Our first evening in Tokyo, I accompanied several Japan Journey participants to the theater to catch a traditional kabuki play. The Tokyo Kabukiza has a long-standing policy of selling single act tickets for those unable (or unwilling) to sit through the standard five-to-six hour performance, and we were able to get seats for the last two segments in the evening schedule.

The drawbacks to this approach are the seats themselves -- up in nosebleed territory -- and the absence of English language "earphone guides" which provide excellent running commentary on the stage action. I wondered if the performances alone could maintain interest for very long, especially at the end of a long day of travel and sightseeing.

After we had climbed to our seats in the uppermost balcony, therefore, I quickly read through the program synopsis of the play we were to witness -- and discovered to my delight that I was familiar with the plot from having seen the bunraku puppet play on which it was based. In fact I frequently used a video in my courses which included this very story as an illustration of the bunraku repertoire. I found myself able, then, to explain more of what was happening than might have otherwise been the case -- and to appreciate myself many of the nuances contained in the performance.

As I watched the play unfold, in fact, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a distinct sense of privilege. I had been privileged over the years to have seen dozens of kabuki performances and so was familiar with the acting and staging techniques I was again witnessing that evening. I had been privileged to have read and studied traditional Japanese literature over the last thirty-eight years and so could appreciate many of the allusions and references the play contained. I had been privileged to have become well acquainted with traditional cultural values and could see them at work undergirding the moral point of the story underway on the stage. I understood the religious context of the play, having been privileged to have had long-standing opportunities to study and teach about both Buddhism and Shinto.

This sense of privilege. stayed with me throughout the rest of our time in Tokyo, and I felt its impact in other ways as well. Being able to visit Japan at regular periodic intervals meant that I was more aware than many others of the impact of subtle changes taking place in the larger culture, especially in those cities and towns which I visited time after time. I could pick out the latest fashion trends -- high platform, thigh-high boots had made their appearance since my last visit, for instance, along with candy-bar-sized cell phones. I knew what buildings had fallen to the wrecking ball and which had appeared in their places. A visit to a music store let me catch up on the latest pop groups. And I could check out as well the latest releases by an increasingly lengthy list of musicians, composers and singers with whom I had become familiar over the years.

Ambiguities and subtleties, too, have entered into my evaluative observations over time as a result of prolonged exposure to Things Japanese and made me less apt than previously to make broad generalizations about my experiences. I have indeed become a "privileged observer".

And so I have returned to the United States yet again, refreshed by my latest opportunities to enrich my understanding and appreciation of this wonderful culture, its people and institutions, yet more aware than ever of just how fortunate I have been over the past thirty-eight years to have had all these opportunities to get to know so well such a very special place.