Looking toward the future

As my time in Japan speeds to a close – move out date is set for April 25^th! – I must admit how loathe I am to leave this wonderful country.  I have had so many amazing adventures, met so many wonderful people, and experienced so many spectacular things.  I am running out of adjectives for just how fantastic my time here has been.  Still, I guess I have to accept that it is time to return home from this amazing, two year vacation and start the next phase of my life.

The change from one life phase to another will be a little different this time, though.  Before I rushed from one phase to the next, too excited about what came next to really appreciate or make the most of my time where I was.  I didn’t particularly enjoy college.  I rushed through in three years in order to start my life with Anata.  High school was even worse.  I couldn’t wait to graduate and find a place where I felt like I really belonged.  Each time the next phase, the future, always promised the opportunity to learn who I really was, to grow, and to really have fun with life.  But I never quite got there.  When I was supposed to be making memories, growing, and enjoying my time on this planet, I was too busy thinking of what would come next.  That is not to say I didn’t have any fun, but looking back all I can see is a girl rushing through life without stopping to enjoy it.

Japan has taught me to approach life a bit differently.  It has taught me to take time and enjoy the moment.  To take full advantage of the opportunities around me.  To be happy where I am.  It has taught me to slow down.  I have always thought life was an amazing thing – people are fascinating and the nature is such a beautiful mystery – but in my rush to get to a place where I could really enjoy the discovery and exploration of these things I kind of missed them.  Being in Japan gave me an excuse to stop rushing.  I knew I was only here for a limited time.  I knew I needed to use that time wisely – to take in as much of the culture, geography, and humanity as I possibly could before returning home.  It allowed me to say yes to experiences I would have skipped out on in America (experiences many of my coworkers and students miss out on because they are just everyday life for them).  In those experience I was able to see myself through new eyes and better understand, and eventually accept, things about myself that I had been ignoring.  It allowed me to do the growing, thinking, and self-reflection I kept saying would come with the next phase of my life.  I learned how to like myself, flaws and all, something that I have struggled for about as long as I can remember. 

I am excited to return home and start the next phase of my life, but unlike previous transitions, I am not in a hurry for it to get here.  I am content to let it come at its own pace.  I have realized that pushing and planning just make time slip by faster.  But if I just let things take their course, take advantage of the adventures the people and places around me have to offer, and just slow down and appreciate the moment I will have a lot more fun.  The future will become the present soon enough without any help from me.  By rushing toward it, all I am doing is blurring the scenery.  And Japan has taught me that the scenery is sometimes the best part.

Turn, turn, turn

Sakura season has arrived in Japan.  There is still a month or so before the actual blooms arrive, but sakura inspired things are already turning store shelves into a wall of light pink.  But where America is just starting its borderline insane love affair with seasonal flavors (cough, cough, pumpkin spice kale chips anyone?), Japan has woven seasonal things into the very fabric of life.

Throughout its history, Japan has been an agricultural based society.  Therefore, like most agricultural based societies, the changing of seasons became a very important part of Japanese culture.  Traditions, religions, and life developed while keeping an eye on and also celebrating the beauty and bounty of each season.  But while industrialization distanced other traditionally agricultural societies from their close bond with nature, Japan’s self-imposed isolation kept farming, and the seasons, at the heart of Japanese life until very recently. 

Acknowledgement of the seasons is so deeply ingrained in Japanese culture that even in the neon and concrete canyons of Osaka and Tokyo one can’t help but be aware of the variations in Earth’s journey around the sun.  From plastic sakura and momiji branches hung on shopping arcades during the appropriate season, to lavish window displays at Takashimai, Daimaru, and even small mom and pop stores.  However, it is the food that most reflects the change of season.  Japanese food is always a showcase of the best of each season.  From fish to fruit and everything in between, restaurants change their menu on an almost weekly basis to take advantage of ingredients at their peak.  And with their leap into the industrial age, came a chance to create new, synthetic seasonal flavors.  Which has led to today’s revolving door of chuhi, ice cream, coffee, pastry, confection, chip, and pretty much any ingestible konbini item being offered on a short term, seasonal basis.

There is already a great deal of variety in Japanese food and drink options (have you seen my post on vending machines?), but this system leads to almost infinite possibilities.  I have greatly enjoyed my games of seasonal chuhi Russian roulette.  Some of the flavors have been amazing!  Other make me wonder what Japanese people are thinking sometimes – like umeboshi (sour plum), it was salty!  There is always a new flavor of Pocky or KitKat to try, a new pudding type sweet to enjoy with lunch.  It is impossible to have a regular order at any local restaurant since there are new things to try each visit.  Even home cooking becomes an adventure as seasonal produce and fruits offer new and exciting recipes to try at a lower cost. 

However, this embracing of seasonal flavors also has a pretty big down side.  As quickly as sakura flavor season arrived, it will be replaced with soda, melon, and other summer flavors.  Like the blooms it is meant to represent, it has a shelf life of but a moment.  The Japanese seem okay with this.  But as an American, used to getting whatever I want, in season on not, it is a little bit soul crushing when a flavor I have really come to enjoy is suddenly not available anymore.  Or when the prices of a certain fruit soar to five or ten dollars for just a few pieces.  But perhaps this is the point.  Perhaps even Japanese people mourn the loss of their favorite seasonal flavors and eagerly anticipate their return the next year.  Perhaps in this modern Japan, where people have replaced the vast green rice paddies of their ancestors with towering forests of metal and stone, seasonal flavors are the new almanac to keep Japanese people tied to nature and the help the younger generation appreciate the beauty and bounty of each brief season.

Only old men like this flavor.  Well, old men and Anata.