Cheap Japan hr682

 

In recent years, many foreign travelers have come to my small town that is a rural tourist resort. When I first moved to this remote town, it was rather a desolate place except for the skiing season. But soon, more and more people overseas were coming for skiing and now they flow in throughout the year as well as Japanese travelers.

I assume that Japan owes increased foreign tourists to its low prices and safety. Everything is sold at about half or one third of the price in the U.S. while the quality is good and the service is superb although there is no custom of tipping. The majority of travelers are from Asian countries and so many of them visit my town regularly as well. I’ve seen an Asian tourist shopping for a basketful of cosmetics at a drug store near the train station, which is one of recent trends nationwide. Instead, Japanese people have had a hard time for a trip abroad since prices in foreign countries are too high.

Why Japanese prices are so low is because of the weak currency. The Japanese Yen has decreased to almost half the value of the time when I often traveled overseas. That means the country’s economy has sharply declined. In addition to persistent gender discrimination, slow digitalization made Japan left behind in a rapid tidal stream of the world. It seems as if time moved slowly here in Japan. For instance, women are still forbidden to step in a ring of sumo wrestling for the reason that women are unclean and sumo is a sacred Shinto ritual offered to God. For the same reason, I was forced to carry a small paper parcel of salt when I visited a shrine back in my hometown. If a voice that says it’s awfully atrocious is raised, it will be silenced by a theory that is so called Japanese culture. People get meek when it comes to culture, thus it remains unchanged.

Quite a lot of those undesirable cultures exist in Japan. As a native who was born and grew up in Japan, I tend to overlook their oddity that is regarded as norm. Since I was an elementary student, teachers and students alike had tried to ignore me whenever I expressed my opinion that the Emperor system in Japan had to be abolished because only a man could be an emperor was a discrimination against women. Their attitude toward my strongly attached view had taught me how much taboo it was. People make a face at someone like me who constantly points out discrimination against women. Their expression says “Here it comes, somebody hysterical who complains about everything is bubbling something to disturb harmony.” They believe that Japanese should live in unity without complaining or being distinguished. That’s why people have been working in silence overtime at a low salary. As a result, a low-priced, safe Japan has been developed.

In the course of nature, I couldn’t find my place here in Japan as a constant complainer. I was expelled from Japanese society and became a singer-songwriter isolating myself in a remote rural town secluded by mountains, which I have willingly accepted because I believe I’ve been doing the right thing. As a crazy person claims their sanity, I’m not sure what other people think of me. Furthermore, I don’t care how I look to others now that I live only according to my conscience, not this nonsensical world. Even if I disrupt a well-ordered harmony, I choose to be myself, that is more important to me.

The Insufficient Child

 I was a nine-year-old child living in Kyoto when I was hospitalized for nephritis. In my room for six patients of the children’s ward, a girl named Ayumi also suffered from nephritis and was next to my bed. She was so little, probably three or four years old, that her mother was allowed to stay in the ward on the makeshift couch beside her bed.
Ayumi’s mother studiously read thick medical books everyday to study kidney disease for Ayumi’s recovery while looking after Ayumi. She would ask millions of questions to an intern nurse and learned from her by taking detailed notes. For Ayumi’s medication, she went to get wafer papers and would divide a dose of powdered medicine into a couple of small wrapped doses three times a day so that Ayumi took it easily.
Next to her bed, I was struggling to swallow powdered medicine though I was nine, and often coughed up and blew powder all over my bed. My mother was hardly around. She visited me barely a few minutes before the visiting time was over and left immediately. She blamed her dash visit for her busy work as a farmer, but I doubted she cared. Looking at what Ayumi’s mother was doing for her, I was stunned by the difference between her mother and mine. Mine had never been attentive like hers even when I was a small child as far as I remembered.
The worst part of my hospitalized days was loneliness and hospital meals. As a nephritis patient, I was banned from taking in salt. My meals are salt-free and with minimum seasoning. I felt like eating sponge three times a day. The volume wasn’t enough either for me who was chubby. Because I persistently complained about the meals to my mother during the short visit, she brought me potato chips. Since potato chips were deemed as the biggest taboo for nephritis, she told me to hide under the bed and move the contents from its flashy package into a plastic bag. She continued to bring other salty snacks and I made a bag of my best mix under my bed. I was strolling about the hallway, carrying the plastic bag of snacks in one hand, munching in my mouth. In case I passed someone, I stopped munching and hid the bag behind my back. But one afternoon, Ayumi’s mother caught me. She asked me to show her the plastic bag. As I did, she said somewhat sadly, “It contains everything you can’t have.” I ignored her caution and kept snacking on what my mother brought. My mother enticed me to hide under my bed and let me eat a can of corned beef with a big topping of mayonnaise there. As a result, I stayed chubby in the hospital despite the controlled healthy meals.
One day, a younger girl who had been annoying all the time next to my bed on the opposite side of Ayumi enraged me. I was bashing her with a coloring book while yelling the biggest taboo word in the hospital this time, “Die! Die! Die!”, with full force. Impatient at my unprincipled behavior, Ayumi’s mother raised her voice toward me, “That’s enough, Hidemi! Clean up your act, already!” I thought she was a carping critic because I hadn’t realized evilness of my mother yet back then and had been such a nasty child who had totally accepted my mother’s bad influence.
Ayumi’s father came to visit her on his day off. I was taking powdered medicine on my bed that I had gotten used to swallowing without problems by then. He said to me smiling, “You have gotten the knack of it and no longer choked. Good for you!” I wondered how he had known that as I had rarely seen him here.
A family of caring. Not that I was familiar with.