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A couple of private concerts in Japan have brought me to Tokyo, 10,000 km from Rome and Italy.
I have already played in some Asian locations, but for the first time I am visiting the land of the Rising Sun, in a mix of music and tourism, and together with my partner we are, day by day, discovering a new population that is solid and integral in its millenary culture.
We visited Tokyo and Kyoto, followed by Hiroshima, Nara and its temples, then back to the capital again for a few days.
The web is full of travel blogs and great connoisseurs of “everything Japan” who are able to interpret life here through a westerner’s eyes, so being able to give a summarized account of personal feelings is difficult, but I will give it a try with this first list of 5 observations.
1 the culture of the procedure: in Japan there is no improvisation, no one makes a mess and solutions are not sought out in states of disorder; people are neatly lined up everywhere, they book all their seats on the train, there are no delays, you do not bother other people and after 11pm it can be difficult to find places to eat, even in the big cities.
2 imaginative in their own way: if they have exported manga and anime all over the world, there has to be a reason! In their silences they are very creative, also because the use of illustration is on a much greater scale here than we imagine: most of the advertisements, everything from the launch of the Rugby World Cup or the 2020 Olympic Games all the way up to police communications, it’s all a succession of drawings, while the language of photography seems very fake and almost clumsy, see next point.
3 idols, boybands and girlbands: here we enter in “my” field, and perhaps for this reason being able to touch first-hand the concept of “idols”, which here in Japan is taken to an excess, has struck me in a particular way. Summarizing it is very difficult: I invite you to do a little search on AKB48 to get a clearer picture of what we’re talking about.
Small and large venues in which groups of teenagers perform, advertised with elaborate photos that are on the verge of nonsensical, a mix between the 90’s kitsch look and, precisely, the manga culture. The actual music is almost like a “side dish”, between its slightly dated melody and dance; in Italy, in addition to the newer generation, we can find posters of Vasco, Ligabue or De Gregori, but here the reality of national pop music seems to be entirely “contracted out” to the very young and to these idols, and if we just consider that the Japanese population counts 130 million people, this cultural trend should not be underestimated. This is a first perception that needs exploring, but it’s what you notice.
4 Westerners: summarizing the feeling of being “a foreigner” is complex, because while on one hand their hospitality and courtesy is total, every day you are surprised by a friendly gesture or assistance that you would never expect in Italy; on the other it seems that, at least publicly, they resist to “westernization” more than others: the invasion of western brands and stores is actually not that invasive, the same goes for the English language contamination, the strong food culture, the very gestures of the people and many other great little aspects that you breathe here show how the Japanese know how to simultaneously cultivate their “progress” without having to give up their identity. Perhaps the American ravages of war remain a not too far and completely overcome mental block.
