I haven’t written here in a long time now, but after three years living in Japan I moved to Vancouver, Canada, to pursue an MA in Premodern Japanese Literature. I started my courses a few months back, and I’m really enjoying them, together with the opportunities that have been opened up for me. I hoped this degree would also allow me to be back in Japan more often, and that proved true, so now I’m spending three weeks in Ise City (Mie Prefecture, Japan), for the Ise and Japan Study Program. It’s still only the first week, so I can’t really say much yet, but it’s surely proving interesting from several different points of view.
In a few days, what struck me the most was how much changed in a little less than a year. And I mean the prices being much more expensive (how is an onigiri 200￥?!), but not only. Most of the changes might actually depend on me really: a lot of what made for culture shocks when I first got here, I was looking forward to now that I’m back. I used to be intimidated by onsen and sentō, while this time I went to a sentō on my first night back because I was looking forward to relaxing my body after the long flight. But also people act differently with me: when I was living here, most Japanese people I met would assume I was a tourist, while this time I’ve been asked for my zairyū card multiple times (even though I don’t own one anymore, since I left the country). It seems that they assumed so because of my Japanese level, but I don’t believe it got much better since I left, so I wonder whether it is just because I am more comfortable with it (I still speak Japanese every day, since I live with my partner, who’s Japanese), or for some other reason. I cannot be sure really, but it’s still interesting noticing how we change, and our environment changes along with us.
Ise City has a lot to discover as well. I had been curious about shintō for a long time, so I was really excited for this opportunity to come here and learn more about it. What is really captivating for me though is how the religion is blended with the culture, with people’s way of thinking, and how strongly it influenced the history of this place, in ways I would not have thought about before seeing by myself. It’s also fascinating how places where religion is stronger—and I am talking about Ise just as much as I am talking about my hometown in South Italy—tend to be so much more traditionalists and conservative. What is it about religion that has people wanting to remain frozen in time?
