Mad Men Japan Style

Of course there are exceptions.  Don't get all wound up over gross generalizations.  I'm trying to make a point. 

There is a distinct time gap between Tohoku, the northern portion of honshu island, and Tokyo. 
Tokyo sprawls.  It seemingly never ends:  blinking lights, cars, billboards, noise, buildings, trains, people.  Tohoku is quaint, remote, quiet (frogs and crickets at night), at times provincial, small towns dotting coastlines and hills. 

Culturally, also, there are major differences.  Tokyo juxtaposes the old and modern as if it was meant to be a city that eats contradictions in an ice cream sundae.  It's normal.  It's good.  It's no big deal.  Ultra-modern buildings and cutting edge technology give birth to new ideas, art, designs, and landscapes because, these are after all, ingredients for the sundae.  Alongside this metropolis of glass and steel stand the shrines tucked between two mega-, modern buildings.  Temples, rickety homes, gardens, dilapidated wooden structures coexist with the gleaming, shiny post-modern structures.  It works.  This is Tokyo.

Tohoku by contrast is still in the 1960s.  It's Mad Men to today's Manhattan.  Social norms haven't changed with the times.  Time moves on but ideas haven't.

For the most part. 

Something about this hit me today as I rode up the elevator in one of Tokyo's most high-end and modern buildings to attend an meeting.  Fourteen students from Takata High School are in Tokyo this week (spring break) for an internship/home stay experience.  The Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Japan has kindly sponsored students for the second year.  How grateful am I?  Let me count the ways in which this act matters.

First, I rode the elevator wit a girl and her host-grandmother.  The student faced the doors of the elevator.  She looked up at the mirrored ceiling.  She watched the people get off the elevator.  She pressed buttons.  It was when she turned around to face her host during a bilingual announcement, "floor fifteen" in English and Japanese that I truly got it.  Her grin was priceless.  She was giddy.  There are no bilingual elevators I know of in Iwate.  Certainly not in Rikuzentakata.  Here is a first.

Second, as the host companies and host families introduced themselves, half spoke in accented English, half spoke in English and Japanese.  Here are different ethnic groups, languages, nationalities represented in one room, all to host these students.  This is normal here. 

Third, with the announcement of the party that will be held on Thursday night came an expectation.  "You've got four days.  Your English will be good by Thursday night, yes?"  The students' reactions varied. 
"Who, me?"
"What?"
Disbelief.
Pressure.
Panic.

"Oh, come on," I said.  "You've got four days.  Your young.  You'll hear English this whole week.  You'll be surprised what your ears will pick up."  Most are wary.  I smile.  "Trust me."

If Tohoku today is like Mad Men, Japan style, then I've thrown these fourteen students forward by 50 years into a culture familiar enough yet vastly different.  Seeing these same students on Thursday will be the answer on how they fared.

Grow.  Believe.  Try.