Japanese People

I can't believe it's almost been a month since I got here. Even though the time flies by fast, I feel like I have experience a lot of the Japanese culture and especially with people in Japan. One thing about the people here is how everybody are so nice and polite. I myself am from an Asian family and are aware of the whole respect the elderly culture with some modifications of the Swedish culture of course. Before I got here I had some certain ideas about how polite the japanese people are, but I was still very shocked HOW polite they are. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it does feel very sincere and it does make my day just to be part of the whole culture. But hearing a bus driver saying: arigatoo gozaimasu over and over with a depressing tone does take part of the sincerity away.

The reason I used the picture above is an example of how different it is from rest of the world. The picture is taken at a concert in Namba, Osaka. The band on stage is a band called WatusiZombie. It is not the band I am focusing on, it's the audience. I am a big music fan and I've been to a lot of concert in my life, but never in Japan of course.

The part that was surprised me was how the audience acted. Usually when you are at a concert it's very crowded and when the music starts, it gets really warm and a lot of people pushing and especially to that kind of music. It was pretty hardcore rock music, and where I am from, people are pushing and doing 'moshpits'. The point is: that even when you are at a concert, this is the perfect opportunity to unleash your feelings but there were no crowding or pushing at the concert, everybody was very careful not to touch the one next to you or disturbing anyone. Shouldn't a concert of all places make you go wild?
The other picture I've chosen is a one of the first pictures of me when I got to Japan. As you can see, I am doing a peace sign pose on the picture. Also called 'Japanese pose' among international students. And I have to agree, ever since I've gotten here, I think I do this pose on every picture. What is the meaning of it? The reason I chosen this picture is to demonstrate how some things have become part of the culture so much that it lost it's meaning, or at least part of it. People do it because everybody else is doing it, not because it is something they wants to do, but something that is implied. When they don't do it, they are afraid to insult people.

So it's not about doing something nice for somebody else, it is about not insulting people. After all, the culture is working and it really feels like the most polite and safest country in the world. I wouldn't mind being part of it, even after I return to Sweden.
Arigatoo gozaimasu! Thank you for reading as what they would say in the store.
/Quang