Japan! Of all the countries and cultures in the world…

Japan! Of all the countries and cultures in the world, Japan stands alone in its uniqueness of attitudes, behaviours, customs, food and history. There is no other place like it on this planet and that is what makes the experience of spending time here unforgettable.

At its core – Japan is a country of contrasts: ancient/modern, open/closed, quiet/loud, happy/sad, isolated/societal. It is in fact these contrasts that feed the curiosity to understand more about a place that can only be described as different.

What made this trip unique for me was that I was studying an aspect of Japanese culture (Ikigai) while living there, which provided an extra level of depth, insight and contemplation about what I was seeing and experiencing – most of which would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Be Careful What You Wish For…

I spent my month on the southernmost main island of Japan called Kyushu. I rented a flat in the biggest city in Kyushu, Fukuoka, and took trips to visit the cities of Beppu, Itoshima, Nagasaki and Kagoshima. Kyushu is famous in Japan for its plethora of onsen (natural hot spring pools), delicious foods, active volcanoes and rich Samurai history.

I chose to spend time in Kyushu because I wanted to experience daily life outside a major Japanese tourist hub.  As per usual, I was in search of a more ‘local’ experience, however the complete absence of English or Spanish or Portuguese was surprising. Encountering anyone who was not Asian was very rare during my time in Kyushu and almost all day every day in every interaction, I was the only foreigner. I would pass many days not having anyone to speak with – and this, coupled with the reserved social nature of Japanese people, produced feelings of isolation and loneliness. I used this as fuel to turn inward while doing my Ikigai studies.

An interesting part of Japanese culture is that it propagates and promotes a culture of individualism. It is the only country I can think of that has tables at restaurants and tables at coffee shops (photo attached) specifically for one person. You will NEVER see that in Brazil.

I did make a few friends during my time, but none of them could speak English at even a basic conversational level. It became very clear to me from the start that for this adventure in Japan, I would be running solo.

This writing is divided into two parts. The first dives into my Japanese societal observations and the second outlines some of my personal experiences on my trip. I hope you enjoy it and if you are reading this, please know that I love you!

Part 1: Social Harmony, Correctness, Duty + Silence

Social Harmony

The root of all Japanese social behaviour is this idea: it is an individual’s primary responsibility not to disrupt or disturb the environment or people around them. This is prioritized over personal wants or needs. Society first, individual second.

Japanese people are hyper-aware, hyper-sensitive and hyper-considerate of how their actions affect those around them. The starting point for any action one would take (or not take) is: how will this affect everything around me? This is a stark contrast to how most of the world lives – where typically, the rationale for our decisions stem from the question, ‘how do I get what I want?'

This distinction might seem negligible, but it has incredible consequences. When you stop to think that the criteria you apply for every small decision you make in public is different from how you were brought up, everything becomes confusing. Suddenly, you stop and think about the most ordinary actions you’d otherwise never contemplate.

Am I chewing my gum too loud (guilty)? Did I accidentally offend someone (guilty)? Did I do something wrong (guilty)?  

The altruistic nature of the Japanese spirit is so admirable, but with all things Japanese, the sheer rigidity and extremity of its observance felt unnatural to me. Because I don’t know the rules of what would make someone feel uncomfortable, I felt a strange sense of guilt and anxiety about my actions in public while living in Japan.

Of course, I was not held to the same standard as a Japanese person would be in maintaining social harmony, but as I was studying Ikigai principles and living in the country, I wanted to try my best. I felt pressure to always do the right thing which made me feel uncomfortable.

Now, imagine if I felt pressure to maintain societal harmony while only being a visitor there for a month, what it must be like to live there and be judged on your adherence to following this principle for everything you do in your life. HEAVY! Japan is not an easy place, and it demands a lot from the individual citizen.

Correctness

Personally, the most fascinating part of Japanese culture was realizing that within their society, there is a correct way to do everything. The archipelago nation has such deeply rooted traditions that it maintains so actively, that historically, they have a system or process for what should be done in certain situations.

As an entrepreneur, I’m always fascinated by systems and processes which empower a company with the ability to produce the same outcome consistently, by following each step of the process exactly as it has been designed.  

I observed that Japan – as an entire country – has a system and a process for every single thing that they do. There is a correct way of doing certain things and this touches every fabric of the society.

For example:

• There is a correct way to greet people
• There is a correct way to take off and place your shoes when entering a place.
• There is a correct way to line up before entering a train
• There is a correct way to drink tea
• There is a correct way to bow
• There is a correct way to place your backpack when eating at a restaurant
• There is a correct way to cut fish
• There is a correct way to act when conducting business
• There is a correct way to greet an elder
• There is a correct way to use equipment at the gym
• There is a correct way to walk on the sidewalk
• There is a correct way to pay for a bill at a restaurant
• There is a correct way to work remotely from a café
• There is a correct way to enter a temple and pray
• There is a correct way to have a conversation in public (you don’t!)
• There is a correct way to take a bath.
• There is a correct way to cross the street.
• There is a correct way to eat your food.

There is a correct way to do everything. And, having spent an extended period in one place, where I often did a few of the same things every day, I got to witness how people would do things the exact same way, the correct way, every single time. They wouldn’t miss a step in the process or deviate from what they did before at all. Not an inch. It was literally Groundhog Day every single day. I was stunned at the consistency.

Of course, the product of 99.9% of a society behaving correctly all the time produces the safest, most polite, cleanest (I never saw a single piece of garbage on the ground anywhere) and most efficient society on the planet. From all I have seen and experienced in my travels, there isn’t another country which comes close to Japan in any of these categories.

Undoubtedly, there is tremendous comfort in knowing the same action will produce the same outcome and this predictability is what makes an entire country clean, safe and efficient. This is why, I believe, so many foreigners are drawn to live in Japan – it contains the efficiency and certainty of correctness that their own society lacks.

The challenges which arise for a country built on correctness, in my opinion, are twofold:

1) It removes any space for spontaneous individual creativity or expression

2) It creates a zero-sum scenario where if you aren’t doing things correctly, you are by default, doing things incorrectly.

For someone like me, who lives my entire life with freedom as my modus operandi and is driven by spontaneity and a ‘do what feels good in the moment attitude’, the juxtaposition was stupefying, fascinating and incredibly frustrating.

I still can’t grasp the idea that there is a wrong way to eat your food or a wrong way to cross the street or a wrong way to enter a store or a wrong way to lift weights at the gym.

In the words of the late Heath Ledger, “why so serioussss?”

If I didn’t study Japanese culture to learn about correctness, I wouldn’t have seen it with the magnified lens I did and I definitely wouldn’t have the same appreciation for freedom and flexibility in my life that I was raised with.

Also, I realized what I love about living in Latino cultures is the space for passion, self-expression and creativity.

Duty

The Japanese have two interesting concepts: duty (giri) and constant improvement (kaizen) and both are pervasive to how the society operates. An individual has a duty to serve others and do so well, they also strive to constantly improve at what they are doing, whatever it is.

It doesn’t matter what you are doing, there is something at stake and you have a duty to do it well. On top of this, you should constantly look to improve your performance. More than anywhere else, this extends to how people perform their jobs and their attitude when doing their work.

It doesn’t matter if you work at a convenience store or a restaurant or you clean toilets or collect used wet towels at the onsen or manage an international corporation. Every single person is incredibly serious about doing their job as well as they possibly can, not being satisfied with their performance and then focusing on getting better at it. EXHAUSTING!

These concepts can be romanticized when we think of traditional Japanese tasks like sculptures, ceramics and preparing certain types of foods but there is a darker side to this when we think of corporate life in Japan. Just like with social harmony, others come first, but in this arena, your company comes first.

This notion is so pervasive in society that people will introduce themselves by saying their company name before their own name while exchanging salutations. It is also why the presentation of business cards in every interaction is so important. Your company is your identity. 

I could never work in Japan.

The one thing that I think is worth mentioning and that absolutely shocked me is: I never saw a person look at their phone while working. Not once. I walked into 100 convenience stores, took tons of trains, ate at different restaurants every day and I visited tons of different onsens. I never saw a single person on their phone when working and I couldn’t believe it and was so impressed. Respect.

Japan is a different place where they do things differently.

Silence

The last aspect of Japanese culture which impacted me greatly was the pervasive and welcomed presence of silence. Japanese people are very comfortable with silence and even in traditional plays or concerts, extended periods of silence are strategically used for the pleasure they bring to the audience.

I only learned about the value of silence near the end of my Ikigai program, but once I understood it, I became more fluent in the language. So much of the communication between strangers in Japan is done in silence and intimate conversations can be had with nothing more than eye contact and respectful head bows. At first, I thought, ‘why is no one talking to me’ but after I grasped this concept of the preference for silent interactions, I realized I was having conversations everyday with people without using words and without even knowing it. Once I knew what was happening, I got good at connecting with people in silence. It was bizarre and very different from what I am used to when meeting people travelling the world, but after a while, it felt normal.

Obviously, I prefer the loud and warm and embracive Latino culture which is the opposite of silence, but I came to appreciate how different countries communicate differently. Once I understood what was happening, I was able to engage and ‘meet’ people, even if it was only for a passing moment without words being exchanged.

Naturally, when inhibitions are loosened with alcohol, almost all of what I’ve written above goes out the window. This is why, strangely, I can say that my experience in Japan would have been different if I drank alcohol. If I posted up in an izakaya and had a few cups of sake, for sure I would have connected with more people and made more friends. Japan was the first place in five years since I stopped drinking alcohol that I felt prevented me from social connections.

Part 2: Personal Experiences: Ikigai Framework, Onsen + Bomes Indee

Ikigai Framework

The Ikigai Life Coaching Course tries to answer different frameworks to understand how we find purpose and meaning in our lives. The coolest thing about the course was investigating these BIG life questions through Japanese concepts, philosophises and traditions. The curriculum provided prompts and asked questions to clarify your personal life mission, understand your life purpose and utilize helpful tools to live a life with meaning. 

The main ideas and concepts from the course which it may benefit to share, in no specific order, are:

• The different roles we have in our lives play a significant role in determining the meaning of our lives. The more in alignment and connected we are with our various roles in life, the more meaning our lives will have.  
• Your past is relevant to the extent that you can reframe it to form a helpful narrative to who you are today and who you want to become tomorrow.
• A major part of life satisfaction and purpose is future anticipation and an excitement for the life you have yet to live.  
• Having aligned goals and something to work towards (the more specific, the better!) is an essential element of living a life with purpose.
• Habits and routines are the brick and mortar for constructing your life. Everything in your life is connected to your habits and routines, because these are the things you do every single day and thus create how you spend your life.
• You must first identify your values and then design a life that is in harmony with those values. If you don’t explicitly know your values, you can’t know if you are living in harmony with them and you will feel lost.

The certification course was helpful and forced me to look in the mirror. As I soon turn 40 years old, I called this course my ‘responsible mid-life crisis’ (cheaper than a Porsche, but way less sexy) and it helped me evaluate and assess where I am compared to where I want to be. The education also provided amazing insights into Japanese culture, which I absolutely loved (as evidenced by this writing). I also now feel more equipped to be a better coach for my coaching clients in the future.

Favourite Practice: Onsen

The greatest pleasure I enjoyed in Japan was building an evening routine and habit of going to Yaoji Onsen which was an onsen located in a hotel 100m from my apartment. The onsen was open until midnight and every single night, I would go and bathe and sit in the sauna thermal hot spring pools and take a shower sitting on a tiny plastic stool practicing being present.

Onsen are places where hot spring waters are taken from below the earth and funneled into small shallow pools where Japanese people will soak and sit. They are places of tranquility and reflection.

For years, I’ve had an amazing morning routine, but finally I found a way to build an evening mindfulness routine at onsen and I’m so grateful for it. If I took nothing else from Japan except my evenings at onsen and the reflections it brought me, then my trip was worth it.

What I loved about onsen was that it was a place where, once I learned the correct way to do it, I was part of it. It was a very local experience shared with normal people just living their lives, coming to sit in a giant hot tub after a day of work.

Japan is a place I found very challenging and isolating, but when I grabbed my mini towel and headed to the tiny shower stool to start the onsen circuit, I felt I was one of them. In a place where there is such a divide between locals and foreigners, it was the one place I felt connected to the people around me.

My most memorable onsen moment was with a very old gentleman in Nagasaki, who certainly was alive when the atom bomb was dropped on August 9, 1945. He just wanted to talk to me after I told him I was from Canada (‘watashi wa Canada-jin). And I didn’t understand a word of what he said, but he wouldn’t stop talking. For at least 25 minutes we sat naked with tiny towels on our heads, him speaking incessantly and me alternating my answers between ‘hai’ (yes) and ‘subarashi’ (excellent). I think what stuck out about this moment above all others was that I was connected to someone so different than me, who has seen so many different things and lived such a different life than me – yet, through onsen, we shared something ancient and were equally a part of it. If it wasn't for onsen, the connection would be impossible. 

Favourite Spot: Bomes Indee 

Ya, respect mon, ery’time!

When I found out there was a reggae bar in Fukuoka, I went the same night and it was the only place in all of Japan that felt like home. The owner and the barman were two epic dudes and were so kind and nice to me and only amazing things happened to me from every decision I took at Bomes Indee. The guys invited me out with them one night to a Japanese reggae show (photo included of them at the show) which was incredible, and I met so many funny and interesting people at Bomes Indee. Just happy, relaxed, laughing, light, easy-going, rasta vibes. The bar and the characters made the experience a first-ballot Cory Sterling Travelling Hall of Fame entry and I couldn’t dream up a better place.

In a time of my life where I didn’t feel comfortable, the reggae bar felt right. I couldn’t communicate or speak with the guys (other than my basic Japanese) but we loved each other and we laughed a lot.

When some people travel, they’ll go to Churches or AA meetings or Chabad – but from now on, I’m going to reggae bars. That is where my people are.

Final Thoughts: Japan

As you can tell, Japan was a different trip for me and my experience was much deeper than I ever would have expected. Doing a life coaching course, which asks very real questions about life and purpose naturally guides the student through an intrinsic and reflective period. Studying this material in such a foreign place with such different customs where I was unable to communicate with anyone added an extra special element to the experience, which I am so grateful for.

Travelling isn’t always easy, and no two destinations are the same. My brief time in Japan will stick with me for the rest of my life. In addition to now knowing what daily life is like in this country, I have added a variety of new outlooks and perspectives which add substance to this ever-unfolding journey of travel and life.

Next Stop: Central Asia

I met a Dutch girl one night at Bomes Indee who has travelled to 100+ countries and has an eerily similar passion for travel as I do. We spent hours talking and sharing stories and the country she loves the most is Kyrgyzstan. She told me I should go. The next morning, I changed whatever plans I had and bought a ticket to Almaty, Kazakhstan (where I write this from) from where I will pass through the Trans ili Alatau Mountain Range to Bishkek, go offline for a while and explore Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan with the sole intention of being present and following what feels good.

The journey continues…

Cory