In a Nutshell

People ask me, "So, how is Japan?"  Seems like a pretty fair question, but as much as I would like to relay some all-knowing novel observation about the national psyche, the culture, even the climate, I have a hard time coming up with any satisfactory response.   To the best of my ability it is impossible to relay the way that people move, the way that time and space exist, the smell, the taste, the sound and silence of it.  "There are a lot of Japanese people speaking Japanese."  And in America there are not so many Japanese people and they don't speak so much Japanese.  This is a difference about which I'm fairly sure and can communicate to a reasonable degree.  Sometimes people speak of the smiles of different cultures, the sincerity of them, their depth.  Sometimes they speak about their work-ethic, the time or the focus or the care with which they work.  But what is it that makes America different from Japan?  The people of both these countries seem capable of sincerity and confusion, hard work and leisure, smiles and affection of many varieties.  That I feel it more strongly at certain times and certain places, I wonder if it isn't a result of my own receiving, my own perception and expectation of what is being given and expressed.  What a world.