Warding off evil spirits

You can lay out some salt. Or you could bathe yourself in holy smoke. Or sip the holy water. Also, you can buy an arrow.

In every store window is the comical cat figure, waving one mechanical paw at you, blessing you and bringing good luck your way.



Eating the yummiest sautéed squid at midnight, with sashimi salad, and rice, I watched the New Year arrive on the Japanese public television station, NHK. Unfortunately, I could not understand a word they said (except for arrigato, domo, moshi moshi, go chi so sama, hai, konichiwa, etc.)

Mainly, it was a song and dance extravaganza with many of the country's top performers on hand, and elaborate costumes arrayed in an elaborate choreography. An almost impossibly beautiful actress seemed to be the main host -- tall, slender, long black hair, perfect shaped face with a warm smile and sparkling black eyes.



The longer I am here, the more people I meet and questions I ask, the more concerned I become for the future of the Japanese. Today, Tokyo is Asia's greatest city, and the Japanese economy is humming along all right, though the rapid expansions of Korea and China make Japan look like it is moving in comparative slow motion.

But Japan's tremendous asset, which is the Japanese people themselves, is also its greatest problem. The homogeneity of the people is awe-inspiring. As one Japanese woman told me, "Look at us, we all look more or less the same. Of course some are taller or some are smaller and so on. But basically we all look very much like each other. And we think and act like each other too."

The population of Japan does seem to behave almost like one giant organism. What dissent there may be from social mores seems to rarely be expressed in public. As I've noted, even the notorious gangsters, the Yakuza, are invariably polite and modest toward others.

Everyone bows and thanks each other for almost any interaction that occurs. Just going to the restroom in a restaurant invariably involves the attempt to allow someone else to go in first; or upon exiting, to bow and excuse oneself to another who may have been patiently waiting outside the door.

Because Japanese will not speak to strangers, nor look anyone in the eye, they actually have a hard time meeting one another. There are definitely ways for people to flirt, for example, but it's hard to imagine a culture more distant from the open flirtatiousness of Brazilians, say, than the Japanese.



Only 1.5% of the population is non-Japanese; most of them Chinese or Korean. The Japanese do not always regard these groups favorably. They are included as gaijin (foreigner), along with Europeans, Africans, and Middle Easterners, etc.

Most of the Chinese flocking to Japan are students, and see a potential opportunity to graduate and then create careers here. It is somewhat comical to see how the Chinese and Japanese regard each other. The one is viewed as overly loud, pragmatic, self-assured; while the other in seen as too deferential, modest, and exceedingly quiet. It's not hard to see why they don't get along so well.

Although Americans seem to be the best-liked gaijin here, many Japanese do notice that American tourists tend to be large, loud, somewhat self-absorbed people. However, when interacting with Americans, the Japanese are so warm and polite and accommodating, most of us probably do not intuit any critical feelings whatsoever.

There is a strong undercurrent of discontent with U.S. policies, however. The Bush administration's extremely unpopular wars cause a lot of grumbling, especialy among Japanese men.



One of the main problems for the Japanese is that they are not reproducing themselves at high enough rates to sustain their aging population. Unlike the U.S., Japan has not opened its borders to the waves of immigrants who could revitalize the economy, and provide a domestic workforce to replace the dwindling number of Japanese of working age.

Another issue is how to foster more entrepreneurial activity here. A small but influential group of the country's top entrepreneurs still choose to leave for the friendlier environs of Silicon Valley, where they much more easily can make fortunes and explore promising technologies.

(Interestingly, Japan does not really have much of a "super rich" class like America tolerates. It is not seemly to become grandiose and pretentious. Wealthier Japanese often get involved in socially responsible causes -- much like Americans -- but they do so quietly, not seeking notice or credit for this work.)

Their powerfully ingrained sense of collectivity helps them recognize global warming and other planetary issues without the political noise of a greedy oil and gas industry, or the politicians who suck up to it. They consume far less of everything (except seafood) than Americans; they recycle everything, and they never litter!

Tokyo, though ancient and sprawling, is by far the cleanest city I have ever visited. Dog-owners have long cleaned up after their pets, and they don't need regulations or signs or racks of plastic bags on fences to do so. They carry their empty water bottles until they find the proper dispenser. They clean up their own tables in restaurants. Their large army of janitors incessantly sweep up and discard any small crumbs or pieces of material that escape an ever-vigilant citizenry protecting the commons as if it were their common home, which of course it is.

I could never produce a website like Sidewalk Images here!

To try and be more explicit about my fears for Japan, how will they adapt to a globalized world, one where nationalities are rapidly losing power to the emergence of a new global society. The revolution in communications technology has been partly led by the Japanese. They all have cell phones, and almost everyone seems to be text messaging, photographing, or dialing one another constantly.

But it is essentially a conversation with oneself that Japan is engaged in. They are not talking enough to the rest of us!

Make no mistake about it, I love this country and these people. I think we Americans could learn so many valuable lessons by studying Japanese behavior and comportment. Here more than anywhere else on earth, I feel my strong loyalty to environmentalism, to healthy eating and living, to a quiet spiritualism inside my own soul, interlocking with all others.

To be Japanese is to feel connected to all life. There is no cruelty to animals here. (Many men carry dogs around in cozy little frontpacks, and they very cute together.) There is virtually no waste in this society. On the other hand, there is a terrible rate of alcoholism and cigarette smoking. But drug use is relatively rare, as is the violent crime rate, and disruptions of the orderly business of living quietly on the earth are rare.

I'm not unaware of Japanese history, and how rapidly they can be transformed into the fearsome wave of killers who raped Nanking, and demolished Pearl Harbor. As I have said, the kamikazes were the first international terrorists. So there are as many bad things to say about the Japanese as good things -- as is the case with every culture on earth.

I just wonder what this country and what these people will be like in 50 years. It seems possible that more tiny attempts here to document my visit may read like ancient history by then of a placid land before the Global Storm.

On behalf of the Japanese, I fear no amount of salt, holy smoke or water, arrows, shrines, or mechanical cats waving one paw can ward off the arrival of an unanticipated future.

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