Against the modern world.
I just found this...something I wrote back in Japan. By the tone I presume it was in the first couple years, when I was convinced everything was peachy. By year three my view would have been less starry-eyed about life in glorious Nippon, but still...
"In other news, I have decided why I adore this country so much: much like myself, it has some superficial contemporary trappings, but at the core is a joyous, unrepentant rejection of modernity. The self-destructive, enervating culture war that grips the West? No chance here. Racial tension, struggles for self-definition, post-modern anything? Never even heard of it. It is like this idealized Beaver Cleaver/Pleasantville world, but minus the sinister dark side. All the trifles we work ourselves up over, the Japanese just do not give a damn about. Religion? Just something you do when you have a spare moment if you feel like it, no big deal at all, certainly nothing to wave a sword or crash a plane or fight in congress over. Equality? Give me a break, people are different, do your best with the hand you're dealt just like everyone else does instead of trying to legislate your way to personal advancement. Violent crime? In a society where people are trained from a young age to actually consider others instead of worshiping at the graven idol of their own selfish, undisciplined freedom, oddly enough personal safety seems to increase. Crushing poverty and social inequality? Certainly not so bad if everyone can find work as a light wand waver at some pork barrel public works project. Expensive foreign entanglements and interventionism? No thanks, we don't give a crap about your internal affairs, just buy some more anime and toyotas and gothic lolita dresses and otherwise leave us alone.
I can walk down the street and not have to deal with the threat of robbery, litter everywhere, beggars aggressively accosting me, obnoxious rudeness from strangers, this or that bullshit special interest cult blocking traffic with their demonstration, etc. All symptoms of our supposedly superior "openness" and "social mobility" and "freedom". Sure, maybe we're just more aware of the problems that face us, and I don't think we should be wilfully blind to them...but it is just exhausting to be bombarded with all that crap 24/7 and here folks just don't dwell needlessly on things that they can't change.
Every time I think about going back, I think about all that, and realize once more that the only thing worth a damn in Cana-duh is my friends and family. That is seriously the only thing I miss even a little bit."
"In other news, I have decided why I adore this country so much: much like myself, it has some superficial contemporary trappings, but at the core is a joyous, unrepentant rejection of modernity. The self-destructive, enervating culture war that grips the West? No chance here. Racial tension, struggles for self-definition, post-modern anything? Never even heard of it. It is like this idealized Beaver Cleaver/Pleasantville world, but minus the sinister dark side. All the trifles we work ourselves up over, the Japanese just do not give a damn about. Religion? Just something you do when you have a spare moment if you feel like it, no big deal at all, certainly nothing to wave a sword or crash a plane or fight in congress over. Equality? Give me a break, people are different, do your best with the hand you're dealt just like everyone else does instead of trying to legislate your way to personal advancement. Violent crime? In a society where people are trained from a young age to actually consider others instead of worshiping at the graven idol of their own selfish, undisciplined freedom, oddly enough personal safety seems to increase. Crushing poverty and social inequality? Certainly not so bad if everyone can find work as a light wand waver at some pork barrel public works project. Expensive foreign entanglements and interventionism? No thanks, we don't give a crap about your internal affairs, just buy some more anime and toyotas and gothic lolita dresses and otherwise leave us alone.
I can walk down the street and not have to deal with the threat of robbery, litter everywhere, beggars aggressively accosting me, obnoxious rudeness from strangers, this or that bullshit special interest cult blocking traffic with their demonstration, etc. All symptoms of our supposedly superior "openness" and "social mobility" and "freedom". Sure, maybe we're just more aware of the problems that face us, and I don't think we should be wilfully blind to them...but it is just exhausting to be bombarded with all that crap 24/7 and here folks just don't dwell needlessly on things that they can't change.
Every time I think about going back, I think about all that, and realize once more that the only thing worth a damn in Cana-duh is my friends and family. That is seriously the only thing I miss even a little bit."