Japan

Time for another entry, I don't know how it will be in the end, but I am in high mood of writing.

Soon it will be 8 months for me in Japan, it is in a way hard to believe, very strange that it is such a long time I am far away from home. Guess not all Working Holiday makers make the same experiences as we do. When I am thinking about the time before I went to Japan in 2007 it is hard to believe what had been common thinking in the scene, where I had most of friends and of course the same thoughts like them about Japan like heaven on earth.

Japan is of course an interesting country, but I must say if there weren't the concerts, the fashion, the artist scene and one special person I wouldn't want to stay for long. It is difficult,especially now where I have lots of time for thinking and realizing about what I see and feel in Japan and with the Japanese. But the part including the artists is so important for me that I can stand the other things.

Mainly I would say Japan is a country of feudalism and status symbols, your status it seems is the most important thing for Japanese- at this point all what I am writing is what I have expierenced and from talks with other people here. All are running for status symbols to become more special than the neighbours, people are carrying a Louis Vuitton bag but wearing old and ragged clothes, they aren't walking in rags of course, but for the usual Japanese look of the clothes they are ragged.

The people here avoid seeing things that can worry them, sometimes it seems like they are thinking they aren't part of this world, so they didn't have to care for everything that happened outside Japan. People are ashamed if they didn't have a university degree, they are worthless. In a way it seems like life in Japan is like being part of a manga or an anime, a fake created world.

On one side the people here are intelligent, well I guess they are due to the results in science or other stuff, but on the other side they are the most stupids I have ever seen in my life. They can't do anything for themselves so it seems, they alway need someone who shows them what to do- this is starting with concerts and ending in the science world. Due to TTK and my friend Alexandra, who worked at a laboratory in Kyoto, I have a glimpse in science companies life in Japan- well they know so much facts and all, but they can't find it out by themselves what to do, they aren't working as a team and need all the advise from Europe or America (mainly these continents) before they can work anything and then they got half of the stuff delivered from Germany for example and only fixing it here.

The children are forced to forget childhood because they have to go to exams for school, afternoon schools because their parents wanted them to go to an elite school and they need more knowledge for it, so they go to school every day until the late evening and even learning in holidays. I have seen some report about children, who had won some contests and where on screen, it is so sad, for example you can see a 13 year old girl, looking older than I am, shy with no social live sitting in her cramped room at her parents house, surrounded by books and computers for studying, then the camera is switching towards her and you see an empty glance out of tired eyes. Then the parents, so proud of themselves it is disgusting, smiling and waving into the camera, reciting her daughters marks and all and forgetting that what they have is a living being and no new invention they show.

Of course not all people here are like that, but many and the worst is that the society is showing those unnatural children in TV and other so all are thinking this is what my child should be too.

Then after school they became children through the study years and after it they became grey in grey salary men and housewives who are doing exactly the same thing to their children.

Yes it is really difficult to understand from our point of view, from the view of a society which is worshipping the individual being, why they are acting like this? What is so wonderful to melt with the flood?
During my seminary in Stuttgart before we all four went to Kyoto, they have told us that there can be problems for a being of a individual society to go to a country of a crowd society. In my Kyoto time I didn't recognize so much- well maybe because I was going my own way all the time and I didn't met so many people, only some students and my teachers, who are most people like me, living in Japan, but not going with the flood but against the stream.

Long time I had been thinking that I am not a very individual person, but either I changed so much or I hadn't realized it before.

At my point of view I would say the Japanese are looking for something special, but instead of seeking for it in themselves, they are looking to idols and aping them. Sometimes I have the feeling that the Japanese are very sad like they are wanting to be different but didn't have the bravery or strength to do it. It reminds me of my German teaching back in secondary school, the time when we had done the image interpretation with caricatures. If I could draw it, it would be a pictures of a person, who is reaching out of chains to which it has the key around their neck but didn't realizing it.

I have met many people here, who are say they are individual, but if you look closer they aren't, they are only pretending to be it. If you ask them questions, just simple questions or talking with them about whatever you can see it within some minutes. They are all so shocked about us, about how we are talking and behaving, but I wouldn't say we are behaving so much different from anyone else in Germany.

During my Kyoto time I learned a lot from my teacher Martin Repp, a wonderful teacher, he has told us so many things and now in my Working holiday time I can see and understand what he mentioned to us at Kyoto.

It really is no wonder that so many people are committing suicide here, the pressure is to high and they all alone, even in marriage you are alone. Don't know why, maybe it is the all known problem of conflict avoidance which all Japanese seems to have. Sometimes I think what is so natural for us, to stand there and say something about what we don't like, what we want, is a very tough thing for a Japanese, to admit problems, to show that you are human and talk about it.

After I have seen 'Valkyrie' on Sunday with Takahiro and Denise I were thinking a lot about Germany and Japan. Long ago, in the time of the Third Empire of Hitler, both countries seemed so close in thinking, in that time individuality had been a death sin and racism common in Germany too. Maybe we had to have Adolf Hitler to become ourselves and one of the open minded, socialistic and tolerant countries in the world. It is daring thought but imagine but would have happened to us if we were still thinking like in that time?
Or maybe you can say we have learnt through Adolf Hitler and the nighmare and hell he created and Japan not? For if you are looking at Yasukuni shrine and it's museum you were thinking you are in a very bad nightmare-especially as a German. I never get why they are still thinking about Hitlers war as of a harmless territorial aggrandizement policy ( Vergrößerungspolitik) and of the massacres in Korea and China as incidents in war. (Zwischenfall) This museum had make me feel ill- I got sick of all the pictures, the uniforms of people,who died long time ago as ar criminal and are now worshipped- I looked at the pictures of the young men, who died thinking about who they used to be? Did they really wanted to go or did the government forced them to go to their death? Did some of them think about the people they have killed in war, the women they raped, the women of whom they have taken father, brother or lover or is that European thinking too?
Did anyone in Japan at that time thinking critical about what they are doing or not? Did they have an underground movement like we had in Germany?

After the movie I tried to talk a little with Takahiro about it, he said he knew something about Hitler from school but in the same way he were asking me if I were thinking that what this movie or other movies had shown had been really happened. I were staring at him, saying yes.

Yes I think 'Valkyrie' is a wonderful movie, you should see it after it is released on DVD, one of the movies where Tom Cruise is showing that he really is a good actor. I were once again amazed by his performance like with 'Last Samurai' or 'Interview with a vampire'. The German title is 'Operation Walküre-Das Stauffenberg Attentat'.

At this point I understand why it is so important not to forget what happend in that time, but on the same hand not to feel ashamed anymore to be a German. My mother is born in 1940, my aunt had been born in 1928, my grandfather in 1893- I am very lucky to talk to people with first hand experiences- of course I have never met my grandfather, he died some years before I were born.

It is a shame that Japan didn't teach those things in school- I can truly understand Koreas anger about it and the fight for the right show of Japans history, to say yes we have done criminal incidents, we had raped hundreds or thousands of Korean women, had done all the massacres.
They have lies in their school books about their history. Especially from the German view it is a crime. We are all the time forced by the world to not forget everything, even during World Cup in 2006 there had been the troubles due to the German flags in windows and cars.

*laugh* Yes, in a way when you are uproad you began to appreciate Germany ^^. Germany truly is a wonderful country in many ways.

Well of course Japan is wonderful too, it is strange why I want to be here, yes love can be strong ;). And it isn't so bad all the time,of course sometimes I could scream *laugh* and tear my hair because of Japanese thinking. ^^ And concerts and the fashion are great ;) and I still love Japan- especially Kansai.

Ok, I better stop now, guess I will write lots more about Japan the coming days/ weeks.