Last time, we looked at 10 Reasons Japan Is Better Than America.
But don’t worry, the good ol’ US of A still has plenty going for it.
Let’s look at 10 advantages of living in the land of the free and the
home of the brave.
1. Credit cards.
Visa: it’s everywhere you want to be…except in Japan. With the
exception of one major tourist trap (Kyoto Handicraft Center), I didn’t
see a single place in Kyoto or Tokyo that accepts credit cards. And
checks are almost unheard of too, so people just use cash all the time.
My friends over there even have to pay their rent in cash each month.
They might as well shortcut the process and have everyone wear a sign
saying “Please mug me.”
2. Water.
In the U.S., every restaurant gives you water right away and will
continue to give you as much as you want. In Japan, you don’t get cold
water unless you ask for it, and if you do, it will come in something
the size of a Dixie cup. At one place they were nice enough to bring us
a pitcher of water because they knew that Americans are weird and need
water to survive. They say that Japanese people get enough water from
other things, but I don’t see how. I was thirsty all the time.
3. Napkins and toilet paper.
Most Japanese restaurants don’t give you napkins, which seems
especially odd in a country where it’s OK to slurp your noodles. It
seems even more odd since a few places give you wet naps, which is more
than you really need. And Japan has only recently begun putting toilet
paper in bathrooms. (Perhaps this is another reason why they don’t
shake hands.) Some companies have apparently noticed an opportunity
here, and they have people standing on street corners handing out
tissues with advertising on the package.
4. Affordable fruit.
Fruit is outrageously expensive in Japan. I saw some melons that
cost $50 and are given as graduation presents (I’m not kidding!).
Excuse me while I go eat a 15 cent banana.
5. You can do things your way.
One of the kanji characters is simply a box. But you can’t draw it
however you like. First you have to draw the left side in a downward
stroke, then you pick up the pen, go to the upper left, and draw across
and down, then you pick up the pen, go to the bottom left, and draw
across. The process is more important than the results. If there’s this
much emphasis on the right way to draw a box, I can understand why my
friend has to go through 24 weeks of classes to have a rudimentary
understanding of how to drink tea properly.
6. Relatively little discrimination.
I won’t say that there’s no discrimination in the U.S., but there’s
a lot less of it than there is in Japan. Right now we have a black man
and a woman running for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Granted, that’s for the first time, but it shows progress.
In Japan, they discriminate heavily by age and sex. They even
discriminate against people who were born and raised in Japan, who just
happen to have some Chinese or Korean blood. And they even discriminate
against pure-blood Japanese, born and raised in Japan, who have ever
set foot outside the country. People who leave and come back have to go
to a special school to be re-Japanized, and they are never fully
accepted ever again.
7. You can breathe the air.
Say what you will about the air pollution in the U.S.; at least you
don’t need to wear a mask. The Japanese cut down massive numbers of
trees to rebuild the country after World War II, and they planted cedar
trees to replace them. When the trees pollinated thirty years later,
they discovered that a fifth of the population is highly allergic to
cedar. For six weeks every spring, you’ll see many people wearing masks
to protect themselves from the pollen.
8. Casual clothes.
While you do see some people wearing jeans in Japan, you also see
just about every guy wearing a suit to work, you see every kid wearing
their school uniform, and you see women wearing their elaborate kimono.
A complete kimono outfit with all the accessories can cost over
$20,000, which makes a $50 melon look like the bargain of the century.
Women usually need a professional kimono dresser to choose the
appropriate style and help put it on, and in the past the kimono had to
be taken apart into twelve separate pieces, washed, and resewn. This
all seems awfully elaborate for daily life. Now that Memorial Day is
here, I’m allowed to wear shorts to work on Fridays.
9. You can eat cookies the first time you’re invited to.
In Japan, if someone offers you cookies and you accept right away,
you’ve branded yourself as a greedy pig. A person with a reasonable
amount of self discipline will wait until the fourth time they’re asked
before finally giving in. It makes me wonder when you ever get to be
yourself, without putting on a facade.
10. The U.S. isn’t too proud to import foreign goods.
If another country can make something better or cheaper, the U.S.
will usually be happy to buy it from them. The Japanese people think
that American beef isn’t compatible with the Japanese digestive tract,
and that French skis don’t work on Japanese snow. It was a bit
ridiculous of us to snub France with “Freedom Fries,” but we’d never
pretend that French potatoes don’t work in American stomachs.
Japan has some wonderful aspects to their culture, but overall, I’m very happy to be an American. What about you?
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