The first time I came to Japan, I could not believe how
junky things looked. When you think of Japan, you think of spotlessly neat
rooms, the minimal aesthetic of Shinto shrines, the simplicity of a piece of
porcelain. You do not think of buildings with haphazard wiring on the outside,
drippy stains from corrosion, or abandoned vehicles and buildings. All of these
things, both the clean and intricate, the dirty and cluttered, are Japan.
At my school, there are piles of trash outside most
buildings. Old furniture rots and becomes a home to feral cats. Moldy futons
from three years ago are piled in stairways of on-campus dorms, blocking access
to emergency exits. Even inside buildings, the clutter can be surprising. The
entryway to the school health center looks more like an old storage room than a
medical facility. I'm going to get health care here?
The Japanese aesthetic of minimalism and cleanliness is long
gone. From what I've seen, this is a messy, messy country.
What's all the more interesting is that Japan seems like it
should be clean. Take off your shoes before going in the house, wash your hands
and rinse your mouth before praying, etc. But these are symbolic cleansings,
not actual cleansings. No matter that your socks are stinky; it's enough to
take off your shoes. No matter that no public bathrooms have soap; it's enough
just to rinse your hands with water.
Also, there are sinks everywhere. Sinks in public, in the
hallways of buildings, even in my classrooms. No one ever uses them. In fact, I
think the classroom ones don't even work. Is the room more clean by the sink's
very appearance? I don't know. It makes it look like a bathroom to me, some place
that should be more private than public. (Also interesting: there are no water
fountains anywhere. You can put your grubby hands under water in public, but
not your mouth.)
In America, junk like this would not be left out in the
open. It's unsightly. It would be put in a storage room, or hauled away as
trash. I doubt these items will ever be reused, they're just here, abandoned.
There's even an abandoned car in a field by the school train
station. I can't imagine there being a visibly abandoned vehicle like this in
America.
Why does this bother me, this visible clutter? I'm very
clean, yes, but I don't really care unless it's in my space. Other people can
live how they like, it doesn't bother me. But maybe that's just it: public
space is my space too. Now there's a lot of garbage in my space. Does that mean
that in Japan, people don't feel that public space is their space? Maybe it's
no one's space, hence it's an OK place in which to abandon garbage.
At least it makes for good pictures.
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