listening in japanese

since I've lived in japan the things you might say I lack have, I would say, made me stronger. my possessions are fewer yet I have less to worry about. I also fear death less but I'm not exactly sure why. it has perhaps been the most surprising result of moving to japan and I think it is a symptom of three possible reasons. one is being removed from familiar things and people, another is spending more time alone, without speaking and the last is living within japanese culture in general. I think it is a mixture of all three.

I remember arriving in my student flat in finland and being overwhelmed by the silence that came from the kitchen where three friends were drinking. they sat without words, staring into the centre of the table and looked up only briefly to acknowledge my presence. this was my introduction to silence and I had no idea that I would be experiencing so much of it in the future.

in finland I certainly spent a lot of time alone and had to get used to conversations with finns which demanded a lot of patience at such a young age. I possibly didn't know quite what to do. I certainly didn't really understand it. now I am learning the fine art of listening in japanese. reading someone's signs and giving them enough time to answer is something that has only come with time and experience and also to understand that sometimes no answer is sufficient. that's quite a difficult area to get good at - especially if you come from where the opposite applies. but this is very much the part of the culture and an area worthy of study.

in stark contrast to the tradition of silence is the extreme noise of sales. be it politician, refuse collection, pachinko parlour or the right wing, it seems that just as with the overkill of gaudy graphics on television, there is an attitude of there being no point in having a technology and not using every part of it - subtlety having been traded for consumerism many decades ago. and so megaphone's are always turned up to 10 and people look around at each other a little forlorn and unable to protest.