The entire time I was in Japan, I was constantly marveling at the small, mundane things the Japanese do. The attention to detail. So many random instances come to mind.
Watching Gen Yamamoto suspend his cocktail shaker over my glass, just as he was about to pour my drink and pluck an offending ice cube out of the glass. Deftly replacing it with one he liked more.
The woman at Hiro Coffee that set my coffee down, stepped back and then took a moment to align the rectangular plate perfectly square with the edges of the table.
The woman at the hotel in Nara that happily washed the eight wheels of my roller bag before I left the front desk to go to my room.
Things matter.
Ryoan-ji is a Buddhist Zen temple in Kyoto and the rock garden there is thought to be one of the finest Zen rock gardens in the world. 25 meters long, by 10 meters wide, it’s composed of fifteen rocks and arranged in such a way that you can never see all fifteen rocks at once, no matter your viewing angle. Big packs of uniformed school kids were there, shoes off, index fingers aimed at the rocks as they counted. Ichi, ni, san, shi and so on, until they got to juushi, or 14. They could never see the 15th stone. I was in a corner taking this picture when one of the young school girls sitting on the edge of the temple, shifted and a piece of paper drifted off her lap and landed near the edge of the garden. None of them said a word or made a sound. They stared at her, she stared at the paper. She pushed her glasses up onto her nose, slid back and got on her stomach, reaching down from the deck. She strained as far as she could and was a few inches too short. Silently, she tried again before she accepted she wasn’t going to reach it. She inched back, sat up and stared. Oblivious to anyone around her, locked onto the paper with a laser like focus, she sat quietly, head down, resolved to solve the problem she created. Her friends looked at her and she just stared at the paper, not a single sound out of a one of them. A few moments went by and she pulled her backpack onto her lap, unzipped it and took out a towel. She got on her stomach again, reached out and flicked the towel onto the paper, trying to drag it closer. The towel would land on the paper, but it’d slide off as soon as she started to drag it to her. She sat up, went to the backpack again and produced a thermos of water. She moistened one corner of the towel and assumed the position. She flicked the weighted corner forward onto the paper and waited just a beat before she slowly reeled her catch in. The paper scraped along the smooth border of the garden, then stopped, escaping the towel. She tossed the towel one more time and caressed the paper to within her reach. She sat up, capped her thermos, folded her towel and placed both back where they came from. She turned around, reached down and picked up the paper and went back to her schoolwork as though nothing happened.
I think if that happened in the States, whoever dropped it, would have apologetically hopped down, picked it up and hopped back. The paper was resting on concrete, inches away from the garden, nothing would have been disturbed in the process. It’s right there… But things matter in Japan. Whether it’s convenient or not, this 10 year old girl knew that. It was instinctive to the point that nothing needed to be said between her and her friends; just solve it.
Before I left the States, I watched some YouTube videos on Japanese culture and etiquette. This young woman said, “If you’re in doubt about how you should act, think about this: "Is what you’re about to do going to affect anyone else?” If so, then don’t do it. She went on to explain that the Japanese think in terms of the collective, whereas we think of the individual. This made sense when I watched this young girl retrieve her paper, she didn't act in terms of how difficult it'd be for her or it’d be quicker to just hop down and get it. Stepping off the deck and into the garden space would have been disrespectful, even though alternative was difficult, so she had to get creative in the way she solved her problem.
I left the rock garden with a ton of admiration for this young girl. I couldn’t get over how she handled herself, especially when my first thought was, “I’m close, I can reach it.” I thought I could set one foot down and nab the paper. After watching her, I was ashamed I even entertained the thought of stepping on the sacred ground.
I was strolling the surrounding gardens and I came upon a small shrine on the edge of the property. No bigger than a garden shed, it was off the paved walkway and down a dirt path. I thought I’d check it out and as I got close, I could hear the sound of water, signaling a temizuya nearby. The temizuya is where the purification ritual is performed when one visits a shrine. You take the long handled ladle, fill it with water from the spout or scoop water from the basin. Then you pour the water onto one hand first, then the other, then you pour water in your hand and rinse your mouth, purifying your inside and outside before coming to the temple or shrine.
This one was a small, with a single ladle and a basin no bigger than a washroom sink. I walked up on it and realized there was a teenage schoolboy washing his hands. The schoolboys wear a military-like school uniform. It’s black, with brass buttons and a short collar. They look sharp and disciplined. He didn’t know I was there and I hung back, not wanting to crowd the space. He carefully washed one hand, the other and then rinsed his mouth. He respectfully set the ladle down and turned to head towards the shrine. As he turned around, he was startled to find me there. He immediately stopped, placed his arms at his side and bent forward, bowing deeply and slowly. He held the bow for a couple of seconds, eyes fixed on the ground and he slowly stood up. Ramrod straight, he motioned towards the temizuya, quickly bowed again and bounded up to the shrine. I watched him as he said a brief prayer and then turned, sprinting towards his buddies who had been waiting at the end of the path, immediately transforming back into a teenage boy.
I was struck by the fact he didn’t know I was there, didn’t know he was being watched and yet he showed such reverence for the process and the shrine. It was a small shrine, almost hidden, no one would have noticed if he washed his hands or not, or even if he prayed for that matter. It didn’t matter to me if he bowed or not. I’m a foreigner, an uninitiated spectator and yet he treats me respectfully, finally making the gray hair payoff.
None of what he did mattered to me, but it mattered to him. Respect mattered to him. It mattered to the girl that let slip a piece of paper. It mattered to her friends. It matters to Japan. Things matter and I’m going to miss that.