1. As a railway enthusiast, when I ride the train what I care about usually isn't the destination but the ride itself. After I reach my destination station, I'll typically just switch to a train going back the way I came β as long as you don't exit the station or pass through the ticket gates, you won't be charged extra. There are quite a few YouTubers on YouTube who love trains and upload footage of their rides (a note: in Japan you can't film strangers directly, and if you accidentally catch someone on camera, you have to blur their face before making it public). I once saw a Japanese vlogger who rode from Tokyo all the way to Εmiya in Saitama Prefecture β his goal wasn't Εmiya itself, but the ride there. Still, he tapped out through the gates and then tapped back in, spending over 2,000 yen round trip. He chose to pay that money to East Japan Railway Company.
2. I have a Japanese friend β my only Japanese friend, actually. I sometimes talk with him about studying each other's language together, since with the language barrier, discussing deeper topics can take a lot of time. I suggested we use content from YouTube to study Japanese and Chinese. He went to a lot of trouble to tell me that using YouTube content without paying for it might be a mistake. I explained to him at length that YouTube has both paid and free content, and that there's nothing wrong with us only using the free content.
3. Last Saturday I made a trip to Kawagoe City in Saitama Prefecture, and rode the Tobu Tojo Line for the first time β a private railway that connects to Ikebukuro in Tokyo. It was the next day, riding this line back to Tokyo, that I really felt how efficient Japanese railway design is. Kawagoe is quite far from Tokyo, but I only needed four stops to reach Ikebukuro. When I got to the platform, a limited express train happened to be sitting there, so I got on. This train didn't go directly to my destination, Tobu Ikebukuro Station β it ran through-service with two other railway companies' lines (the Tokyo Metro and the Keikyu Line) all the way to Yokohama Chinatown. The onboard announcements kept reminding passengers headed to Tobu Ikebukuro to change trains at Wakoshi. After I got off at Wakoshi, I found the train I needed to transfer to was already sitting right across the platform β a semi-express bound for Tobu Ikebukuro. As it turned out, that train hadn't just been sitting there β it had also come from Kawagoe β but the timing was designed so precisely that as soon as you got off the limited express here, you could seamlessly step onto the semi-express across the platform, and then the two trains would depart for different destinations. On the semi-express there were also announcements: if you needed to reach a station along the way, please transfer to a local train at such-and-such station β though I didn't need to transfer. This gives you some sense of the thinking behind Japanese railway design. As long as there's no accident involving a person and the timetable is running smoothly, trains headed to farther destinations don't need to stop at every station β but the passenger needs to keep their head in the game. If you just sit there zoned out, you'll end up at the wrong station. So for people who've just arrived in Japan, riding the trains can often be a real challenge.
4. Once I went to Inage Kaigan in Chiba Prefecture. Inage Kaigan is a fair distance from the bus stop, and even farther from the train station. By the time we left it was already past dusk and getting late, and a large crowd of visitors was starting to head home. At an intersection I noticed a beautifully put-together, cute young woman standing in front of me (Japanese women are usually beautifully turned out whenever they go out). She was waving frantically at a taxi, but without making a single sound β not even calling out. The taxi didn't seem to notice her and just kept driving. Right then the traffic light at the intersection suddenly turned red, and she had no choice but to stop, helpless. When the light turned green, she waved and ran across β from behind, she looked extremely anxious and at a loss. The taxi had probably already driven far off by then. What struck me was that, even though she was clearly in a hurry, she didn't say a single word the whole time, didn't shout at all. It made me think: well-mannered, properly composed Japanese women are a unique sight in this world β beautiful enough to move you.
5. For the Dragon Boat Festival, the company mailed each of us four zongzi (rice dumplings). It struck me that mailing just four zongzi to something like a hundred different addresses must still cost a fair amount. I don't feel especially strongly about food myself, but for most people, a large part of the memory of home lives in taste. It's a bit like how, every year when the cherry blossoms bloom, Japanese people will spread out a mat under the trees and sit together to view the flowers, drink, and eat bentΕ β it's a memory etched into their DNA since childhood: seeing the cherry blossoms means it's time for everyone to gather together.
6. At work, people occasionally bring in snacks as gifts. Since there are both Japanese and Chinese staff, for reasons like business trips, joining the company, getting married, traveling, or going back to visit family, we'll sometimes get to try specialty foods from both countries β always paid for out of the giver's own pocket. Someone once brought back a whole box of cherries from Hainan. I'm grateful for it, and at the same time, a company with this kind of culture is really something.
I've run into some difficulties and inconveniences in Japan, but none of them have been major obstacles β I count myself lucky. If I ever have children, starting their lives from this particular starting point is something that gives me a bit of peace of mind.
There have always been quite a lot of people from all over the world coming to Japan as tourists. So as a final friendly reminder: graffiti on buildings is illegal, relieving yourself in public is illegal, riding a bicycle with headphones on is illegal, and blowing through a stop line at an intersection without stopping is illegal β the Metropolitan Police Department is currently stepping up monitoring and crackdowns on these in the capital region.