club in school and because everyone is expected to be have a certain level of athletic ability and are taught how to maintain that ability in school, that sports is something that comes more easily to Japan than America. In the US it is very easy to divide the jocks from the nots based solely on appearance and friend groups but it is not so much so here in the little I have seen.

I think, though, that since I am from Chicago (ish) and Japanese people associate Chicago with the baseball teams that Japanese players have joined I get a lot more sports conversation than other people in the group might. Also, because my host brother is in basketball, I go to more sports related events than the rest of the group. I personally have an extremely low personal interest in the topic so . . .

Gender

Opinions to follow later today.

Hiroshima/ Kyoto Adventuring

Regrets from the trip? Initially food stuff comes to mind Didn't get to eat or buy the white daikon no osukemono. Didn't eat as much of the more regional food options as I had the ability to, didn't stuff myself with . . . etc. But also only really visited the places on the schedule, didn't do a lot of wandering by myself, didn't stay an extra day in Kyoto, didn't get to go in the fall (which could in no way work so . . .) , mainly visited the big places and so didn't find any wonderful hidey holes etc.

Impressions of Hiroshima; expectations of visit were, oh, dominated by the association of the city with the atomic bomb and this made me feel strange about touristing there. There's a lot more to the city than the past, no matter how much care and attention is paid to preserving the memories and using them to try to protect the future. I forgot to remind myself that it is also a prosperous (or so I thought) city full of people living normal lives, focused on their next step and spending their energy on living, not just remembering. I think that Hiroshima is a beautiful place and I wish I'd had more time to spend there by myself but unfortunately, at this point in time, that's not possible. There's a lot more there than the ゲンバクドーム and unique お好み焼き,

And there's a lot more to Kyoto than temples and shrines. But I don't have much of an impression of that other stuff because we seemed to spend most of our time in touristy spots. And in Kyoto, touristy spots are dominated by temples and shrines. I think that I'll be heading back that way in December when my parents come to Japan with my being here already as a persuasion tactic to get my father to actually take a trip. I'd like to wander off the beaten path a little then but the cold will probably do much to dissuade me.

I wish we had been able to go to Kyoto in the fall because my favorite places were all nature heavy where I kind of forgot that it was actually a temple or a shrine I was visiting. I know Kyoto's famous for great gardens and landscapes but it was different seeing it and I know from pictures that it is absolutely beautiful in the fall. I think Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji in particular would look awesome in the fall.

All in all, it was a great trip. I'd probably do some things differently if I had a chance at a do-over but I had a lot of fun, saw a lot of beautiful and fascinating things, and only got sunburned once! Also, the day in Miyajima was splendid.

Religion

[[Since I have rather limited experiences with both religion in Japan and world religions, please take everything here as personal opinions about personal observations that most likely don't count for much.]]

Thoughts about religion in Japan: most secularized approach to religion that I've encountered so far. What I think I mean by that is that what I might consider the religious aspects of Japanese life have become so normalized/internalized/??? that they have become habit rather than religion and no one consciously remembers that they were religious to begin with.

People are aware that there are 2 main observed religions in Japan, Buddhism and Shinto. And Japanese people are very good at separating them and explaining the division but they can't every really tell you why. Temples are Buddhist and shrines are Shinto. Temples are visited for births and deaths and major anniversaries associated with each (1,3,5,7 years etc.) and shrines are visited for more everyday concerns like relationship problems, study worries, etc. - the mundane worries that everyone has. HOWEVER no one seems to know why. Why is Buddhism the entrances and exits so to speak but Shinto is everything in between including “I can't pay my rent this month so 仕事を見つかれますように? People who study religion in Japan can probably answer the question but the average Japanese person (that I've asked) doesn't seem to be able to. The reasons were probably once common knowledge but the practices have become such a normalized part of daily life that the reasons have been forgotten.

And the shrines, well, especially the shrines, are often found seemingly randomly in the middle of a residential street and manage not to look out of place at all. So the location of religion seems to have also become normalized and a part of the community – not set apart so much as is my experience with religion. (You go to a specific, special place on specific days for specific reasons and everyone knows all those reasons. )

Pop Culture

My main thoughts / impressions (etc.) about Japanese pop culture since coming to Japan are mostly about how much less I interact with it while I've been here. That's a badly phrased sentence but whatever. Here in Japan I rarely watch tv (I watch a lot of Japanese tv on the internet in the US), I only really listen to the music my host mother plays or the music on my iPod (which is mostly J-pop anyway), I cannot read the magazines or books (yet), and so on.

My main interaction with Japanese people's thoughts about pop culture are in the things they ask me if I know. These things usually end up being singers/music groups, sports players, or actors with the occasional げんいんさん thrown in there. Unfortunately I usually get asked about food or places or festivals and holidays and customs rather than what celebrities I know so the interaction is rather minimal in my opinion. Besides tv (which I don't watch) the most obvious visual aspects of what I think of as pop culture are all the adds. Featured people are apparently popular celebrities etc. most of the time.

The “American influenced” (I guess) impressions I had of Japanese pop culture that I've altered a little since I've been here are mostly about the prevalence of manga and anime as the main export of Japan to the world. They certainly have a large export value but (at least the people I've been spending time with) they seem to be less frequently consumed by the Japanese public than we have been led to believe by the way people talk about Japanese anime and manga in the US. They're just kind of there and the big stories everyone knows but they might not have read them. And I think that Japanese people talk about manga and anime to foreigners because they know how much export value it has and are curious about how we (foreigners) perceive it.

Also, sports are a larger part of Japan that I had previously experienced. I think sports usually forms a large part of pop culture around the world because it is a constant presence but mercurial. I hadn't experienced that prevalence so much in reference to Japan before coming here because I don't much care for most sports and so ignore them most of the time.

Being here has also cemented my impression of the importance of clothing and appearance in interactions between Japanese people. (I don't know what category other than pop culture to put that aspect into besides 'daily life in Japan')

And I know that pop culture is more than who's on tv and what music the young people are listening to these days and which is the next bestselling book but those things are the only way I know of to think about articulating how I look at pop culture.

Neighborhood

I live in a very interesting neighborhood. I'm living in an apartment that has houses all around the back and part of one side but it is also close to a main street so there are also several restaurants, a supermarket, and little shops nearby so it's a nice mixture of all kinds of things. One of the nearby shops also has several plots of plants and vegetables planted next to my apartment building so the contrast between plantings and the bike parking lot or the back lot of the supermarket is interesting. And the supermarket is open 24 hours so there are always people. There's a preschool and a park within a 3 minute walk and a lot of families live around me so there are always kids around. And I live 5 minutes away from the local university so I also see a lot of the students on their way to classes or on their way home. The roads around me definitely do not follow a grid pattern so I get lost a lot but everyone in the neighborhood that I've talked to is really sweet and helpful and I've always been able to find my way back. I've had lots of great conversations with mothers from the preschool too! My host sister often wants me to take her to school when I have a morning free or come pick her up when I get home early. One thing that I'm kind of interested in exploring is the relationships between all the families that live in my apartment building. So far I haven't met a single person, aside from my host family, that lives in my apartment building which is different from my experiences in apartment buildings in the US so I'm interested in how the residents all relate to each other.

I still need to take pictures to add to this but there are my comments so far. I'm having trouble getting my computer to read my SD card so I think I need to find an external SD reader to get my pictures out of the camera which is frustrating.