Tokyo is a city of contradictions – filled with whispers from the past that blend into modern society. A traditional Japanese wedding held at our westernized hotel sprinkled brightly colored kimono-clad women around our pale hotel lobby. The women looked particularly out of place next to their husbands and sons in stark black and white penguin suits. There is an alleyway of tiny Japanese bars, whose owners are wary of foreigners or Gaijins, around the corner from the largest intersection in the world in Shibuya. A dark ramen shop sits only a block away from a blazing McDonalds. From the moment I arrived in Tokyo it felt like another world. I had anticipated the shock of no one resembling me or speaking my native tongue - as I was the visitor. What I hadn’t expected was how much the spirit of the Edo period and old Japan lingers in the most forward city I’d ever encountered. The two facets seem to be in either in a constant face off or in quiet agreement.
( (This photograph is one of the small bars in Shibuya. From the left - the owner, myself, Nathan, Sammi and Sam)
Asakusa epitomizes the fusion that underlays the culture. My class entered the main bustling street in Asakusa, called Nakamise, through the Kaminarimon gate. The Kaminarimon gate is a massive ornate red lantern, which guards the street - lined with shops boasting everything from sweet potato ice cream and hello kitty phone charms to traditional Japanese snacks and artwork. What is unique about this outdoor shopping complex, which could loosely be compared to a strip mall without the big name brands, is that it progresses toward the Sensoji temple, a massive structure that calmly waits for you to finish accumulating your souvenirs and pay your respects. After you pass through the street ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the funny trinkets, that the Japanese love so much, you are confronted with ancient Shinto and Buddhist traditions. The contrast is severe, but everyone passes through as if every strip mall has a religious drive through before you exit. After adjusting my inconvenient shopping bags I went through the smoke and water purification process, cruised through the temple and emerged on the other side in a garden lined with canopied vendors selling scrumptious snacks. I went from purification to fried chicken, and of course because the Japanese are meticulous, it was the best chicken I’ve ever tried. The vendors were also offering up chocolate covered bananas, hand made lollipops, various grilled fish and other unrecognizable delicacies. On that street alone you could have gone through the best three-course meal of your life. Imagine feeling that satiated after eating a turkey leg at the Indy 500 or any other standard American festival.
The temple also shares the skyline with an amusement park, another unusual sight. From the base of the Sensoji you can see peoples legs dangling high in the air waiting to be dropped hundreds of feet on the “Space Shot” ride.
My friends and I left the Sensoji behind and wandered off to explore the more urban part of Asakusa and possibly grab some lunch. We passed through a shy shady street with open-faced stores selling luxurious fabrics and emerged in a sunlit square leading to more small winding streets, customary to Japan. Each street was crowded with restaurants and small shops so we picked the liveliest one and headed onward. We came across a large restaurant, which we discovered from the picture menu (those came in handy many times through out the trip) made Udon and Soba noodles. We were tempted to eat there, but couldn’t figure out how to write our name on the waitlist. Rather than attempting to cross the language barrier this early in our trip we opted to pose for some pictures with the marketing ploy outside and keep hunting. The ploy was plastic noodles dangling from a pair of chopsticks, which appeared to be floating mid air above a bowl resting on a pedestal.
(This is me learning how to appropriately slurp Soba noodles in Nikko, a mountain town about 2 hours from Tokyo. In Japan you slurp - preferably loudly in order to cool down the noodles)
We continued walking and observed the rickshaw rides going around the area. I couldn’t believe these still existed, they are similar to the horse drawn carriage rides around Central Park or Boston Common, but a real person running you around seemed archaic. At this moment a TV crew who had taken notice of our group during the photo shoot by the noodle shop approached us. Once again I was struck by the incongruence of the television crew’s jeans and white nylon swishy jackets to the men running the rickshaws in their black cotton uniforms and their straw wide brimmed hats that looked like they belonged in jujitsu or judo martial arts studio. The crew aggressively approached us with questions about our impression of cultural differences in Japan and whether we thought the floating noodles were a successful marketing tool for the restaurant.
Prior to our arrival in Japan various guest lecturers educated us about cultural differences to expect. I recalled learning that the Japanese are typically more reserved and it can be difficult to penetrate their personal walls. As I watched my classmate, Sammi, get interviewed I thought that while these speakers were correct in some regards the younger Japanese culture was much different from their elders. I knew there were sub cultures in Japan that were out rightly different such as the Harajuku girls who are known for their elaborate cutesy outfits. However, I hadn’t thought about what your average college student might be like. These young cameramen were outgoing and relatable, I felt like we could have easily grabbed a beer and bonded after the interview. My generation in Japan seems less cognizant of the past and without the ability to fully immerse myself in their private lives they appear to seek independence. They use part time jobs to fund their fashion obsessions and have active social lives. Walking on the streets in Shinagawa you see fashion forward young couples conoodling in public, possibly even more than young American couples today. Maybe as a Gaijin it is impossible to understand what these shifts in cultural expectations mean and if it is actually a smothering of the old traditions or the old is making room for the new.
I found myself literally face to face with this question on my last night of the trip. Sammi and I had arranged to meet our friend from school mother in Roppongi for dinner. Rumiko, Josh’s mom, lives in Tokyo with her second husband and Josh’s three half brothers. At 46 Rumiko is the opposite of a traditional Japanese woman. She is loud, charismatic, transparent and utterly fierce. At the restaurant Gonpachi she instantly befriend the maître d, our waiter, the sushi chefs and probably the fish on her plate. She knows she is different and embraces it; at dinner she even compared herself to a long-island Jewish mother and explained that she is not trying to fit in anymore, ‘’I’ve always been strange, I’m not like most Japanese women.” Rumiko jokes that her American husband is always telling her to quiet down in public because she is offending the people around her. She loves to drink, socializes in crowds of Japanese women and Gaijins, is loud on the trains (and every where she goes), has travelled extensively, talks a mile a minute and even though she doesn’t currently have her own career her life is full. The last thing this woman is - is a subservient wife because she is a tidal wave of personality. While Rumiko is all these things she is also proud of her heritage. Tokyo is her home and it is where she can thrive.
So who wins out in the battle against old and new? My professor, Jim Bright always says that even if he spent the rest of his life living in Japan he could never fully understand the cultural nuances. As a guest in Japan, I don’t think it is my place to decide nor could the determination ever be fully informed. The conclusion I reached is that Japan is a complex country with various threads of time woven throughout every inch of Tokyo, and the best thing you can do is try to absorb it all with the time you have because making sense of the largest city in the world in one week is a daunting task.
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