Japanese Features Soceity and Customs

Modern or Primitive?

What do you think would surprise you when you first visit Japan?  More specifically, what would surprise you when you take a train from the airport to your destinations in Japan? 

You might be amazed by high-tech train system, such as Shinkansen (English: Bullet trains), skyscrapers, and clean streets.

A Subway Station in Nagoya

Japanese train system is well organized and operated: trains come on time and digital indicators for the next train coming are operated at almost all major train stations. Turnstiles at the wicket are sophisticated and effectively control the in-coming and out-going passengers.

To get on a train, you insert your ticket into a turnstile and pick it up.  At your destination, you insert the ticket again into another turnstile.  The turnstile somehow checks the fare you paid at your entrance and collects the ticket if the fare is right.  If not, the turnstile blocks you and gives you some embarrassment.

You can pay the fare by placing your cell phone (which carries prepaid electronic money like Edy) over the turnstile. Or, just place your smart phone which is registered for some kind of payment, such as Paypay or Google Pay.

You would notice, as in New York and other big cities in the US, skyscrapers during your trip.  Some highways are elevated and go through such downtown. You might also notice how clean, in general, Japanese streets are. Your prior image about Japan of being a high-tech, modern, and clean country might be confirmed.

However, once your train hits a residential area, even in downtown, you would start noticing something unfit to your image of Japan: laundry hung in one balcony after another of houses and apartments. 

For example, on a sunny day, laundry in the balcony swims like carp streamers shown in our previous blog entry.  To Japanese people, who do not have the custom of using a dryer, this practice is not strange at all.

Rather they consider this environmentally-friendly.  They do not consume electricity to dry their clothes.  One study conducted in 2005 reports that only 50 percent of the Japanese households own a dryer.  Yes, as in 2019, more and more households have clothes dryers, but they are still not so common in Japan. 

However, to those who are not used to hanging laundry in the balcony, this practice might be evaluated pretty primitive, unattractive, or unsophisticated, which does not fit to the image of Japan.