Good Touching

I was pretty angry, in retrospect, a lot of my time in Japan. For many reasons, but not the least of which was culture-shock. Below was one of my first reactions to one of the MAJOR differences between the west and the east, culturally and social-interaction-ally speaking...

Now before anybody bothers to e-mail me to tell me how wrong I am, or how much of a dick I am for saying such a thing, please keep in mind that this is just my opinion based on my own personal experiences here in Japan, and it's also a gross generalization and should be treated as such (with the fact that there are exceptions to every rule kept readily in mind).
So anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Japanese people are rather cold and can be downright pricks when it comes to it. I don't know how/when/where or why it happens to these people, but I've noticed that there is a distinct difference in tactile association with other human beings between kids and adults. I teach both kids and adults, and kids aren't afraid of touching. They touch each other (one more goddamn thing I have to keep an eye on them for), they touch themselves (luckily, not like THAT (at least, not in class at any rate)), they're not afraid to get up close and personal with people. My adults, on the other hand, keep something like a five-foot radius of clear space around them at all times as much as they can. Granted, when you've got 12 people crammed into a room the size of a broom closet, that protective circle of fear HAS to shrink, but these people go to ridiculous lengths to still avoid contact with each other. Sometimes, just to mess with them, I'll walk around the class observing them practicing and at the same time seeing how close I can come to them and/or make them come to each other. Sometimes it's outright hilarious to see the way they'll contort themselves to avoid touching each other or me.
I know that a large part of it is bred into them from birth by cultural norms and mores that they are taught from the start. To them, a bow is the way to show respect and/or to greet people. It's polite, and it doesn't violate anybody's protective circle of distance between each other. In America, we learn that a good, firm handshake is the way to make an impression, and the U.S.'s tactile culture is propogated by natural habit and our susceptibility to it. We learn that it's a GOOD thing to pat a friend on the back, give hugs and kisses to close friends (or, when you're drunk out of your tree and it's New Year's Eve and you're in Vancouver BC because the drinking age is only 19, it's also OK to hug and kiss random people on the street provided you're severely intoxicated and you shout "Happy New Year!" either immediately preceding or immediately following the ridiculous outbreak of affection).
Dave Barry wrote (and yes, I'm quite well aware that he's hardly the man to pay attention to as an authority on anything beyond boogers) that the Japanese are always very polite and friendly, but they're never/seldom warm. There's immense truth in that. I asked a guy in a convenience store for directions one time and he actually told another co-worker to take over for him so he could go half-a-block away with me to point me in the right direction, but afterwards he simply said something like "good luck" (it was in Japanese, so I'm hoping it was "good luck" and not "god you're a moron") and went back to work. Polite to the extreme.
On the other hand, my co-workers, whom I see every day and share life and work with on the selfsame daily basis, would no sooner shake my hand or give me a hug or pat me on the back or offer a reassuring hand on my shoulder than they would try to bend over backwards to spit in their own rectum.
I wish I could figure out what exactly it is that makes Japanese people, by and large, so afraid of human contact. Maybe they're afraid that it'll make them soft, as it certainly has in America to Americans. Here in Japan, their business ethos is simple. In a nutshell, it goes something like this; "You work, you do what you're told, you apologize your ass off if someone says you've done something wrong (whether or not you actually did something wrong is irrelevant), you do what you're told by your higher-ups (no matter how ludicrous it may seem), and you keep your damn fool mouth shut." That's about it... Or, at least, that's what I've learned from my own work experience here in Japan, if that tells you anything.
It's strange how "the system" works here... Most people work their whole lives for a single company, steadily working their way up the chain of command until they're at a respectable level, then they just keep their heads down and do what they're told. It's a life largely built around repetition and comfort knowing that day in and day out, your same old job will still be there for you every morning. I recently read a report in Time magazine saying that there's hope for the Japanese economy because a larger and larger number of high-school and college students are saying that they want to become office workers when they grow up. I have nothing against office workers, they're valuable members of society and the workforce and necessary for day-to-day tasks to be done, and done properly. However, the question that springs to my mind immediately is "How many creative and/or artistic geniuses are out there right now sublimating their own desires and dreams of adventure fortune and glory all for the sake of stability?" Stability is nice, but stability doesn't produce Shakespeares or Spielbergs, it produces people like Arnie J. Templeman, certified accountant, whose greatest adventure is trying to decide which socks to wear to match his tie (which doesn't matter anyway because his wardrobe consists of nothing but simple colors and earthen tones that go with any/everything). In America we're taught to dream big, risk big, and win big. Here they're taught that it's better to have regular income and settle for a lifetime of mediocrity rather than risk losing anything and possibly gaining everything.

(don't worry, this is where all of those strings of thought above become connected)

I'm led to believe, from all of this, to think that if these people would simply reach out and touch each other, let each other know that it's ok to fail, to offer that reassuring hand to each other that everybody in the world so desperately needs from time to time, that they would open up and go places that they hadn't even dreamed about, comfortable in their pursuit of their dreams because they know that if they fall, someone somewhere will be there to help them back up. That's one thing I miss immensely about living in America; the knowledge that it's ok to dream and, more importantly, that I should shoot for that dream because if I fail, everything will still be alright in the world, and I won't end up lonely and despondent because of my pursuits. One of the best lines I ever heard (one night while contemplating what to do next with my life after Japan) was "You don't need money, you need life." (props to Andy for that one) And that's just what these people sacrifice... They sacrifice "life" and emotion in the pursuit of comfort, stability and money. I can't tell you how many people I know who are stuck in terrible, meaningless relationships or marriages because they're afraid to find tactile-sustenance elsewhere. Maybe if they weren't so afraid to literally lend a hand to each other, then the country, as a whole, would be happier and healthier for it.
Then again, I could be wrong about all of this. I'm a stranger in a strange land, simply reacting to what happens to me day to day.

--Brian