Due to some technical difficulties probably resulting from DJing one too many raves in high school, my computer decided to stop working for a
few weeks in Hong Kong, so I am playing a bit of blog catchup from home.
Without further ado…Japan. To be honest, Japan was not a
country I originally thought I would have the opportunity to see while on
exchange, however, a cheap flight and an extra push from a good friend to pull the trigger on Sky Scanner landed me in Tokyo two weeks later, and I
couldn’t have been more excited.
Although every country I visited deviated from the norm of
life back State-side, Japan differed in ways that I could have never predicted. For one, the three cities I visited were all drastically different
from the US, but more surprisingly, they were all drastically different from each other. So much so, that I almost
felt as if Tokyo, Kyoto, and Hiroshima were different countries rather than cities 2
hours apart in the same country.
Tokyo:
For the most part, I had no idea what I was getting myself
into when landing into the most populated city on the planet. By this point in
time, I had lived for 4 months in Hong Kong, so metropolis life wasn’t
necessarily culture shock in it’s own right. However, what did shock me was how
peaceful Tokyo was considering its size. For a city of over 35 million people,
Tokyo might have been one of the most calm and relaxing places I had been.
There were certainly crowded areas (like the electronics market with SEGA
stores at every corner and the night life areas of Shibuya and Roppongi), but
by and large, I was overwhelmed at Tokyo’s efficiency, cleanliness, and most of
all, friendliness.
Speaking to Tokyo’s efficiency, this city (and Japan as a
whole for that matter) knows how to move people. Lots of people. And fast. I
have never seen a more complex metropolis train map in my life for a single
city, yet after a few days there, I began to appreciate the brilliance of such
an amazing feat of ingenuity. To build a mass transport system for a city of 35
million and to have the thing work daily with very little trouble is
astounding. It sounds a bit
dramatic, but the train system in Tokyo, as well as the rest of Japan, is truly
a work of art.
Aside from a brilliant train system, Tokyo may also have
been the most diverse city in which I have been. The differences in regions
within Tokyo was not necessarily due to a difference in the general culture of
the locals, but the “feel” of the different areas was very noticeable. I know
this is an extremely generic statement, so let me elaborate a bit.
From the 5am
tuna action on the coast, to the peaceful and newly built region in Odiba, to
the absolutely insane electronic markets, to the peaceful Tokyo garden (the oasis
in the concrete jungle), to the business district in Central, each area was
vastly different from the others. Each area offered a unique experience, yet was fully Tokyo in its own way. Join all of the different regions
together, with their different paces of life, architecture, cuisine, and places
of interest and throw in a brilliant train system to connect them together and
you truly get a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. You get Tokyo.
However, although each region of Tokyo differed in many
ways, there was one constant- the people. As a collective whole, the Japanese
people were among the most friendly I encountered in Asia. Although the
language barrier was usually a bit of an issue, I never met a local who didn’t take time
out of their day to help me fumble through my map and figure out which direction to walk,
which rail to take, or which stop to get off for the next destination. Always
greeted by a general willingness to lend a helping hand, I was overwhelmed with
the Japanese hospitality. This remained true throughout Kyoto and Hiroshima as
well.
Kyoto:
Kyoto was pretty much different from Tokyo in every way
imaginable. Taking a 2-hour bullet train from Tokyo, I arrived in Japan’s sacred
city. With many temples, trees, and mountains surrounding us, Kyoto was rich in
natural beauty and historical culture. I will never forget the two-hour canoe
ride down the river with mountains and trees surrounding us- it looked like the
perfect landscape out of an old Japanese movie in which Samurai war lords would
fight feudal battles over power and territory. I'm sure Tom Cruise was there as well, because they needed an American's help to fight ;). While Tokyo felt futuristic in
almost every way, Kyoto took me back a few years in the time machine.
Hiroshima:
Visiting Hiroshima was an absolute necessity for me once I
purchased my flight to Japan. After writing my AP Language final on the ethics
behind the atomic bomb, I knew I could not go to Japan without seeing one of
the hallowed cities. Without turning
this too much into a political post (the internet is the worst place for these
kinds of “debates”) I’ll describe my thoughts after seeing the only original
building left standing in a city that was roughly the population of my
hometown, Fort Wayne, at the time of the bombings.
Initially, seeing the building with all of the windows blown
out and rubble on the floor in the midst of a thriving mid-sized city left me a
bit “shell-shocked.” Riding my bike all day with David tasting local cuisine
and enjoying all Hiroshima had to offer was fantastic, and then we pulled up to
the Genbaku Dome. And then I realized that in this city still exists an aura of pain
that I have never experienced and pray that I will never experience. And then I
realized that all of the kind, friendly people I referred to a few paragraphs
above had to endure the effects of a weapon that killed indiscriminately. And
then I realized that all of the war rhetoric had reduced the decision to drop the bomb
to terms of a simple mathematical equation of saving American lives at the
expense of Japanese lives. And then I realized that America had placed a statement of global hegemony to Russia over innocent lives. And then I realized that the paper I wrote back in
2009 could never adequately describe how wrong this decision was.
I am aware that in war, bad things happen. My grandfather
fought in Germany as a sniper in World War II and aided in liberating a concentration
camp, and I couldn’t be more proud of his service and the legacy he left for
the Williams name. However, I am not willing to let the excuse of war cloud my
judgment regarding the senseless loss of innocent human life and reducing man
to a math equation. It’s easy to sit in a war room and draw up X’s and O’s so
long as you, your wife and your kids aren’t apart of the equation of sacrifice.
However, those were someone’s wives. Those were someone’s kids. Japanese, or American,
they were still human, and losing sight of this fact is anything but human.
After seeing the results of a weapon designed to reduce men
to ash, I know now, more than ever, that Hiroshima is a testament to the
horrible things of which man is capable, however, Hiroshima is also a testament
to the inexplicable resolve man has to not only survive, but to rise above
less-than-ideal circumstances and thrive.