Final Thoughts

I have been back in the US for around a month now.  I  initially intended to write a reflection to the trip immediately, but jet-lag and an impending trip for my wife and daughter pushed back my efforts until it fell off the short list of things to be done on any given day.  That said, I have been asked by too many people to count how the trip was, and so I have done a lot of reflecting.

One of the things that stood out to me most in my time in Japan was just how diligent the workers are.  We read a book called The Japanese Mind before leaving which introduced us to a number of concepts that describe the psyche of Japanese.  One of the ideas introduced was gambari which is perseverance or doing ones best.  Every person we met with in the country seemed to embody this ideal in all of our interactions.  This was true regardless of whether we were in a business meeting or we were at the corner store asking for help.

Another aspect of Japan that was remarkable was how safe and clean it was.  Tokyo is a city with 13+ million people and yet we would routinely see children of 7 or 8 riding the subway alone to or from school or an activity.  At no point in our time there did anyone in our group (to the best of my knowledge) feel at all unsafe.  This was true even the first morning we were there when many of the students arose at 3am and walked miles through a still empty city.  In addition, just as Paul said, we saw essentially no trash anywhere.  Indeed, when we were touring the imperial palace in Tokyo, we say large groups of people picking up sweeping and picking up leaves and grass by hand.  Clearly the Japanese take cleanliness very seriously.

There were many other aspects to this trip that were truly remarkable, and have made me want to go back again as soon as I can arrange it.  The food is excellent and truly different from most of what I have had in the US.  Shopping is an experience because of the effort which is put forward by most everyone working anywhere you might wish to spend your money.  There is also so much interesting history.  Kyoto was full of amazing shrines and temples where you could really get a sense of what it is to be Japanese just based on the architecture and decorating.

I cannot say enough about how much work Paul and Keiko Myer put into this trip and I was honored to be invited as another faculty member.  If you ever get a chance to see Japan, I would recommend it highly!!

Signing out for now...