Help me want to go to Japan
Oct 26th, 2006, 07:35 PM
#21
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Hello islandmom,
I hope I am not misunderstanding your reasons, but if I am please correct me. It seems you have had some experiences with Japanese tourists that were perhaps not warm or friendly exchanges. There may be cultural reasons for this that you would feel better about if you get to understand them a bit more. What I'm about to say is a huge generalization, but here goes -- Japanese people are extremely courteous, but they are not superficially "friendly" to strangers the way we sometimes are here in the states. Here in Tallahassee, we wave at people who are driving or walking down our street, even if we don't know them. That is not the Japanese way. If older women will not speak to you, it is probably at least partly because you are a stranger. Culturally, Americans tend to make more eye contact than Japanese people do, as well, so what seems like friendly eye contact to us might seem like staring or even aggressive eye contact to them. My husband and I spent two months in Japan three years ago with our then-four-year-old son. (DH has been back without me since then, also.) We found constant reminders of our different cultural expectations when interacting with our hosts and neighbors. We also found them to be exceedingly warm, gracious, and thoughtful -- just perhaps not in the same way that our neighbors here in Florida would have been. But, just for example, one day when my son did not show up at the bus stop for the preschool he was attending, one of the other mothers (whose English was almost as limited as my Japanese) asked my husband how he was. When she learned he was home with a fever, she showed up at our door with Gatorade, an ice pack, and fresh fruit. We were helped constantly in large and small ways. I could give you lots more examples, but I don't want to bore everyone. : )
The bottom line is that I arrived there with some reservations about whether we would enjoy the stay, and it ended up being a wonderful, wonderful experience. I will not say we adjusted completely, and the language barrier was huge. But we would certainly go back.
Oh, and Japanese food is not my favorite, either, but I had no trouble finding things to eat. If you like fresh food, you should be able to manage for a while. And there are bakeries everywhere, also.
As for my favorite spots...(1) the major park in the city where we stayed (Kashiwa, north of Tokyo), not because it's a tourist destination but simply because of many happy hours spent there with our son; (2) Kamakura, a city of temples, because we went there when the agisai (hydrangea) were in bloom and it was just lovely, lovely, lovely despite the crowds; and (3) Hokkaido, for the wide open spaces and mountain scenery.
I hope I am not misunderstanding your reasons, but if I am please correct me. It seems you have had some experiences with Japanese tourists that were perhaps not warm or friendly exchanges. There may be cultural reasons for this that you would feel better about if you get to understand them a bit more. What I'm about to say is a huge generalization, but here goes -- Japanese people are extremely courteous, but they are not superficially "friendly" to strangers the way we sometimes are here in the states. Here in Tallahassee, we wave at people who are driving or walking down our street, even if we don't know them. That is not the Japanese way. If older women will not speak to you, it is probably at least partly because you are a stranger. Culturally, Americans tend to make more eye contact than Japanese people do, as well, so what seems like friendly eye contact to us might seem like staring or even aggressive eye contact to them. My husband and I spent two months in Japan three years ago with our then-four-year-old son. (DH has been back without me since then, also.) We found constant reminders of our different cultural expectations when interacting with our hosts and neighbors. We also found them to be exceedingly warm, gracious, and thoughtful -- just perhaps not in the same way that our neighbors here in Florida would have been. But, just for example, one day when my son did not show up at the bus stop for the preschool he was attending, one of the other mothers (whose English was almost as limited as my Japanese) asked my husband how he was. When she learned he was home with a fever, she showed up at our door with Gatorade, an ice pack, and fresh fruit. We were helped constantly in large and small ways. I could give you lots more examples, but I don't want to bore everyone. : )
The bottom line is that I arrived there with some reservations about whether we would enjoy the stay, and it ended up being a wonderful, wonderful experience. I will not say we adjusted completely, and the language barrier was huge. But we would certainly go back.
Oh, and Japanese food is not my favorite, either, but I had no trouble finding things to eat. If you like fresh food, you should be able to manage for a while. And there are bakeries everywhere, also.
As for my favorite spots...(1) the major park in the city where we stayed (Kashiwa, north of Tokyo), not because it's a tourist destination but simply because of many happy hours spent there with our son; (2) Kamakura, a city of temples, because we went there when the agisai (hydrangea) were in bloom and it was just lovely, lovely, lovely despite the crowds; and (3) Hokkaido, for the wide open spaces and mountain scenery.
