I’m recently back from a 3-week trip to Japan to eat my own weight in noodles and convenience store fried chicken. As I’ve been reminiscing since my return, I’ve had some thoughts on the experience. In particular: how Japan has changed in the last 20 years?
Why 20 years? Well, about 20 years ago (when I was a
doe-eyed 21-year-old with aspirations and a smaller waistline) I took a handful
of Japanese lessons and I moved from dull-as-a-ditch middle England to Sendai
city (Miyagi Prefecture, Japan) for a year. It was my first time living alone,
I could barely speak the most basic Japanese and couldn’t read or write in the
language at all. In fact, beyond aikido and the Naruto anime, I didn’t know very
much about Japan except that it looked pretty cool. It was a gutsy move (well
done, Young Me!) with many highs and lows which are stories for another time.
young me
I didn’t cover all of Japan during my recent visit, of
course. That’s impossible. For the purposes of this comparison, I recently travelled to:
Tokyo, Sendai (and Matsushima), Kamakura, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka and Kanazawa. I
went to many more places when I lived there.
So, that’s the context of this post-travelogue. And now a
small disclaimer: I am but one flawed mortal, these observations are based on
my experiences and my very weathered memories. I hope nobody takes offense, as
that is truly not my intention, and also request that you please bear with my ubiquitous
naivety.
Okay, let’s get into the meat (yakitori or tonkatsu?) of it…
Things I noticed that were different from 20 years ago:
·
More foreigners. When I lived in Sendai,
it was rare to see a foreigner aside from other English as a Foreign Language
teachers. Unless, perhaps, if you were in Tokyo or another major tourist spot.
This time around, there were foreigners all over the place and in relatively
high numbers. Perhaps this is because the yen is relatively weak at the moment,
making Japan relatively cheap. Or perhaps there’s a change in government policy
to encourage more visitors. Or perhaps people are just going coocoo for natto (highly
doubtful – have you tried those fermented beans? They’re like spiders’ eggs
mixed with blue cheese). As with many of my observations, I don’t really know
the reasons behind the differences, but this one stood out.
·
More English. I distinctly remember feeling
like an infant when I lived in Sendai. I couldn’t read or write, my spoken
Japanese was very sub-par and very few Japanese people spoke English. In fact I
was late to my own welcome party with work colleagues, because they gave me the
name of the restaurant and none of us had thought about the fact that I wouldn’t
be able to find the restaurant name amongst the 10,000 other restaurant signs
in Sendai. Google maps was not a thing on phones back then, so I was stranded. This
time around, pretty much all the signs had an English translation. And a lot of
the Japanese people I communicated with spoke a fairly good standard of English.
Bear in mind, I was mostly talking to people in the tourist industry, so I doubt
it’s reflective of the main population, but even some chefs and bartenders
spoke some English, or a combination of English and Japanese (as I was attempting
to speak in Japanese whenever I could. Ah the awkward pleasure of seeing
someone panic when I asked in Japanese, “Do you speak English?”). This all made
it so much easier to travel around the country.
·
Fashion. Far less kawaii (“cute” – think Bo
Peep or Alice in Wonderland or cute anime girls), and much more “chic grandma”
(beige / pastel colours with some decorate sewing features). Maybe with the
exception of Tokyo, where there were still some pretty out there
apparels and hairstyles and hair colours. I recall some of my students talking
about never dyeing their hair because that “isn’t Japanese”. I wonder if that opinion
has changed or if it was because they lived in a more remote area so had more
traditional views.
· Google Maps and Translate. This kind of tech didn’t exist when I lived in Japan. In fact, I didn’t even have the internet on my mobile phone. These tools are absolutely game-changing. So, well done to the Google folk. Google Maps is more sophisticated in Japan than the UK, as it tells you exactly which train station entrance to go through, which platform to locate and even which carriage of the train is best for you. Google Translate isn’t perfect but you can get real-time translations of text or speech at the touch of a button. I would have given my left arm (my right one’s better than my left) for those tools 20 years ago.
·
Fewer bins. My memory is admittedly hazy,
but I do not recall bins being an issue 20 years ago. But now? I often
struggled to find bins to recycle rubbish and carried it around with me,
sometimes all day. It’s common to dispose of some items at convenience stores,
but in particular I struggled to locate recycling for bento boxes and some
drinks containers. Perhaps I just ate out less and used my bins at home. PS: I’m
not complaining or trash talking (h oho ho, see what I did there?), I
just noticed it.
· Smoking. 20 years ago, a lot of people smoked all over the place. Restaurants, bars, hotels, train stations, possibly even schools (did I imagine that?) But now smoking seems mostly reserved to bars or in small “smoking rooms” at certain venues (train stations in particular). It’s a positive move in my opinion as an ex-smoker (menthol cigarettes were my deathstick of choice, each felt like brushing your teeth with toothpaste and tar) as it made it much easier to avoid smoke.
·
Drinking booze is more expensive. Aside
from karaoke venues (where you can get “all you can drink included for a great
price) I found drinking out to be much more expensive. There’s more craft beer
in Japan now, but some of the craft beer bar prices are very high. For example,
a tiny beer could be about £3, and a big one more like £9 on occasion. Many
bars also charge a fee just to be there, so having one or two drinks in a bar
quickly became expensive.
sad beer
·
More fried foods and cheese. I am not a big
fan of fried foods, they make me a little nauseous. I like traditional Japanese
foods and remember eating a lot of bowls of rice, thinly-sliced meats and laughably-small
salads. You can still get those things, and much more (just ask my Buddha-style
belly) but I noticed a lot more fried food options, and quite a lot more
cheese. Weirdly, cheese was kind of rare back in the day – me and my friends would
go to a very specific “Western” (as in, from the West of the world rather than
pistols at dawn) restaurant for cheese fondu to get our cheese fix. Now, there’s
no such struggle. Cheese addicts will be properly catered for.
·
Less karaoke. This might just be a
distortion based on two factors: One, I went to karaoke pretty much every
weekend when I lived in Sendai. And two, perhaps our hotels this trip were just
not in the karaoke-esque areas. But yeah, it felt like there were fewer karaoke
spots. I was, however, very pleased to find that nomihodai (“all you can drink”)
is still an option and very reasonably priced (£8 an hour, which is great when –
like me – you can drink a lot).
· Nobody said “Can you use chopsticks?” or “Oh, you’re good with chopsticks!” This was a very common occurrence when I lived in Japan. I think Japanese people had been told that foreigners use a knife and fork, therefore can’t use chopsticks. Maybe a lot of people couldn’t use chopsticks, if Asian food was less common in their home country. But this time, nobody said it. I was very pleased when some kind locals said my Japanese was very good. They were being incredibly generous with that, but it made me all warm and fuzzy inside. Or maybe it was the sake.
·
Fewer videogames in the arcades. Another pastime
of Young Me was visiting the videogames arcades and hitting a taiko drum
poorly, watching in awe as some Japanese schoolkid moved at 10,000 beats per
second. You can still do that (in fact, the exact same game is still in most of
the arcades I visited this trip) but there was more emphasis and space
dedicated to gambling games such as pachinko and medal-winning games (coins you
can win, and then I think you trade those for money but I’m not sure). Also
there are WAY more “grab” machines where you attempt to win prizes with a
grabber, like you’ve seen with the little aliens in Toy Story. Those machines are
a big deal now, but I don’t really remember them being around that much 20
years ago. At first I wasn’t interested in the grabbers and thought they were a
waste of money, but then I won two toys in just three attempts, and got a bit
addicted.
·
Taxis. Not so many of them! Perhaps
because of ride-share apps, I’m not sure. But I was glad to see that the taxis
still had doily covers on their seats so you could imagine your grandpa was
driving the cab.
·
Loads of dentists. Why so many and why
are most of them on the second floor of shopping malls? Well it’s convenient, I
suppose. It just stood out as a little unusual to my not-overly-concerned-about-dentistry
brain.
·
Dogs in prams. I loved it, but it was surprising
to see so many little dogs being wheeled about in prams, many of them wearing
costumes. Are they a stand-in for children? Perhaps. I assume the pram is to
prevent their delicious and delicate paws from getting burned on the hot
streets, and the outfits are to earn cute points.
That’s pretty much all of it. Again,
I hope nobody is offended by any of this – please rest assured that this all
comes from a good and positive place. I loved revisiting Japan, it raised old memories
from a forgotten place, and gave me plenty of great new ones.
Have you been to Japan? If so,
what surprised you? If you’ve been more than once, did anything change over
that time?
Peace out, Pikachus.
