Final Impressions: Rural vs. Urban Life in Japan

My first real impressions of Japan were formed when I came here for six weeks in the summer of 2005. I did a homestay in the very rural town of Tatsuno in Nagano prefecture. My six weeks there allowed me to gain a very interesting perspective on what Japanese life is like in the countryside, which essentially translated into a more traditional perspective.

This time around, I arrived in September of last year, and have been in living in Hirakata city of Osaka prefecture for the last eight and a half months: four months doing a homestay and four months in one of the international seminar houses. Although Hirakata isn`t exactly the most urban of all cities, it is still relatively large, with around 400,000 people, and is located relatively close to the major cities of Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe, which I frequently visited. During these last eight and a half months, I have gained a much different perspective than the one I did in 2005, as it has been from a much more urban perspective, and by extension, more modern outlook.


So, overall my changing impressions of Japan during this school year have resulted from comparing and contrasting the various differences which exist between rural and urban Japanese life.

One of the first major differences I noticed was the difference between extended families in the countryside and nuclear families in the city. When I did my homestay in Tatsuno, I lived with family which consisted of three generations all living under one roof. The dad worked full time as a salaryman, the mom worked part time as a cook at the local elementary school and was also a full time housewife, and the grandmother would help with all of the household chores like cleaning, ironing, etc. Apart from the grandfather, who wasn't in good enough health to really contribute, the house functioned in a perfect harmonious unit - everyone pitched in and performed their prescribed role down to the dot. It also wasn't uncommon for other extended family members - aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, etc. - to drop by the house and say hi and hang out for a little while. The sense of familial collectivism was extremely strong, which fit into my preexisting schema I had of what a typical Japanese family was like.

This schema I had regarding what Japanese families are typically like went completely out the window last semester when I did a homestay here in Hirakata. My host family consisted of a divorced mom who works full time as a nurse, 8 and 10 year old boys, and a boyfriend who lives and works in Fukuoka (meaning he only visited once every couple months...). Despite the fact that my host mom's parents and sister live in Hirakata, a mere 5 minute drive away, I only met with them twice - once to just drop off the kids there to be babysat, and once when my host mom's friend was here visiting from Australia (this time we actually went inside for about 15 minutes and chatted a bit). I was quite surprised that there was such a minimal amount of interaction between the two generations in the family. And I don't think this was an exception to the rule - after talking with friends who also did homestays, the majority of whom said that the grandparents lived somewhere else. This changed my impression of Japan being a country in which the extended family and familial collectivism prevails, and seemed to attest to the fact that in the more urban parts of Japan the idea of the nuclear family, which is much more of a western concept, seems to have firmly taken root.

When I lived in Tatsuno, there seemed to be an extremely strong sense of community in general. People knew who their neighbors were, and would frequently chat with them. People seemed to look out for one another in general, which I found to be escpecially exhibited within the context of school. If someone was having trouble with something in the classroom, everyone was there to help them out and try and bring them to the same level as everyone else in the class. Overall, group mentality seemed to manifest itself everywhere, weather it was within the context of family, school, or community.

During my time here in Osaka, I have found the opposite ideal of individualism to be widespread, as exhibited through the characteristics of general anonymity, apathy, and indifference. I can only recall one time in which my host mom actually talked to one of the two neighbors, which took place when they both happened to be hanging up laundry on the balcony at the same time. The conversation seemed to be much more forced out of a desire to escape awkwardness than a genuine desire to be a part of the life of the person who lives in the same community as them so to speak. I have also seen the apathy and indifference exhibited in train stations late at night, where there will be someone who looks like they are either piss-drunk or really badly injured lying on the floor looking desperate for help, sometimes sitting in a puddle of their own vomit, but everyone simply averts their eyes and chooses to ignore them (which is apparently not uncommon, for a video clip showing a situation like this from Professor Fedorowicz, click here).


So, all in all my impressions of Japan did change a significant amount over the course of this last year. I came to realize that there is a considerable divergence between the way people in the countryside live and the way the people in larger cities live, and that my impressions of Japan which were formed in 2005 really only presented half of the picture of what the "real" Japan is actually like. I realized that generally collectivism and group mentality is much stronger in the countryside, and that it often takes the back seat in more urban areas, which I think results from the overall anonymity which is created in urban atmospheres. This does not go to say that one is overall better than the other, rather it is simply something I have observed which has changed my overall impressions of Japan.