REALIZING DIFFERENCES

When as newcomers they arrive in Japan at the beginning of the new millennium, American visitors are confronted with a society appearing on the surface to resemble a more advanced version of that found in the United States. The newest expressway whizzing us into Osaka and on to Kyoto from Kansai International Airport passes along the edge of Osaka Bay and high above the surrounding industrial landscape dotted with high rise condominiums ("mansions" in Japanese), fancy new shopping malls and extensive entertainment complexes, all awash with activity and lit by flashing neon. Many of these signs are in English, advertising brand names -- Canon, Sony, Toyota -- with which we are familiar. The roadway is lined with towering sound barriers that threaten to completely enclose the highway beneath. The bus uses the ETC system at toll barriers, electronically recording the charges incurred with a monthly bill to follow. We glimpse Seven Eleven and Lawson convenience store signs. The overwhelming temptation is to assume we visitors have arrived somewhere "just like home".

Clearly, however, that is not the case. Our first morning in Kyoto and all along the way our first couple of days in Japan, we are constantly reminding folks NOT to make that assumption. Automobiles here drive on the left, for example; assume otherwise and you are likely to end up a traffic fatality! Cab drivers control the rear doors on their vehicles; stand too close -- or reach out to open the door yourself --, and you are in for another nasty surprise. Enter buses at the rear; pay as you exit from the front. Hang on to your subway tickets (purchased from an automatic vending machine that makes change and sells daily, weekly and monthly passes to boot), relinquishing them when you leave the system at your destination. Learning to sit comfortably on the floor at restaurants is another new skill required, as is bowing to acknowledge a greeting or to accompany an expression of thanks.

Most importantly, one needs to master a complex "shoe etiquette". It takes some several days to learn to move easily between uchi "interior space" where no shoes are ever allowed and the soto "exterior world" where they are worn without committing the social blunder of, for instance, stepping directly on the ground in stocking feet or leaving one's shoes pointing in the wrong direction on the doorstep. Remembering to leave the W C slippers in the restroom is yet another rule to avoid transgressing.

And so it is that even in its advanced state of development, Japan's modernity doesn't simply replicate that with which we Americans are familiar. There remain idiosyncrasies serving to maintain the Japanese sense of their own cultural uniqueness -- and visitors do well to pay attention!