Are the wheels coming off Japan’s traditionally organized social structure?

Recently one of the Japanese friends, who had visited major Indian cities for business purpose, commented on the economical developments happening in India. It was good to hear that a country like India with an explosive population makes remarkable achievements in industrial growth. He was eager to tell me the energy and confidence he could observe in young entrepreneurs and business executives during his interaction with them.

That must be true. The young educated generation in India is ambitious to reach new heights and prove their abilities. Drawing encouragement from the proven success of Japan and other developed countries, the young generation is motivated to add new dimension to the traditionally stained image of their country. I told my friend that the recent economical developments are concentrated in the industry only. There might be a low penetration of growth to the basic necessities too, but the growth is highly not organized or distributed in India. The poverty rate is much higher and alarming in India. The human rights violations, child labor, aggression towards women, malnutrition, infant deaths, and poverty to mention a few things that UN has put India on the top of their list underrate the recent economical growth.

As an Indian, it is a proud to hear that our country is growing. It is a relief and gives hope to those downtrodden millions of human beings, termed as ‘cattle’ by her wealthy class. Even the right to education bill proposed by the central government in India is questioned by some vested interest groups in the name of funds and basic infrastructure. They don’t understand that the idea of right to education is important to feed into the social structure, so that the administration, bureaucrats, social organization will strive to meet the requirement. That attempt is enough in a society to bring success. Years of suppression, caste and class based discrimination, disparities etc, have reinforced optimism in political brains too in India. India needs more enthusiastic young brains to overcome those optimistic blocks in the political front and move forward.

On the other hand, Japan’s economical growth and social structure has appeared as a model for me. During discussions, I used to point out my observations that Japan does not need any communist parties to bring socialism in to the society. The governments had done their job well to bring justice to all the citizens in Japan. I don’t claim that I have not seen anybody sleeping on the street. Yes, I have seen homeless people twice or thrice while walking with friends in the night through the busy Tokyo streets. For me and friends the scene was a strange experience in Tokyo. It is quite common in India or any other developing country.

Economy matters. If the country and people are rich and have enough money to satisfy the basic necessities, the money can be spent for luxury. Then the social life becomes a celebration. In developing countries, corruption in bureaucracy and political system has their roots in the poor salary structure. In Japan, as far as my experience goes, a good percentage of the population can afford to live with many luxury things in life.

Socialism is interwoven in the society. One of the reasons for this socialistic mentality among Japanese people as told by friends is the feeling of ‘unique race’. Japan, though possess similarities with the neighboring East Asian countries, has many unique things to make it separate from others. The almost homogenous society had made the things easier for the administration and law to implement, organize and interwove socialistic threads into the society. That was the efforts of past generations in Japan and the result is today’s Japan as a model state that other nations can learn.

I have always heard stories of loyalty, truthfulness and righteousness from foreigners living in Japan when they tell their real life experiences of losing money and valuables. One friend forgot his bag including passport, money and other valuables in a taxi, in which he came from Narita airport on his first day to Japan. He did approach the nearby police station to report. Following the instruction from the police, he went to the station the next day and to his surprise the police handed over his bag with all the valuables inside intact. Another friend from Singapore forgot to take change for 10,000 Yen from the vending machine. When he realized this loss on the next day, he made a hopeless attempt to check at the vending machine to get the change that was approx. 9200 Yen. After searching at the vicinity of the vending machine, he approached the nearby shop and explained his loss. To his surprise, they asked him what is the exact amount and time he lost the money. When he told both time and exact amount, they handed over him the money!

Yes, these have been what I used to hear from foreign friends, but recently, started hearing suddenly about taking care while riding crowded trains and do shopping etc. Some of the people started losing their money. The money won’t disappear by itself. It happens when the wheels coming off. The society could be symbolized to a vehicle. When the economy shudders, it is hard to keep the wheels in place.

Melancholic pages of my life in Japan – departure of Remus-san

It was raining today in Tokyo. The rain added more cold to the already cold climate. The rain, which is used as a symbol in literature and movies, it seemed to me, was not merely coincide. Film directors have used rain, to express the pain of separation, death, miseries and depressed thoughts. While coming back from Narita airport today after sending off Remus-san, I was thinking of some of movie scenes where the rain symbolized the pain of separation.

Every departure is painful, but departure of some people, who are close to our heart, makes us depressed. The life amalgamated with pleasures and sorrows will not wait even a single moment for anybody’s consolation. I do not intend to search for the roots of sorrow or pleasure here. Today is one of the saddest days I have ever experienced after mother’s departure from Japan.

Today may not be a suitable day to write all the thoughts into this blog about the departure of Remus-san. As planned, Remus-san left Tokyo today. For sure, it is not just a departure for me. Remus said goodbye to Japan and I am just back home from the airport. Though I feel that today, it may not be a good day to write about his departure, I am unable to resist from sharing those painful moments of departure.

Either the otherwise crowded subway station was empty or I might not have noticed it. The mind was so preoccupied with thoughts of a good friendship which was started almost two years before. I have written about Remus before also in this blog when we friends gathered for a party at his apartment. Japanese language friends reunion

The friendship started from Sakura, when I was on a short transfer from the head office. We used to dine out some days at the Indian restaurant near the JR Sakura station. When Remus was moved to the head office, I was happy to get a companion.

Remus helped me a lot to set up my family, before they come to Japan. He was the one guided me and even purchased for me most of the house-hold items. Since I am not good at selecting the things, I followed his selection. He booked the flight tickets and helped me recharge the PASMO card and the list of things goes on……. I know well that friendship can not be listed out on a piece of paper or blog. What is coming out here is just the plain thoughts from my mind, when I am trying to console myself.

Remus was my lunch partner too at McDonalds and KFC. We shared our thoughts, fears, ambitions, plans and future. We shared the knowledge and discussed things of common interest. For my kids, he was Remus uncle. They loved to play with him during his visits to our home.

A true friendship, which can not be expressed by words, is something we cherish, is something we keep close to our hearts always. The life with many physical departures of beloved friends keeps on going with out waiting for us to recover from the twinge. The time will heal………this is what Remus told at the airport and I agreed.

The life in Japan, away from the home country, with good friends like Remus, was smooth and prolific. The voids created by the physical separation may not be filled up easily. I considered myself rather strong willed and unshaken. At the final moments in front of the departure gate, I noticed my words tremble and vision smudge as the eyes started filling……..

The end of this post is without any conclusion as this is one of the melancholic pages of my life in Japan.

Japanese language friends reunion at Funabashi

There were lots of fun and play when our Japanese classmates met once again for get-together party at Remus’ house. We decided to meet at Funabashi railway station exit before moving together to his apartment. Remus, an Engineer by profession and a prospective young and gentle bachelor from Singapore is one of the few friends I got during my stay at Sakura for training. His Japanese language proficiency is good and he takes care to help friends – one of the rarest human values we slowly miss in the process of modernization and industrialization.

We saw some free medical checkup campaign tent built right at the entrance of the station. One of the volunteers approached us as part of inviting us to have a free medical checkup. The volunteer showed his interest in talking to us. He told, he had a neighbor from India when he lived at Osaka. He was all admiration to the beauty of Indian women! It was interesting to hear his experiences.

We, the Asian friends are from different countries, mostly from ASEAN. Ms Pappathorn Kongkrew from Thailand, Mr. Mohammad Mustain from Indonesia, Mr. Remus Sim Teck Huat from Singapore, Ms. Misaki from Japan, Mr. Wong from Malaysia and Watashi ('watashi' in Japanese means 'I') from India – it was an Asian friends get-together.

Remus had prepared East Asian foods to serve us. Such casual reunion of friends working together brings more excitement and color to the otherwise usual life. Sharing of experiences, communication with different nationalities, ideas on new cultural trends, travel experiences and related friendly activities are signs of healthy interpersonal relationships. I was always fond of such gatherings and longed for more in life, though came rarely.

Language sharing was useful as I learned some new Japanese words and forms of use. While we attended the Japanese class itself, our classroom was one of the lively one with more fun. Cultural information sharing among friends of different nationalities is an appealing way of learning new things in life. The essential criteria is to have friends of almost similar mentality.

One of the lengthy discussion was about the white elephants in Thailand. Ms. Pappathorn told they have white elephants in Thailand. Though I have learned in childhood that the Hindu mythical king Indra possessed white elephant named ‘Airavat’, it all seemed excerpts from Indian fairy tales. She told is a truth and to be frank, it is really a new knowledge for me. She told the elephant is not exactly white, but having grey shades or more like a cream color. Since I have not seen such elephants I can not comment.

My interest in elephants is natural and inborn as I hail from Thrissur in Kerala. Thrissur is place of temple celebrations with decorated elephants. Since my childhood, I can recall, our lives are very much associated with temple celebrations and decorated elephants. My native place, Kerala in India is known for its famous elephant pageant. Many of the stories elders used to tell us were surrounded to temples and elephants.

Possessing a white elephant may seem a metaphor for an encumbrance, a worthless possession. For people at Thailand a white elephant is a highly unusual creature to be venerated. Thai art and handicrafts are flooded with the pictures of elephants.




Ms. Misaki brought strawberries, which we tasted after lunch. Strawberry is called ‘Ichigo’ in Japanese language. Ichigo is one of the first few Japanese words I learned in India before coming to Japan. I loved to snapshots the lovely strawberries to my mobile camera.




It was almost 6’O clock in the evening when we decided to part away. I could not resist asking my friends to gather for a photo so that I can go back to memories of sweet shared moments and ruminate them once in a while. We said good bye to each others and diverted to six different directions along with the sun at the western horizon saying good bye to the earth in the cloudy sky.