Japanese Souvenir

Blog Reader, please forgive me for not delivering to you the perfect souvenir from Japan.  Believe me, I looked for it.  Ornamental chopsticks? Eh. How about a Geisha Doll! Hmm...  Japanese Flag? Blah.  Sure, all of those knick-knacks are quite nice, and I immensely useful - it’s just that none of them quite encompass what I found to be the “Japanese Experience.”

I know, Blog Reader, I know.  When one is in Japan or any other foreign country, it is imperative that one buys souvenirs for friends and family. I understand how crucial it is that one return bearing bite-sized nuggets of exotic culture so that people can unwrap trinkets and squeeze them between their fingers.  

And shopping for souvenirs should have been fun and easy, right?  Maybe I over thought it.  I don’t know for sure, but whatever happened, it left me unable to find an item that epitomized the diverse population of individuals here in Japan.

It was for you, Blog Reader, that I wanted to get these souvenirs.  I devised this clever scheme a while back; I figured that while I was in Japan I would purchase little trinkets, take pictures of them, and upload them to my blog.  Each souvenir would have a string hanging from it, and at the end of the string there would be a white tag that read, “To my blog readers.” It was going to be so adorable.  Just imagine – you open my blog to find a picture of a miniature Geisha doll, addressed to you, holding her delightful little fan and staring out of her doughy black eyes.  I well up just thinking about it…

But the more people I meet here in Japan, the harder it is to find an item that embodies such a richly diverse culture.  In fact, I still haven’t met a single Geisha here.  I keep flipping over rocks.  No Geisha.  It seems that the vast majority of this population is not traditional Japanese female performers.  Thus, I have decided that the Geisha Doll is not the perfect item to sum up this culture, even if her little fan is just darling. 

What does make an item a perfect souvenir, then?

A Souvenir Buyer's Guide

(by Adam Showalter)

1. A good souvenir should be relatively inexpensive and yet encompass its country's entire culture and all of its unique individuals.  This should be done for between $5-10 USD.
2. A good souvenir should shrink the massively complex intricacies of a country and its inhabitants into a box that fits into a piece of Samsonite carryon luggage.
3. It should reinforce but never challenge the stereotypes associated with a culture.
4. It should take a small fraction of a culture or a people's history, and with one sweeping gesture, blanket an entire society with it.
5. It should not cause the receiver of the gift to contemplate the annoying idea that each person in a foreign country is a unique individual who could never be properly represented by an item.  
6. It should, upon being opened, evoke a response of enthusiastic ambiguity like, "Oh my!" or "You don't say!"

With these rules in mind, Blog Reader, I am painstakingly searching for souvenirs here in Japan.  I have ransacked the country for seven days now - from Tokyo to Gifu to Nagoya.  I have kept my unusually globular-shaped Western eyes peeled for something to purchase and take pictures of from Japan that might neatly fold up this wildly diverse cultural tapestry into something more easily accessible.  Here are some other souvenir items I have considered:

1.  A Samurai sword.  (To be fair there exists a very small pocket of people in Japan who are not Samurai warriors, but overlook that.)

2.  Fresh Sushi.  (I keep eating it before I can get the tag attached to it properly)

3.  Pokémon cards. (But I thought you might like Fate Zero better.  How am I supposed to know your particular taste in Anime?)

4.  Chinese handcuffs. (Wait…)

All of these items seem to fit the criteria for a perfect souvenir, and yet for some reason I feel like they all fall just a hair shy of ideal.  Perhaps it’s because I’ve spent a healthy chunk of time conversing with people here in Japan, and no item quite epitomizes the complexity of these individuals.  

I was just sure that when I came to Japan, all of the people here would watch anime, do karate, pick up everything (including the remote control) with chopsticks, scoff at math exams, and bow violently at me.  I expected to be peppered with Hello Kitty gear. And yet, here is a group of people who are as individual and unique as Americans. 

Buying a set of ornamental chopsticks and expecting it to represent the whole of Japan would be as foolish as a foreigner visiting America and buying a cowboy hat or a Dr. Dre album to encompass all of America.  Sure, some Americans like Dr. Dre (put me in that group).  And some Americans are cowboys (put me in that one too – hey I worked on a farm!).  But not all Americans are cowboys.  Not all cowboys wear cowboy hats.  And in a strange headbutting of America’s urban and rural cultures that never ceases to amaze me, many members of America's farming/cowboy community adore Dr. Dre.  So a cowboy hat or Dr. Dre record, even if they represent PARTS of American culture, don’t even tap the surface of American culture. It's too multifaceted.   

Similarly, there are no items I can purchase in Japan that will begin to explain how unique the individuals here are. 

With this in mind, I’ve decided not to buy you any souvenirs, because nothing I’ve come across at a kiosk quite “sums up” this place.  Nothing I could buy quite embodies the richly diverse Japanese culture.  But still, I wanted to get you something.  So instead of buying you souvenirs, I’m going to write you souvenirs.    

Below you will find miniature stories and pictures from my experiences in Japan.  Each of the stories will be the literary equivalent of something you could wrap up and put in a box.  Each anecdote will be self-contained and easy to swallow.  Just a bite-sized nugget of my Japanese experience.  A written souvenir.  

CHRISTMAS NIGHT

Luke and I grew up together, and worked on his father's farm, in our little Missouri town of Craig.  Our families were good friends so we often spent Christmas together.  Flash forward fourteen years - only the location has changed.  We spent Christmas night here at the Tokyo Guest House.  

The Christmas Party at The Tokyo Guest House consisted of a huge traditional Japanese meal.  (Interesting Side Note:   Kentucky Fried Chicken established a hugely successful marketing campaign in Japan that has convinced this country that the most traditional of all Christmas foods is chicken.  Thus, a recent development in  Japanese Christmas traditions...KFC Chicken.) 

I fixed some Arabic coffee as a show of my gratitude.  I also showed them how to make White Russians.  

Here you can see a small cup of Arabic coffee on the left, a little glass of white russian on the right, and a cake we had for desert.

COOL SIGHTS

Check out the shirt on that guy in the back.  I pretended to be taking a picture of Luke giving a peace sign so Dude-Wearing-A-Missouri-Tee wouldn't notice.

ON THE TRAIN

Luke and I have done all of our traveling by train and subway.  Here we are at the station.  

Pictures taken from the train

The Japanese countryside from the train

Tokyo from the train

Saw this guy on the train.  Did John Lennon and Yoko Ono have a child? 

FOOD

Posting pictures of food is a huge part of life in Japan. Luke showed me his news feed on Facebook, and a good portion of it was his Japanese friends uploading pictures of what they are eating.  

I've decided that as much as I like sushi, I prefer my food not have eyes or an exoskeleton.  

NEW YEARS

On New Years we went to Nagoya to visit some friends.  We passed this fountain in Nagoya.

After the countdown, we went to the Shinto Temple to make our wishes.  This is a Japanese tradition.  Overall, Japan is a secular society - no real religion the way we think of it as westerners.  Their "religion" is more about tradition.  One of the traditions is to go to the temple after the New Year, throw coins in, and make a couple wishes.  Before we could enter, we had to cleanse ourselves by washing our hands.  

1:30 a.m. January First in Nagoya

1. Throw money

2.  Clap twice

3.  Make wishes

And just in case you REALLY wanted it...