This Isn’t Japan

I’ve been to Hokkaido a few times before, but didn’t really appreciate it until this weekend.  Having lived in Honshu for a year, I have developed an image of Japan and the Japanese that I’ve had wiped clean by this place and its geography.  I went east to Nakashibetsu for an ALT party but was astonished by the landscape.

It reminds me so much of so many other places that are nothing like Japan: Alaska, the American Midwest, Australian Pasturelands, the German Countryside.  Cows, Corn, Hay, Potatoes, Onions, Cabbages, Horses, Unused Forest, Wild Animals.  There is room here.  Niigata feels like a closet in comparison.

Really, does that image remind you of Japan?

Or this one? Sheesh, it looks practically like an alpine environment.  Did you know Hokkaido gets drift ice?  And we’re at the same latitude as Seattle!

There’s just so much space, and the land is so spaciously divided, I feel at home here.  Here’s a view of the area of my town near Lake Saroma, a huge brackish lake connected to the ocean that is a massive scallop farm.

It’s not just the landscape.  The people are different.  The fifth grade teacher at one of my elementary schools is usually wearing a White Snake, Led Zeppelin, Megadeth, or similarly casual T-shirt at school.  I don’t feel like I’m underdressed all the time!  People don’t assume retarded things about foreigners.  The lifestyle is more relaxed and more independent.  In Niigata, especially when I first arrived, I really felt like everyone was watching me, and I think perhaps they were.  I don’t think anyone here cares about what the next person is doing.  It’s their business.  I watched a coworker at the City Office trim his nosehair with a giant pair of construction scissors the other day. He wasn’t embarrassed in the slightest.

Hokkaido’s background is completely different than Honshu’s.  Most all place names are derived from the language of the native Ainu peoples, who were gradually displaced over the past few hundred years and then finally in the late 1800’s as Japan made their imperial push north.  What this means is that almost all of the place names are Ainu words that are now written in Japanese.  Half of the places seem to end in -betsu, which means river in Ainu.  What’s bizarre is that nearly all of these placenames are still written with kanji, resulting in some very odd ateji, or phonetically matched kanji.  Take a look at this road sign:

Hokkaido’s a pretty good place.  I’m still on the high of discovery, but right now I would say that Hokkaido is objectively a better place than Honshu.