This Is Japan
Explore everyday life in Japan
Japan is often depicted as a bustling place, a place filled to the brim with buildings that are overflowing with stores, restaurants, clubs, apartments, offices, cafes, karaoke bars, and other things. It is often thought of as a place of technology and seen in pictures as a place full of bright lights and urban skylines. Its people, cars, and trains are often shown moving hurriedly through crowded places.
In contrast to ‘Modern Japan’ stands another image that is familiar to many people. The image of ‘Traditional Japan’, with its temples and shrines, its geisha and kimono, its fireworks displays and tea ceremonies.
If you come to Japan expecting to see life as you do in the pictures you have seen, an interesting mix of the old, the new, and the sometimes strange, you won’t be disappointed. You will find Japan to be much as it has been shown to you. But there is another side of Japan, a quieter side of Japan, that, if you walk off the beaten path into more residential areas, you will find as well.
This is the Japan where the occasional neighborhood restaurant stands by itself, lonely in the night. It is the Japan where fish hang to dry in front of family-run shops waiting for customers. It is a place like any other place where people live, what is to them, ordinary lives and where they are surrounded by what they deem to be ordinary things.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at @boxcarblue. If you have any questions about life in Japan, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will do my best to answer all of your questions.
I like that first pictures. I did enjoy the quite side when we visited Kyushu. I finally posted that image of the bikes for you. Have a great weekend. Cheers : )
I've only ever spent about ten days in Kyushu, but I really enjoyed it. Thanks for posting that picture. I'll check it out now.
Thanks for sharing. What is surprising about Japan is that only between 15 and 20% of the land is usable for living and farming. That makes it really easy to find the quiet places in the countryside.
On my last visit this September, I borrowed a bicycle and went cycling in search of quiet places. The cities flow very rapidly into open country and every piece of land is used if it is usable. I took a few photos to capture this.
Rice paddies squeezed into the valleys
Rice harvesting under the motorways
Photos taken between Narita City and Sakae
Thanks for sharing your photos. It is pretty incredible that Japan can have the population that it has considering the amount of land that people actually live on and use here, most of which is purposed for agriculture. You're right about the countryside being quiet, and beautiful as well. I think much of the country outside of the mountains looks like this in the summer-green upon green.