Nipponica

Traveling abroad as a Japanese resident forces me to become a honorary diplomat for my home nation. The ‘Cool Japan’ era has been over for a long while, but the country still is a soft powerhouse throughout the world.

People I meet always ask The Usual Questions when they learn about where I live. I tend to answer them in a (mostly) truthful manner, rounding off any rough edges in my Japan experience. I’ve found that telling unvarnished truths about Japanese life is kinda alienating and ultimately not worth it just to maintain personal rapport with my colleagues. People like to confirm what they think they know. Why correct them.

• Do you eat sushi every day??? (Almost never since I usually only have time/money to grab a bento at 7-Eleven instead of eating a decent meal.) Yum yum fishy fishy!
• Is Japan really futuristic??? (Public transit is great but banks and mindsets been stuck in Showa.) Yep, trains and monorails and robots go vroom!
• Can you speak Japanese??? (I’ve been learning for a decade and am stuck in some intermediate plateau forever and can’t seem to improve.) はい、とっても上手よ！

Why should I care about maintaining Japan’s (and my) image in this way? I guess it comes down to pride. I want Japan to succeed and even if I have some frustrations about the place, it is home and I want it to thrive. I gain nothing from critiquing it in 外国. The term patriotism is loaded, especially as someone that was born in the northern sector of the New World, but it is something that I feel towards my adoptive home. There is a lot to improve but things are still trending positive, despite recent populist movements.

So I will be a good boy and paper over the cracks in my imperfect society. But I have limits. Natto is the devil.