A Word About Japan

Of course it is best to avoid generalities, but I will offer up some of my own with the proviso that they are indeed generalities and probably shouldn't be made too much of. Still…

• Japanese women. The women in Japan are indeed the most beautiful I have ever seen. Their skin is youthful (a phrase bandied about now is puru puru or soft youthful skin), probably due to their avoidance of the sun (something American women still haven't learned: you can see many women in Japan carrying parasols) as well as their diet and avoidance of tobacco (11% of women smoke, 40% of men). They are generally very slender and sleek and know how to dress in a fashion that focuses on their flowing figures. The coinage fashionista comes to mind. Fashion must be a very important quality to Japanese women, as many will dress for show rather than comfort: witness our climb up Mt. Misen, a difficult, sweaty task, that some women performed…in high heels!They are also quite congenial, happy looking (though Asian demeanor often masks underlying unhappiness: people do not wish to burden others with their problems), and quite helpful. Most of the workers in department stores and other retail outlets, as well as hotels, and most other sectors of the service economy, are women. And that is probably a very good thing.
  



• Japanese men. Smoke. A lot. I guess not as much as they used to, but they still do light up more than they should. It's nice though that they don't litter; I couldn't find many cigarette butts lying around, and those I did were in front of hotels, probably laid there by Western tourists. By all accounts of the many fires that have destroyed so much of Japan's historical structures you'd think smoking might be more looked down upon by Japanese society. Japanese men too are quite congenial and helpful. This indeed seems a happy country (on the face of it: economic times are hard). An addendum: We didn't see too many homeless in this country, perhaps a half dozen. You'd see more on one New York City block than in the entire city of Tokyo (which has double the population of NYC). All the homeless we saw were men.
  



• Children. I did notice something else while in Japan. No one seemed to dote on the children as they do in America. I am speaking of strangers, not the parents. In America strangers often will be playful with children; in Japan they were pretty much ignored by the other Japanese. Not sure what this says. Probably nothing.
  

The elderly. The elderly still seem quite able to get out and move amongst the younger set. I saw many crossing streets and getting on the subways and buses. I take it the health care system in this country is much better than in America (but then what country can't say that?). I've read that the elderly are more respected in Japan than in America, which has turned into a youth focused society.