Japan in the International Community: My View
Neither West nor East, but somewhere in-between

BOVEN,Thekla
Thinking about Japan within the international community, invites us to reflect on theplace that Japan occupies within this group. The task is to analyze the nature andcharacter of the links binding Japan to the foreign, and to understand the image thatthe country projects abroad. A country’s image, or identity, is usually depicted throughits economic, political, cultural or military situation. But these aspects are dynamic, sothe already multi-faceted identity of a country becomes an even more complex,transitory concept, making a simple definition impossible. For this reason, I will portraya personal view of the “Japan-ness” I experienced since I moved in Tokyo a year ago.
I am not a specialist in geography, nor sociology or even international politics andaffairs, but I started to get interested in the underlying ties linking different cultures,as I am about to start a Phd. thesis on the influences of mobilities on the architecturalconcept of place. Today’s interactions are frequently and ubiquitously crossing socialand cultural boundaries, I argue that a new imaginative geography is emerging, inwhich a situation of being “in-between” best describes the contemporary sense oflocation. I will here expose you to some of my thoughts on some effect of this straddlingcondition. Firstly, by reflecting on my situation I come to understand that individualidentities are influenced by encountered places over time and progressively detachthemselves from a deep sense of belonging to a single nation. As a consequence of theaffect of places on people, I will demonstrate that in turn people are vectors reshaping acountry’s identities. Hence, people and places are interdependent; the action of placeson people is brought back right in the places themselves.
I have a Belgian father and a Filipino mother. When I was a child, I lived in Belgium
and would often visit my mother’s homeland. At that time, people would often ask me
whether I felt more Belgian or more Filipino. I was always startled and anxious aboutthat question. All I thought about was just living, and never questioned my own identity.

With carelessness and innocence I simply replied that I was different from otherBelgians, because Filipino culture was part of my daily life, and I would point theadvantages of my situation as I benefited from exotic holidays. I most certainly felt I
didn’t belong exclusively to the Western culture or to the Eastern -I had both. As I wasraised embracing two different cultures, it was impossible for me to relate exclusively tothe country I was living in. Moreover, Belgium has it’s own inner identity crises:
encompassing three communities (Flemish, French, Germanic), a long history ofconflicts has divided it’s population, who identify with their community rather thantheir country.
As my traveling extended beyond a back and forth between my parents homelands, andbrought me to every continent, pushing me to displace myself repeatedly, the feeling ofdisengagement from a single image of the country of my nationality became evenstronger. After living in Canada for a year, I took a very fortuitous opportunity to settle
in Japan. On this second experience of moving into a new culture, I realized how myenvironment would reshape my identity. After an acclimatization period, I adopted
some aspects of Japanese culture, sometimes even without noticing it.
For instance, I have never been a sports fan and may still have to learn how toappreciate baseball, but I certainly understand the thrill of betting on sumo fights,
while eating and drinking in the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo. Even though I could
already use chopsticks before coming to Japan, now I even prefer them to cutlery, as I
feel more relaxed and liberated by using only one hand to eat at table ― it facilitates
my multi-tasking student lifestyle of eating and reading at the same time. I had to learn
it the hard way, but now I know: it is pointless to be stressed and annoyed about things
you can’t help. For example, in packed trains, you can either enjoy a free massage,
plunge into your phone to check for the nth time your e-mails or Facebook, or you may
simply dose off on the next shoulder to catch up some lack of sleep. Every time I go outof Japan, I just seem not to be able to leave behind this twitch of excusing myself whileslightly bowing my head. Politeness has insinuated itself into my posture. Trust inpeople is probably my favorite Japanese quality. There are no worries of falling asleep inthe street with your bag at your side, as no one would dare to dispossess you of yourbelongings. Once, I was particularly surprised to see a girl of maybe six years old taking
the subway. After that a series of tragic events in Belgium, I grew up to feel alarmed at
the sight of a little girl wandering off the streets on her own. I was reminded of thatscene when on my last trip back in Belgium, I took the subway and had never realizedthat compared to Japanese public transport, the Belgian metro is a dark and dirty placethat projects a gloominess and sickly color on people’s faces. As if Japan covered my eyeswith an invisible distortion filter, the perception of the city I have been living in for 22
years has completely changed. These are just a few examples of how living in Tokyo
instilled its Japan-ness into my way of being, and probably I still haven’t realized thefull scope of my transformation.
The need to adapt to a new environment pushes one to forget, or to alter old practices inorder to conform to the current location. When I travel back to Europe, members of myfamily would notice some changes in my behavior -some Japan-ness came on to myidentity. But all one can really do is incorporate a foreign culture into his lifestylewithout ever fully absorbing it, as it is impossible to grasp and understand the entire
depth of a culture; and thankfully Japanese are very tolerant towards gaijins’ ignorance,clumsiness and mistakes. So an individual identity is shaped by the succession of pastexperiences and places visited. My identity is a combination of my growing up inBelgium, traveling to the Philippines, living in Canada and studying in Japan. Fromthat point of view I don’t see anymore why one would attach his sense of identity to theplace of his origins, rather to where he has been, what he has done, and what he is goingto do. Places act on people as they imprint on them the experiences of those places. So
people carry places along within them. As a consequence of that hypothesis we could
imagine a place called Japan that is not limited to the piece of territory shown on themap, but expands to where ever anyone who encountered Japan goes.
A melting pot of diverse cultures is also found within Japan. Situated at the peripheryof East Asia, the country persistently oscillates between the influences of oriental
neighbors and the appeal of Eurocentric hegemony. I am fascinated by how Japaneseculture, despite its situation, has managed to keep a certain distance from the source toremain somewhat singular. Regardless of the importance of the foreign contribution, aJapanese touch was sometimes added: whether it is the country’s affinity with theChinese language, but not it’s faithful adoption that led the Japanese to invent its own
system of writing; or the revisited Indian, Portuguese and Chinese dishes that
constitutes everyday cuisine in Japan, namely kare, tempura, ramen. Inspired by
Kakuzo Okakura’s description of Japan as a beach on the far east of civilization thatgathers stranded bits of culture originating from the west, or the east, I regard
Japanese culture, as a recollection of the country’s long history of interactions with theinternational community. And by a process of wrapping the foreign of its Japan-ness,

Japanese culture claims its proper identity as belonging neither to the West nor to theEast, but takes a leaf out of both. So things that are considered as being typicallyJapanese, sometimes originated from ancient external sources. The Japanese culture isalready international.
I particularly look up to Japan as a model to construct my own identity, because of thecountry’s capacity to offer a place for diverse cultures to coexist and be juxtaposed on
the singularity of it’s own territory. It is in similar ways that I understand how one
should develop when displacing himself into a new culture. He should embrace thehosting culture and make it his own by applying the filter of his peculiar identity.
Japan can appear to be very hermetic and frenetic. The language is the most common
and obvious barrier, but not an unbridgeable one. Japanese are very accommodatingwith a foreigners’ limits, and extremely patient. The capital city’s rhythm, is one I havemore trouble to surmount. I have the impression that everything you do in Tokyo you doit one hundred percent, and it still doesn’t feel enough. Working hours are long andintense, productive too, but work is simply endless, there is always something awaiting.
Partying is also very exhausting. As working hours finishes late, the usual meeting with
my friends would be around 8-9pm. Which, leaves us just the time to have a diner and aquick drink. Unless you go for the whole night and take the first train on the nextmorning -what usually happens as no one can afford the cost of taxis. And yet as it is so
hard to find a matching free schedule with friends, that a whole night of enjoying
doesn’t seem enough. In turn resting time are also extraordinarily extended to aprescribed cure of a consecutive 13 hours sleep! My first 6 months in Japan were really
hectic. I didn’t realize the affect of Tokyo’s tempo on my health, till I would burn out andsimply close myself up for a day. I needed to find some of my old habits back, to balancewith the load of novelty I had to face. And that is easily done in Tokyo.
Simple and common things, that reminds me of Belgium and my previous lifestyles, canbe found anywhere. Like a piece of chocolate from Godiva at the corner of my street, or acoffee on a terrace in Kagurazaka, or some word of French here or there, no, in fact all
around and often with funny misspellings! As the increasing mobilities of capital, goods,people, ideas, and images characterize our contemporary developed society, it is quite
easy for a foreigner living in Tokyo, to find a similar lifestyle he used to have. The city ofTokyo, and therefore Japan includes every aspect of foreign cultures as well.
To resume, the key ideas I have advanced so far are: people are intrinsicallyinternational as they travel, they carry a facet of places within them; Japanese culture
is a combination and integration of external cultures; Japanese territory is filled withinternational communities.
To conclude, Japan is well connected to the international community, integrates foreigncommunities on its territory and has long intertwined interactions with foreigners. Yet
the major international criticism about Japanese is that they are reflexively
nationalistic. While nationalism is too often regarded as a negative quality because ofit’s crude association to “a lethal mix of statist militarism, xenophobia, and racism”1, I
think a nationalistic view remains important, particularly in this era of globalization, inorder to establish a clear platform on which diversity and interaction can occur. But
what some may find hermetic in Japanese society comes from the Japanese people andtheir ways of marking the differences between themselves and the foreigner. What I
came to believe is that when a Japanese points out that your Japanese is good, or that
he is surprised by your dexterity with the chopsticks, etc.. it is because of hisastonishment for your interest in his culture. I think Japanese people haven’t realized
yet how influential and attractive they are abroad, and how in turn they are influenced
by what lies outside themselves.
I hope this essay will make people reflect on their own identity, that is bound to be
multi-cultural, as people travel more and more, places act upon people, and places
themselves become globalized. After realizing this, we can all see ourselves belonging to
the same place within the international community.

1 McVeigh, B. J. (2004). Nationalisms of Japan: Managing and Mystifying Identity.
Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Md.