Why You Should Think Multiple Times Before Visiting Japan

Conclusion of why Japan should be AVOIDED

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You should not visit Japan if you have grown accustomed to being ignored in queues, tolerated in public, and processed by systems that mistake efficiency for care. You should not go if you prefer your anonymity unacknowledged and your presence inconsequential. Japan has an inconvenient habit of noticing. It remembers loyalty. It anticipates need. It bows to the earth and to the human being with equal seriousness. It will insist on guiding you rather than pointing, on accompanying you rather than instructing, and on ensuring your arrival rather than merely offering directions. It will not let you fall, not physically, not socially, not emotionally. And once a society has taken you personally, the world elsewhere begins to feel strangely negligent by comparison.

You should also avoid Japan if you are comfortable with landscapes that merely exist rather than converse. From the volcanic ferocity of Sakurajima to the alpine grasslands of Aso, from the brilliance of lavender gardens of Hokkaido, this is a land that knows how to bow to the earth. Nature here is not spectacle. It is doctrine. Seasons are not marketing gimmicks. They are spiritual events. Spring arrives with cherry blossoms and maybe snow as well. Summer brings lavender fields that feel almost indecent in their colour. Autumn writes itself in firery red across mountainsides. Winter imposes a discipline of beauty that few countries even attempt. This is not tourism. This is re-education.

Nor should you go if you are fond of predictable itineraries and curated wonder. Japan is dangerously generous with the unforeseen. It gives without being asked. A dance where you expected a corridor. A piano where you anticipated silence. Fujisan when you had prepared for cloud. History not behind glass but breathing in places like Kumamoto Castle and Ritsurin Garden. Conversations where you had budgeted for solitude. Depth where you had planned for passing. Even the guarded are invited to speak here, and worse, they often do. The country listens. It takes the inner life seriously. It honours curiosity. It dignifies thought. And once you have been met with that kind of seriousness, shallow exchanges elsewhere begin to feel faintly insulting.

So do not go. Do not go to Shikaoi and witness a town building a future with conscience. Do not go to Furukawa and be escorted like a minor dignitary to your train. Do not go to Asahikawa and speak of konbu and sea and craft with a man who will meet you as an equal. Do not go to Kurume and taste history in a bowl. Do not go to Sakurajima twice and be remembered. Do not go in spring, in summer, in autumn, or in winter. Do not go now, and certainly do not make plans to go again. Because I have warned you.

Once Japan receives you, you may leave physically, but you will never return mentally. The world will still be there. You will simply no longer belong to it in quite the same way.

And that perhaps is the pinnacle of the uncliche.

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© Abirbhav Mukherjee. All the pictures / videos posted in this article are my own unless otherwise mentioned.