The Mysterious Allure of Japan

I have already experienced what it is like to return to my home country after living in Japan. My first experience in the Land of the Rising Sun was a three-year stint in the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program in Nara City. During my third and final year in the program, I had already decided to return home for an undecided, but preferably short period of time. The purpose of returning home was to refresh and recharge my batteries, to spend some time with family and friends, and to reacquaint myself with my hometown of Melbourne, Australia.

That period of time ended up being one-and-a-half years back home. There is no question that I missed Japan during those years, but the reasons why remained elusive from beginning to end. I think that this can be traced back to the fact that I arrived in Japan in the first place without any preconceptions at all. This made my experience the first time around more organic, in my opinion, because I fell in love with the country despite having no idea what to expect. However, three years later, I still couldn’t pinpoint any reasons about precisely what it is that I love about Japan.

My impression is that other expatriates who end up falling in love with this country tend to do so because they love the culture (broadly construed), the people, the food, and other such reasons. However, none of these reasons capture what it is that I love about Japan. It isn’t merely that what I love about it can’t be articulated in words, but rather that I genuinely don’t know what those reasons are.

During the one-and-a-half years that I was back in Australia, I was happy to be home in many respects. Australia is blessed with an abundance of beautiful nature, friendly locals, some of the best coffee in the world, and a variety of high-quality cuisines from around the world. In this sense, there was nothing specific that Japan has, but that Australia lacks. Furthermore, I made a concerted effort to make a fresh start and not to dwell on my first stint in Japan through rose-tinted glasses. Nevertheless, there were moments when I missed Japan.

Would it be accurate to say that I simply missed everything about Japan? No, that would be too broad a statement, and there are aspects of the country that I dislike, such as the overcrowding in some city areas. The closest that I can get to expressing what it is that I missed is the feeling of living in Japan which comes from a combination of elements that is still elusive to this day.

In summary, I already know that I would miss Japan if I returned to Australia for a second time, but I’m still none the wiser about precisely what it is that I would miss. A final speculation is that this feeling reflects the enigmatic history and culture of Japan itself, and that this feels oddly appropriate.

Ming

Vocabulary:

stint (noun) – a fixed or specific period of time

elusive (adjective) – difficult to find or understand

preconception (noun) – an opinion about something that you form before you have a lot of information about it or experience of it

organic (adjective) – characterized by natural and unbiased development

through rose-tinted glasses (idiom) – to see only the pleasant things about a situation and not notice the things that are unpleasant

enigmatic (adjective) – mysterious and difficult to understand