A compact culture

The other day I read "Japanese society and culture are incredibly compact." Ain't that the truth!

It continued, "It is often assumed that this is a response to the scarcity of level land, yet the Japanese appreciation of all things in miniature has a long history. It expresses itself in Bonsai (the art of growing tiny trees), miniature electronic goods and tiny gardens, among many other things."

I instantly thought of our neighbours 100 year-old Bonsai tree. David found him tending it the other day. Apparently it was given to him by someone (our neighbour is old, but not that old). Also apparently, it is ailing. Now that summer is over it sits on their verandah only a metre from where I hang my washing out, so I recently snapped a photo on a sunny day. Sorry that the railing obscures it a little.

But yes, it is true. The Japanese are fascinated by the miniature. Almost as much as Australians are addicted to wide open spaces.

It affects their (and our) personalities too. You aren't free to just do what you like where you like. You have to show a lot of self-control to live in such a compact culture. You do a lot of things you might not otherwise do - so that you can live close to others in peace.

Something of the Japanese inscrutability comes from this too. Most Japanese have almost no personal space they can call their own. They share their physical space with at least one or a thousand others (as in a train) most of the day and night. Even growing up most don't have the one-bedroom-per-child policy that most Australians go by. Many families sleep all in the same room and children in the same beds as their mothers until they are in elementary school. Therefore the only space they can claim as their own (apart from in their own bath) is in their heads. They keep their emotions off their sleeves and faces and bury them deep inside. This is, of course, a generalisation, however it is true for many.

It probably happens to us too. I can tell the difference between a foreigner who has been in Japan a long time without too many visits home vs. one who's recently spent a significant period outside Japan recently (say, in the last year). I think people in Australia noticed it with us too. Just as we were about to come back to Japan a lady in a church we visited often said that we were very self-contained and looked down a lot when we first arrived back from Japan. She said she'd seen a change over the year as we'd grown more 'Australian' and outgoing. But, she guessed, we were going to be 'drawn inwards' again as we came back to live in Japan. Very perceptive. The culture rubs off on us.