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What is the "real" Japan for you?

Where is the "Real" Japan for you?

  • The cities and large metropolitan areas. (i.e Tokyo or Osaka)

    Votes: 8 29.6%
  • The "inaka" or countryside, including the small villages and towns.

    Votes: 6 22.2%
  • The traditionally historical locations like Kyoto and Nara among others.

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • The people

    Votes: 7 25.9%
  • None of the above (Please Explain)

    Votes: 4 14.8%
  • Never been to Japan but think .(Include Location) (Please Explain).

    Votes: 1 3.7%

  • Total voters
    27
You don't need a definition of real. WHat is real to you is what matters. hence the none of the above option.

Thank you that is exactly the reason I wrote that option in, to me there are probably just too many different options to put into a poll like this. I wanted to have a catch all option where people could make their choice and then explain it in a post.

After reading some of the replies I think I should have added one other option though I really didnt consider it a place but it would have been appropriate anyway....The People.
 
I don't mean to be picky, but the thread title says, "What is the real Japan for you?" while the question in the poll says "Where is the real Japan for you?"; I wasn't sure it it was intentional and thought the answers might differ depending on which.

Maybe, Obeika can clarify that, too?
 
I don't mean to be picky, but the thread title says, "What is the real Japan for you?" while the question in the poll says "Where is the real Japan for you?"; I wasn't sure it it was intentional and thought the answers might differ depending on which.
Maybe, Obeika can clarify that, too?

finally somebody who understand my confusion 😊 That is exactly what I wanted to say.

After reading some of the replies I think I should have added one other option though I really didnt consider it a place but it would have been appropriate anyway....The People.

how come now people? can you see my question now. You said "real" and named places... and people start to answer something completely different. on ''real'' places i would say ''all of the above''

🙂
 
I can add this choice if you like!👍

Thank you, I was "gone" for the evening watching Pirates 3 with my son. If you have the time could you please add that option as well, I would appreciate it.🙂🙂🙂🙂 onegaishimasu!

finally somebody who understand my confusion That is exactly what I wanted to say.

I missed the people part but my intent at first was the where, but decided on the what instead because to me anyway, and it could be sematics but I figured that people would be able to use the "None of the above" option to explain the What as well as Where. I didnt consider the Who at the time.

After some thought however I think that the option of "The People" would be valid as well, because in my opinion a country and it's culture stem from it's people.
 
Japan is a place which incorporates an amalgam of differences. I don't care which is real? Nothing is fake!🍜:keitai::halloween:music:
 
It is a counry deeply affected by western culture,but still keeps it's own culture and customs very well,including it's bad and good ones.
What's more, girls there are more beautiful than those in anywhere else:cracker:
 
I voted for none of the above as I believe one cannot place a finger on, or actually say what the "real" Japan is. To each of us it is a different answer and no answer is right or wrong as each of us sees Japan through different eyes.

To me, the real Japan would be where I was living at the moment. When I lived in Japan, the "real Japan" was my 2DK apartment with it's futon, kotatsu, small refrigerator, TV and bath. The real Japan is the walk to the station avoiding traffic on small streets with no sidewalks and slight head nods and greetings to the neighbors and speaking Japanese 90% of the day.

It is the train ride to my destination or the shopping in local supermarkets and department stores. It is hot ramen and a cold beer on the way home from work or a night out. It is the buying of bento boxes to eat on the train to an onsen with friends or family. It is warming up a cold room with the kerosene heater. It is the visiting of local historical places to learn of the past history and culture. It is running the last minute to the station to catch your train in the morning or the rushing to catch the last train home in the evening. It is meeting a friend under Studio Alta in Shinjuku or in front of Hachiko in Shibuya for a date or a night out.

It is the hustle and bustle of the large cities with crowded trains and everyone constantly looking at their cell phones playing games, texting, or looking at messages and it is the quiet, serene areas in the country or suburbs where life is slower and a bit quieter. It is "irrashaimase" and "domo arrigato" when entering or leaving a place of business. It is, "Stay behind the yellow line," at train stations. It is a cold beer with dinner and hot tea with breakfast. It is sumo and baseball and shrines and temples, etc., etc.

And when I visited Japan again these past few weeks I considered myself to have experienced the "real" Japan by visiting the same house I have for the past 20 yrs, our room, the eating of all meals while seated on the floor in front of the TV, the hot bath before dinner and, again, all the things I mentioned above. Culturally, not much has really changed in my opinion these past 34 years as far as I can see with the exception of the massive construction of mansions and tall buildings in all areas.

The "real" Japan, therefore, is whatever one is experiencing while there and no two people will have the same experience. What I may consider to be the "real" Japan to me may be far different to what another may consider to be the "real" Japan to them. To paraphrase a popular saying, I guess you could say the "real" Japan is in the eye of the beholder.
 
Like Pachipro, I also voted "none of the above." The things he listed can be all, part or none of those things. It depends upon the person. My last trip took me to Kyushu. While nice, I seem to feel more at home in Tokyo. I've become comfortable there and have a better grasp on directions and the subway system.

Tokyo for me is primarily Shibuya, Asakusa and Ginza. What is Japan to me? I would have to say "a little of everything."
 
i am suspicious about words such as 'real' or 'authentic' when they are used with a society or culture or text since they take us into essentialism. the notion that a 'real' japan exists surely relies on finding characteristics to fulfill what 'real' means and from my reading of the comments so far, it's personal.

real is in the eye of the beholder. i am interested in why we want to find the real japan in the first place!

personally i could say yeah that walking in the back streets of kyoto or kanazawa or some little mura sends shivers up my spine but so does shopping in Loft in shibuya or eating some japanese sweet thing drinking tea and listening to cicadas in the summer. the viewing of sakura and then watching the changes in people and attitudes and moving along with the flow seems real. but i have merely reduced japan into these categories with the hope that i will understand it...

in some research i did some years ago, one informant told me that for her, time in japan seemed like a dream that is it was in fact not real since there was so many things that she didn't need to be concerned with in her daily life compared to her lived experience in australia. have others had this dream like experience?
 
real is in the eye of the beholder. i am interested in why we want to find the real japan in the first place!

If you had written I instead of we I probably wouldn't have made any comment here.

However since you did I am curious to know why you think or feel that "we want to find the real Japan in the first place"

I am not interested in finding out where the "real" Japan is, I gave my opinion in starting the thread, I live in the "real" Japan and will probably die here as well.

I started this thread to see how people posting here feel about what the country is for them or where they feel the "real" Japan exists in their opinion.
Which doesnt necessarily mean that people here are interested, or not, in finding the perverbial "it". Each person has their own opinion about what is real for them.

Doesnt mean that they are searching or looking though.
 
I love the nature of Japan, i enjoyed the country-life than the city-life like Tokyo, Osaka or Nagoya.
I like rivers, mountains which can be found in country-side.
For Kyoto and Nara, historical sites like temples are beautiful. Houses along the streets are so traditional...... 👍
 
If you had written I instead of we I probably wouldn't have made any comment here. Each person has their own opinion about what is real for them.
Doesnt mean that they are searching or looking though.

yep point taken, however there seems to be a certain amount of implied yearning or desire for the other in the question.

as you have written, each of us sees (tastes, hears, feels etc) the 'real' japan in respect to how each of us sees (tastes etc) our own construction of reality and japan gets thrown in there...perhaps this fuels so many disagreements about japan (and other places)...i want japan to be this and when someone else says, no it's not that it's this then the conversation seems to stop...

i read an interesting piece last week about the US and how many people including scholars merely reduce the US to about 5 characteristics. the point the author was making was that the US (and i'd substitute japan in there too) is too complex for that kind of reductionism.

perhaps i am searching, (we are all searching) for something 'real' so i/we can make sense of this intriguing life...(wasn't that an annie lennox song?)
 
The landing into Narita. Just looking out my window on the jet I can see that I am in a different world already. I can't wait to get off the plane and see the faces of my friends and family. That first step on to the ground makes it real to me. When I am in Japan it's all real to me. There are few things that make me feel like I am at home. That's actually a good thing. If it looked, smelled, tasted, sounded, or felt just like home, why would I want to leave home!? :)
 
Japan is a place which incorporates an amalgam of differences. I don't care which is real? Nothing is fake!
You have obviously then not compared what is under the sweaters of some Japanese women! :)

"Real Japan". It's the society, which therefore covers pretty much all of the topics in the survey. Personally, I wouldn't even have made this a survey, but just posed the question and let the thread flow, for reasons that everyone seems to be stating (personal preferences, that is).

"Real Japan" for me...
I'm married to a Japanese woman, so that's square one.
I have a job with a Japanese employer, and that's an eye-opener.
I have worked in the mainstream school system, conversation school, private teaching business, and university, so I have learned a lot about the education system here.
I've worked for a Japanese branch of a U.S. outfit and seen what a Japanese manager and secretary are like.
I have seen people be very kind and very discriminatory, very open and very closed.

Real Japan is what you experience, what you perceive, and what goes on behind the scenes, whether you understand it or not.
 
in some research i did some years ago, one informant told me that for her, time in japan seemed like a dream that is it was in fact not real since there was so many things that she didn't need to be concerned with in her daily life compared to her lived experience in australia. have others had this dream like experience?
Yeah, then it becomes a reality as time passes.
 
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