Sorry, this one's sort of a downer.

Edited slightly for horrendous grammar and over-assertive cultural statements.

Wow, so much I want to write about. I need to catch you all up on what I’ve been doing since conveyor sushi. That same night we went shopping, browsing a bookstore and a clothing store. One of the stereotypes of Japan is that everyone is dressed to the 9’s all the time. There is some truth to this. Indeed, riding the subway day-to-day you will see, without fail, at least one man and one woman who look like they’re dressed for a modeling photo shoot. To give you the whole picture, you’ll see plenty of people who are dressed in what I would consider everyday attire. This stems from a fairly ingrained social construct which dictates a hierarchy of social projection that a person should strive to achieve. The ranking goes: clothing, then food, then living space. Here’s the logic behind it: everyone can see what you are wearing; there is now way to hide that. Some people will see what you eat, but only if they are present with you at the grocery store or in a restaurant. Lastly, the only way a person will see your living space is if you invite them in. So it’s not unusual for a high school boy (who must wear a school uniform with few options) to drop $200 on a pair of shoes or for a young professional woman to pay $200 for a Louis Vitton handbag. After all, the point of these clothes is to create a favorable impression on others. Especially since it’s customary to only interface with people whom you have an established relationship. If a stranger is staring at you on the bus, it could easily be considered strange or even rude to smile at them and strike up a conversation. If you care about their opinion of you, which most Japanese people probably would to at least a small degree, your appearance is the only means by which you can tell them about yourself. As always, this is not a silver bullet for understanding this part of social relationships in Japan. As I’ve said, it differs from person to person and there are always a few individuals who really couldn’t be bothered. But if you’re ever vacationing in Japan and wondering why you’re the only one without an invitation to the fashion show, that’s why.

An interesting aside about clothing: where I am in Japan (I can’t speak for any of the other urban centers), it’s a hugely popular style for woman to wear heels with those little ankle-high stocking, sock-like thingies.

On a more serious note, some of you may have read about or seen on the news that China recently suffered a 7.9 scale earthquake. If you are a resident of the United States, then like me, your idea of China might be that it’s this vague threat existing somewhere outside the scope of what you know but inside the scope of what you care about. It’s a sleeping giant, very powerful but probably morally inferior (you aren’t really sure) and a thing quite different from what you know that should be handled gently lest it wake up. On Wednesday I sat down in the International Center at school where they are kind enough to provide us with the Japan Times (in English) and CNN. In the paper I read that the city of Sichuan has a population of about 10,000 people. Over 8,000 of them are dead. In Juyuan, a three story high school collapsed with 900 students inside. In Shifang, two chemical plants were destroyed, releasing 80 tons of liquid ammonia into the environment, according to Yahoo News. The total death toll rests somewhere between ten and twenty thousand depending on who is reporting.

A simple truth struck me like a hammer on Wednesday: these are all people. They all had names, jobs, families, pet peeves, hopes for the future, you name it. China is an economic superpower and certainly not a force to be ignored. But behind the government, behind the state media, behind the Olympic propaganda, China is made up of people who aren’t all that different from you and me. They are just trying to live their lives and be happy in whatever ways they know how. Sure, you and I might find it strange and maybe even reprehensible to eat dog. A Hindu person would probably see eating beef as a horrific act of violence. No matter how big we get: families, towns, states and provinces, countries, we’re still just practicing tribalism. It’s quite natural as humans to get caught up in how your own tribe goes about life. We all need to remember, though, that the further down you go in the chain of needs, the more and more we resemble one another. What human on earth doesn’t want to be happy? Who doesn’t want to be loved? Who doesn’t want to be safe? Please know that this is not a soapbox admonishment, but simply encouragement. To many Japanese people, I am just as real as China was to me before Wednesday. It’s my hope that I can communicate even just a little bit of my experience to you as a foreigner and an outsider so that maybe we can all reflect a little bit on what our tribe tells us about ourselves and about the other tribes. My calligraphy teacher is Chinese and his pain, which came through very clearly in class on Wednesday, was no less real or strange or different than the pain I’ve felt at my own losses in life. Again, this is not a hippie rant, but rather my own attempt to facilitate a small expansion in our viewpoint. With nearly 7 billion people on the planet, we certainly need it, wouldn’t you say?

Anyway, I’m sorry to dwell on that so long but it was a stunning revelation and also a very sad moment personally. Tomorrow, the International Center is taking the exchange students to the school’s seminar house in Tateshina, Nagano (the province where the Winter Olympics were held in 1998). I don’t know what to expect but you can bet that Alisha and I will take a ton of pictures and write all about it when we return. That being the case, I haven’t even touched any of the subjects on my Post-It-Note o’ Blog Topics so you can bet there will be much for you to read in the coming days.

My apologies again for the long lag. As I said, I’ve started settling into a routine which had the unforeseen catalytic effect of ushering in Phase 2 of Culture Shock, which is sometimes referred to as the “Rejection Phase,” in which one’s negative perceptions of their host culture start to stick out disproportionately. This is the opposite of Phase 1, the “Honeymoon Phase,” where everything is new and awesome. Needless to say, Phase 2 sucks. It hasn’t put a big dent in anything, but it’s certainly no fun- either for me to experience or for you to read about. Believe me. That being said, I’m doing pretty good now and looking forward to the trip this weekend. More when I return!

Stay happy and healthy, and spend 5 minutes gathering in your head what you know about China then try and identify what’s fact and what’s not. Spend another 5 minutes thinking about what it might be like to be a Chinese person. The Internet will help a lot with this question.