Arigatō and Sayōnara Japan, ponderings and "Paris syndrome"

Ok - bit of a backblog I know. I'm currently in Sydney and couchsurfing. I have many blogs brewing, but to satiate those who can't wait - I'll publish the last trickles of Japan in a rather unpolished form. Hopefully by the time I leave Auz, I'll be out of New Zealand - so to speak....

[Written 15th May 2009]


Well, I'm sat on a Quantas plane bound for Sydney, where I'm transferring to New Zealand.

As I'm sat here for 10 hours or so, I thought it would be a good time to write and reflect about my time in Japan while the taste of soy sauce and wasabi are fresh on my palate.

[The plane hasn't taken off yet but it is playing terrible covers of bad songs you'd hoped had rotted in the vaults - so it's hard to get a thought straight.] That's certainly one thing I won't miss about Japan - the terrible all-pervasive piped music. The more expensive the meal, the 'classier' the music gets. It starts with musac covers of 90s love songs and 'peaks' at saxophone interpretations of Classical music, complete with synthesized Casio keyboard beats circa 1983. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to it than some people - but it can literally put me off my food if there's bad music. That said, one of the cheapest Sushi chains I often ate at [where I routinely ordered by pointing at the posters on the wall - and once had to displace a business lunch of men in order to point at a poster of a plate of tuna like some caveman] played some of the best Japanese Jazz I'd heard - Japanese Jazz, like Japanese whiskey, is something they've imported from Europe and made very much their own. [I wonder if there is a Japanese person somewhere blogging about how impressed they are by the Pot Noodles and Ninja Turtles in a semi-patronising and paternalistic manor.]]

Don't worry dear, it's just "Paris syndrome"

So apart from the excruciating music - I'll miss Japan very much. Most of all I'll miss the endless courtesy and efficiency. Before I comment further about how utterly pleasurable travelling in Japan is - I'd like any reader who's been to Paris to think back to when they were last there, and in particular try and remember what kind of experience you might have had using the Paris Metro. Right. I shall return to this in a moment.

I was treated wonderfully in Japan as a tourist. People were patient and polite and even if I'd done something wrong, they were at pains to explain it was probably their fault. As a European, I can't but help feel guilty at how I, and many others under the EU [and possibly US] flag have treated Japanese tourists. It's a standard cultural cliche - the Japanese tour bus [most Japanese people travel around Japan in the same way!]. I've often giggled from a distance at the huge groups as they pour off buses, flashes of glasses and camera lenses in the sun all being led by flags or umbrellas through what appears to be a giant photo opportunity. This is not how I'd ever chose to travel. Although I like to think I'm not guilty of silting up historical sites in this way - there were moments while travelling in Japan where I did feel I needed someone explaining what on earth was going on. And when I've been in London, I have often given vague directions to lost Japanese people or pretended to ignore the lost and frightened expressions on their faces. This said I think London is quite tolerant of "the tourist" - most people in London speak English and most tourists speak some in return. Now, let's get back to talking about Paris.

Who's tried asking a question in French, in Paris, and been given a wry, patronising smile before being replied to in a smarmy tone in English? Me. Who's tried asking a question in English and been practically ignored until initiating the conversation in French, looping back to the first question - by which point your knuckles are turning white and begging to taste some fresh frog. Me me and me. Me is someone who speaks English and studied French for 5 years at school.

Now - imagine you're a Japanese tourist, you might have studied English for a couple of years and you find yourself lost on the Paris Metro. Step in "Paris Sydrome". A friend told me about Paris Sydrome and I didn't believe it until I looked it up. Wikipedia describes it as "manifesting from an individual's inability to reconcile a disparity between the Japanese popular image and the reality of Paris". The phrase "reality of Paris" here can be taken as a euphemism for "the cultural gutter of Europe, full of a proud, patriotic and francaphillic love of French, which fills its people with a linguistic fervor which renders them unable to communicate with any foreigners except by shrugging or pointing to a rusty radio mast, in the style of an oil rig, which serves as the focal point of the city". Japan is so efficient and polite and Paris so frustrating and Parisians almost innately unhelpful that Japanese visitors are often so overwhelmed that they are admitted to hospital and diagnosed with "Paris syndrome". This is all true.

The problem for me is, once I left Japan, everything seemed pretty, well, shit. So what is it when you leave Japan? "Rest of the world is pretty shitty syndrome"? Suggestions welcome. The first place I found myself was Sydney airport, then Auckland. To be fair, after Tokyo even London would seem a dull and confusing mass of disappointment - so how do you get exited about Auckland? You don't I'm afraid.

That said - thanks to Japan's hyperdrive culture I hit the ground running in Auckland and headed straight for the "tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere"....