Japanese Impressions

Part 2 : Cities and Silence

You have to drive quite a while to leave behind the endless sprawl of Honshu's megalopolis, for the concrete towers, tangled railways and suburban houses to give way at last to shimmering rice fields and bluish mountains. Then, another world can begin to emerge—older, quieter, perhaps more patient.

We seem, I think, to have a natural inclination toward cities. They offer the traveler instant comfort, familiar landmarks, a reassuring weave of activity. But can we really claim to know a country without having walked its countryside, without being caught by its wild nature, wandering through villages where life unfolds slowly, without ceremony?

There is no need to praise the magnetic pull that Tokyo, Kyoto, or Osaka exert on the global imagination. We dive into them, drawn by their outsized architecture, their gaming centers where time slips away, their narrow, lively alleys, their food stalls open at any hour.

And yet, a detour through the mountains or a stop in a remote village reveals another facet of Japan’s soul and sensibility—the one we thought we glimpsed in the transparency of a print, or the restraint of a haiku. There, along a path or the edge of a rice field, return the morning mists, the soft light on the ridges, and that quiet, singular bond the Japanese seem to share with their land.

Between two notes in my diary, I try a small exercise: to observe, to compare, to sense what separates—or perhaps connects—the noise of cities and the silence of the countryside.

Tales of the City

In Tokyo, I rent a tiny ground-floor studio in Ikebukuro. Only one window, opening onto a quiet alley where twice a day a few neighbors pass by in their work attires. On the corner, one of those miniature convenience stores, packed with individually wrapped sweets, chilled drinks, and little snacks.

Living space is scarce and costly here. Interiors are often pared down, with only the essential. Despite the growing influence of the West, the Japanese relationship to having still feels different from ours. In the West, we live surrounded, even burdened, by possessions: clothes, furniture, decorations, small souvenirs from recent travels. No wonder our bookstores now overflow with volumes—supposedly inspired by the Japanese way of living—teaching us how to sort, lighten, and declutter our lives.

One evening, over a beer in an izakaya, a friend tells me: “Thirty square meters for two, not too far from the center—that’s not so bad for Tokyo.” No real kitchen—people eat out most of the time. But the luxury of a bathtub you can set to have your bath ready when you get home.

This lack of space extends beyond the home. It is in the streets, the trains, the restaurants, even on some hiking trails. A never ending flow of bodies and voices. Nothing, it seems, can slow down the expansion of these sprawling cities. On the train to Kyoto or Osaka, a few fields rush past, a line of mountains in the distance, caught between clusters of rooftops. And yet, the Japanese adapt. They move with the current, without surprise or resistance.

In the midst of this density, one moment remains untouched: eating. At lunch, people sit at the counter and eat quietly, alone, eyes lowered to their bowls of ramen. The bustle fades. And each person finds, in that brief pause, a sliver of solitude. A few lunches I still remember vividly: grilled eel eaten near the fish stalls at the Tsukiji market; a dish of cold soba in a barely visible Kyoto backstreet restaurant, served with soy and lemongrass broth. For anyone curious about the wonders of Japanese cuisine, I can only recommend a meticulous study of The Solitary Gourmet by Jirō Taniguchi.

A walk through Akihabara feels like stepping into another dimension of Japan. Day and night, moving between buildings covered in giant screens playing idol videos, anime trailers and flashing ads. Bright signs pile up to the sky. We find ourselves in a tunnel of noise and color: electronics shops, figurine stores, endless arcades, theme cafes with curious names. A Tokyo where nostalgia meets techno-futurism, where childhood stretches on in objects and costumes. You come out a little dazed, ears buzzing and pockets lighter.

source: personal archives, japan 2018.

Tales of the Fields

I arrive in Hakone at night by a small funicular, once again under the fog—as if the whole country lived in a permanent mist. From the train, mountains, forests, and wildflower fields pass by. It brings to mind images from Miyazaki’s movies: tall grasses swaying, silhouettes of abandoned wooden houses, stone-lined paths, an elderly woman walking slowly between houses.

Several hours from Tokyo, the end of the line is a tiny mountain station with just a ticket window and a convenience store under a sloping roof. On a bench, four elderly men, canes in hand, watch the ebb and flow of travelers without a word. Outside, a lone boar rummages through trash in a narrow alley.

I stay at a modest inn at the edge of the village. The room is bare and quiet, covered with a large tatami. Through the single window, I can see the steaming peaks we’ll climb in the days ahead. The gyoza place nearby burned down last month. The building is under construction, but the owners welcome us anyway, offering to serve a simple meal in the village hall.

The area, serene and beautiful, draws city dwellers looking to unwind—weekend hikes, lakeside picnics. Some spots are particularly popular: the sulphur-steeped valley of Owakudani, or the Lake Ashi below. On clear days, one can be gratified with a direct view on the Fuji. It’s almost five o’clock. Night is falling. The shoreline, lined with torii gates and small docks, lights up. A boat slides by offshore, its lanterns shimmering on the black water.

Hakone offers a well-kept countryside. The wildness of nature is always close, but kept at bay. People admire it from marked trails, or from the warm waters of an onsen. To encounter something wilder, one might have to leave Honshu and venture to other islands. Still, this detour, like others to come, gives a glimpse of the quiet, lasting connection the Japanese seem to have with their land. After the neons and nonstop flow of the cities, you find here sunken paths, neatly kept vegetable patches, pines rising along slopes. The Japanese relationship to nature isn’t dramatic. It isn’t conquered, nor romanticized. It is there—familiar, modest, often inhabited, if not physically, then spiritually.

Later, on another trip, I leave Tokyo for the Tochigi Prefecture and the village of Mashiko, long known for its ceramics. Workshops line the main road. Few passersby. Beneath the humble awning of one workshop, a near-monastic quiet. Hunched at their benches, in a dim space lit only by a few lamps, the potters work in silence. The gestures are precise, repeated endlessly. The mother serves us tea, the father wraps our purchases in a silence punctuated by brief smiles. Beyond the ovens, the forest seems to close in on itself.

I could just stay there, watching them work. In that calm space, the endless journey it took to get here dissolves. Before me, two artisans shape, as they do each day, the objects now often found in Western kitchens, shown off with pride at tea time.

On the nearly empty return bus, dusk settles. The rural landscapes roll past the window, now familiar, carrying a kind of melancholy with them.

Cities speak of the present—vertical, fast, saturated. The countryside imposes a different rhythm. “You can hear time passing,” wrote Bouvier. This slowness isn’t a step back, but a kind of continuity. The Japanese don’t stand before nature to admire it; they live within it. They don’t try to master it, but to move with it. It isn’t wilderness in the romantic, Western sense, and neither a refuge nor a challenge, but a given. In Japan, nature is porous, discreet. It makes space. And in return, people do the same.

References

• Nicolas Bouvier, Le Vide et le Plein, 1970

• Jirō Taniguchi, Le Gourmet Solitaire, 1997

• Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, 1949

• Miyazaki’s filmography