Honors tokyo 2017
A Guide to Getting Lost in Tokyo
This first week of studying abroad in Japan has been both exhilarating and exhausting as I’ve been trying to adjust to navigating the subway and metro systems, and living by myself. Almost every day, we leave in the morning to go explore an entirely new area. Between class excursions and the traveling that I’ve been doing independently for research and for fun, I’ve covered almost every major corner of Tokyo already. Throughout all this traveling, I’ve come to realize how important communication is, and what a crucial role technology plays in all our lives. I’ve found myself relying on my smartphone for almost everything now; it’s the only link between me and all my loved ones while I’m on the other side of the globe, and it’s also my main source of information. . . The mapping assignment that we were assigned the second day of the program was a major challenge for me, as that was the first time I was by myself in a city where I don’t speak the native language fluently. I was extremely nervous at first, and I was trying to just get it over with as quickly as possible when I just arrived in Shin-Okubo. However, as I wandered both the main tourist street and the small neighborhood alleys, I experienced the liveliness and excitement of the bustling tourist city, while also the unexpected calmness and relaxing peace of the suburban neighborhood right next to the street filled with people. This contrast really surprised me; I was really impressed by all the people that seemed to just be able to ignore all the noise and hustle of the street next to their homes, and live their normal lives. I spent way longer than I intended investigating all these intriguing aspects of the city, which I did not expect. I’ve also realized that part of the reason I was so interested is because the city was negating all my misperceptions; I had thought that Tokyo would be mainly giant skyscraper buildings, so when I saw that there were small single-family homes that weren’t at least three stories tall, I was shocked that my visual image of the city had been so wrong. It appears that what is known to foreigners, or at least non-natives of that particular area, is only the tourist parts. People tend to leave out the other details, and many times, tourists probably don’t care to explore the parts of ongoing ordinary life outside the small regions dedicated to tourism. Thus, this mapping assignment has been really useful to me in making me more aware of all the misperceptions that I have of Tokyo and Japan.
While navigating the complicated routes of the city, I’ve relied on Google maps to get everywhere. So, on the day I went to Shin-Okubo and spent a lot longer than I should have being intrigued by every small street, my phone ran out of battery before I could get back to the NYC (National Olympic Youth Center), the place we stay at. Being completely cut off from the internet and my main source of information, I was more immersed in the surrounding areas, and was able to fully take in the completely different groups of people there. Though not having my phone to distract me was helpful to notice more details around me, I also found myself trying to turn on my phone every ten seconds for directions, or to reply to texts. Getting back was luck of the draw, as I had to navigate the station and get on a train without Google maps, but luckily, I made it back safely. Now that I reflect on this experience though, I’m grateful I had the opportunity to be truly lost and immersed in foreign surroundings to really notice the whole picture of Shin-Okubo and realize that I have many misperceptions about Tokyo. The lectures and museums that we’ve been to so far have done an amazing job at providing background information on Tokyo (the Edo-Tokyo museum went over the entire history and development of the Edo period), and from multiple different aspects (Professor Ariko Ota and Lecturer Matthew Sussman gave insight into the development of Japan as a nation and the identities involved in that from many different perspectives, including a global, commercial, and historical point of view). I look forward into diving deeper into the alleys of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Hiroshima in the weeks to come, to build on these readings and lectures, and to perhaps correct myself of any other mistaken ideas I have.
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