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The personal log of Peter, owner of JLIST.com, the home of "wacky things from Japan"

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The uncanny ability of the Japanese to deal with crowded spaces

It's natural for the Japanese to be more skilled at some things than folks in the U.S. or Europe. For example, the Japanese are certainly better at performing detailed, meticulous tasks such as designing small machines or perfectly painting Gundam models, and are also very creative when it comes to making new English words (Meltykiss, yum). Similarly, the Japanese seem to have an aesthetic sense that I think most Westerners lack, an ability to arrange something as mundane as food in a way that brings out its bi (beauty, pronoucned like "bee"), as you can see with bento and other types of Japanese cuisine. Another area the Japanese definitely excel at is dealing with the cramped and crowded spaces that are all too common here. At the Comic Market, the doujin convention held twice a year at Tokyo Big Sight, around a half million people need to make their way into the halls and find the artist circles whose books they want to pick up. Buying comics from popular circles means standing in line, which is extremely difficult to do when there are thousands of people milling all around you. Somehow, though, a line manages to form despite all the chaos, with the last person in line politely holding a sign that indicates that this is the place for new people to line up. One of the most important virtues for a Japanese person to have is gaman, the ability to endure an unpleasant situation, and you can really appreciate a society in which everyone understands the importance of being polite to others when there are that many people around you.


2 Comments:

Blogger tudza said...

Um, with regards to making small machines and models, when was the last time you went to an American hobby shop and looked at the display models?

Arranging food to make it look pretty? You haven't read enough cookbooks. If you are thinking bento, I've seen some very nicely arranged American lunch boxes in my time, including ones my mom used to make. ( You are a Heroes fan, think about roses made from radishes. )

6:36 AM

 
Blogger Peter in Japan said...

You are quite right. I'll bet part of by perception comes fro being from California, where people are lazier and more laid back. I'm sure many of these features are found in people who live where the weather gets cold. Or something like that.

4:42 PM

 

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