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In 1992 I did an internship in Tokyo, twelve years later I have finally returned. As I had really enjoyed Japan at the time the surprising thing for me is that it took so long to come back.

Impressions of Japan and Nagasaki's history

Odv
2006-04-13 19:50:39

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In 1992 I did an internship in Tokyo, twelve years later I have finally returned. As I had really enjoyed Japan at the time the surprising thing for me is that it took so long to come back.

My motivation to revisit Japan, was to show Maris this great country, to see what has changed in the last 12 years, to visit our friends Erik and Chisako who recently moved to Tokyo and to visit some friends that I had made during my previous stay in Japan.

The great things that I remember about Japan still hold true today:

Japan is probably the most advanced country in the world, at least in the technological and infrastructural sense. Take trains for example, they run on time, on the exact minute according to the schedule and train doors open exactly where the indications on the platform say they will be. Furthermore an extensive network of Shinkansen lines (the so-called bullet trains) allows you to travel vast distances in a few hours.

Secondly, the food is just great! Every restaurant, whether cheap or expensive serves delicious food. There is a great variety of choice. I am particular fond of all the raw fish and noodles. It is clear that for the Japanese, food is of great importance, it has to taste nice and have a good presentation, so that it is not only a pleasure to the taste buds, but also to the eyes.

But maybe most importantly, the boundless friendliness and helpfulness that the Japanese, and I literally mean nearly all of them, show towards foreigners.

In Japan, foreigners are called gaijins. As a gaijin, you benefit twice from Japan, not only can you enjoy all the great things Japan has to offer, but you actually get more help and more freedom being a gaijin than if you were Japanese. As a gaijin you can make mistakes and get away with things that a Japanese person would never dare to do. This is referred to as the gaijin-license.

So for example, not bowing low enough, might be ...