Towns have histories. They may be
older or newer, but they were built where they are for a reason, and those
reasons will probably influence what happens to them in the future. The towns may change, but they will probably remain.
For example, my hometown was built
near a big river, because fuel and materials for manufacturing were carried on
the river. Glass factories grew up along the river.
My hometown has changed a lot since I was born there. The glass factories disappeared during my lifetime, and the river area has become a park area.
Yokkaichi is on the Tokaido, and the
junction where the road split, left to Ise Shrine and right to Kyoto, is in
Yokkaichi. That is one of the reasons the city of Yokkaichi grew where it is.
Yokkaichi was known for its beaches
and hot springs on the Ise Bay. Most of those were later lost to
industrialization, because the waterfront area became useful for other
purposes. Yokkaichi’s population has been stable at about 300,000 for several
years.
Yokkaichi’s sister city in America,
Long Beach, had a similar history. Long Beach is on the Pacific Ocean. It is a port
town, with industry along the waterfront, but they have also maintained the
beach area for people’s enjoyment.
Long Beach, as the name suggests, has
a very long beach area, with walking and cycling paths that run the length of
the beach from downtown to the border of the next town. Though Long Beach’s
population grew after World War 2, it has been stable at about 460,000.
As Japan’s population declines, some
towns will be abandoned, or may shrink back to the space that they occupied
before the growth in population that happened in the 1950s and ‘60s. Long
Beach’s population will change, too, possibly declining, and allowing the city
to return to its roots.
No matter how the cities may change,
those areas have been attractive to people for thousands of years, and for good
reason. They will continue to be population centers in the future, because
there are features that make them attractive to people.
There was only one thing I wanted to do
when I started college. I wanted to do more of what I was already doing. I was
going to school and getting good grades, but that wasn’t what I wanted to do.
As it turned out, I started down the wrong road to the right place.
College was a way to get the work I thought
I wanted. I paid for my own schooling, so I had to work a lot. I have friends,
and we played a lot. During a couple of summer vacations, I got the chance to
work, as a part timer, in the career that I had in mind.
That career was in Forestry. I loved being
outdoors. I worked some summers as a staff member at a camp for young people,
but what I really enjoyed was working outdoors. Getting ready for the campers,
cutting trees that had fallen down over the winter, breaking beaver dams that
would flood roads, and hiking around the area were my favorite activities.
My summer job working in a forest was the
best. My job was to walk through random parts of the forest and make a record
of the kinds of trees and plants that were there, how fast the trees were
growing, and the direction of the slope. It was in some very steep mountains.
I did not walk on roads. I found my way
through the mountains by looking at photos that were taken from an airplane.
Since I was so far into the forest, away from other people and cars, I saw lots
of animals. I saw deer, a couple of bears. I also found some stone tools made
by Native Americans a very long time ago.
That job was terrific, and it gave me an
opportunity to see what real, college-educated Foresters did at work. They
spent a lot of time in offices, working at desks. Working at desks was not what I
wanted to do.
I decided to change my major to English
Literature, and my dreams changed. I wanted to travel, just travel around the
world. I didn’t know how yet, but that was my dream.
After college, I decided to study foreign
languages. I thought it would be good to find out more about them, because
language is something everyone has in common. If we could learn more about
languages, we could learn more about people.
I still wanted to travel, but one of my
teachers, my Japanese teacher, was very good. She suggested that I should go to
Japan. Japanese is an interesting language, so that is where I went.
Flash forward nearly four decades, and I’m
still in Japan. Now my dreams are different, but only slightly. I spend my free
time in the woods and in the garden. I started down one path with one set of
dreams, and the path has changed ever-so-many times. Had I told my 18-year-old
self where I would be in 2020, he would never have believed it. But had he
thought a while, he would have to admit that the dreams have not changed that
much.
Everyplace
people live has some important places. I was listening to a man telling a story
about a small town in America. His name is Mike, and he was walking across
American.
It
is a small town in the Great Pains. It is very flat there, and very difficult
to see far away, because there are no high spots. The town grew up around a
rare hill. Early settlers from Europe could see for long distances from that
hill, so it was a safe place to be.
That
small hill became an important place, and so a town grew up around it. I
imagine some buildings in the town are taller than the hill now.
Important
places to you don’t need to be important to anyone else. They don’t have to be
famous or well known to others. Some important places are only important to us
as individuals.
There
are places around that are important to someone, and interesting to me. They
are places that were very important to people a very long time ago.
One
is a settlement where people lived during the Jomon Period in Japan. Some
workmen found it as they were building a highway. People lived there thousands
of years ago, before people started eating rice in Japan. They left pottery,
stone tools and outlines of their houses.
Other
important places include some Yayoi Period tumuli and shell mounds. The tumuli
are concentrated around a small area near a river. The Yayoi people buried some
important leaders there.
There
is also a shell mound in that same area. There are various explanations for why
they made shell mounds, but they are important places for people, even now.
The
final important place is where there was once a castle. Its ruins are located
on top of a hill. There is a story about the well that was at this castle.
I
like to think about these places and the people who used to live there. Those
places excite my imagination. Maybe they are not that important to many people,
but they have existed, relatively undisturbed, for hundreds, maybe even
thousands of years.
They
are also important enough to people that they have made signs and monuments
that help others know about them.
Maybe
some important places are those that are significant to you, too. For example, some shopping areas are important to giving a place identity. Osu in Nagoya is one place like that. So is Kurokabe Square in Nagahama, Shiga.
Environment is important, and places where we can go to enjoy natural wonders. Takachiho in Miyazaki Prefecture has a very old history and a breathtaking natural beauty.
No matter where people live, there are features that give their hometown an identity. Whether they are historical, economic, natural, or a combination of all of the above, they give our hometowns identities all their own.
A hometown, where you consider your hometown to be, is really important. I have lived in many places, and some for longer than I have lived in the place that I consider my hometown.
Some people have moved around a lot more than I have, and so saying where their hometowns are might be difficult. Basically people choose their hometown based on a few factors. Where did they live during their youth? Where do most of their family live now? How do they feel about those places?
What is a hometown? A place where one has spend his/her formative years making friends, having conflicts, successes, failures, romances, traumas, and maturing toward adulthood. It would be a place where people lived in their childhood or adolescence. It may not have been an entirely happy experience, and some may even come to hate or resent their hometown. Whatever the relationship turned out to be in the end, our connections with our hometowns are principally emotional.
It's not just the people, either. Part of a hometown is the physical parts, the schools we attended, the parks where we played, the place we had our first kiss. Those are all part of the experiences that make a hometown what it is.
Towns change for the better and change for the worse. That park where we played might get paved over for a new road. That house where we lived may be run down and vacant.
Towns change for the better, too. The dirty, abandoned factories down by the river might be changed into a park with biking and walking paths. A new hospital with all the best facilities could be built, saving many lives in a growing community.
When we tell people about hour hometowns, what do people want to know? First, if they are not familiar with the place, they may want to know where it is. We can start big and zoom in on the place as we explain. for example, my hometown is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If someone didn't know where that was, as people in Japan often don't, I would explain that it is in the Eastern US, in the state of Pennsylvania, in the southwest corner of the state.
People often want to know what your hometown's weather is. Pittsburgh's weather is similar to weather here in Japan. It is hot and humid in summer and cold in the winter. It is a little less humid in Pittsburgh than in Japan, but it's similar otherwise.
People often ask if it is a big city. The population there is 303,000 people. It is almost the same as Yokkaichi, which has 310,000 people. Aside from the population, though, it has a big city feeling. It is culturally diverse with thriving Jewish, Polish, and Italian populations. It has two very good universities, University of Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University. It also has a big downtown area, several professional sports teams, and lots of manufacturing in the city.
No matter how big or small, well-known or hidden among the mountains and woods, your hometown is where you grew up. Everyone has strong feelings about those places. I think most often the feelings are bitter-sweet. I haven't been back to my hometown for many years, and I might never go back there again. There are parts of it that make me angry when I think about them. There are also places, experiences, and people that fill me with longing and nostalgia.
There are people who work at night and sleep during the day, mostly because of the jobs they have, but the majority of people wake up some time in the morning, carry out their appointed tasks during the day, and relax at night before going to sleep at night. The specifics of our days may vary, but for the most part we move around during the daylight hours and sleep when it is dark
I wake up early in the morning, at about 5:00. I never snooze. Then I go out and volunteer, walking some dogs at a local animal shelter. I have breakfast at around 7:00. I wash my face and shave from around 7:30. It takes me 15 minutes to do that.
I leave for work at 8:15 and arrive at 8:45. My work day varies from day to day, but I usually have time to eat lunch at about 2:30. My work is finished at 5:00 on average.
I get home at around 6:00. If I walk home it takes a little longer. I eat dinner with my family from 7:00. I help my children with their studies or we watch TV. I bathe and get ready for bed by 10:00.
All of this is cultural. Some people get up earlier or later and tend to have different ideas about what is normal. The IKEA company published some research in 2014 on how people in some big cities organize their mornings.
The research found that in Berlin, Germany, most people rise after 6:30 on weekdays. 42% of the people asked said that they were "evening people," meaning that they preferred to be active in the evening rather than in the morning. 52% said that they push the snooze button one time, and 36% said they push it more than one time.
57% of Berliners say that they bathe or shower in the morning. They take about 14 minutes for that. When they are finished with their grooming, only 1/10 feel anxious about their looks. (Compared to 20% in Moscow.)
1/4 of the people take time for reflection in the morning. That takes several shapes. Some people reflect during their grooming time, or listen to quiet music in the morning. Finally, 57% of people in Berlin say they eat breakfast.
Let's compare Berlin to London, another big, European city. Londoners wake up at 7:00 on average, about 30 minutes later than people in Berlin. That might be why London is such a creative city. It has been found that waking later in the morning is correlated to more creativity. London has been raked #7 in the world for being a creative city. 50% of the people claim to be "evening people." Most people spend 5 minutes choosing the clothes that they will wear that day, and 14 minutes in grooming. Yet 12% say that they are "anxious" about their appearance. 68% of the people say that they take some time for reflection during the morning.
Londoners show more interest in "the most important meal of the day," or breakfast. 8/10 of people want to eat breakfast prepared at home, with 60% actually having it. The other 2/10 eat breakfast out.
People in other countries have quite different morning routines. According to IKEA's data, people everywhere who live with children say that they want to play with their children. 7 in 10 people who live in Moscow say that play in the morning is important. The truth is that only 1 in 10 people actually do play with their children. 88% of Muscovites say that it is important to have conversation with their children in the morning, but only half of them do have discussions then.
People's work days in Mumbai start much later than most places. The survey showed that most people start their work day there at 11:00. They get a stress-free start to their work day. 90% of Mumbaikars say that breakfast is an important part of their days, more than all of the other cities surveyed. They don't spend much time eating it, but they usually do it with others who live with them. Parents who live with children under 12 years old say that they play with them on 1/3 of mornings.
New York City has always had a reputation for being a fashionable town. The Global Language Monitor says that New York is the most fashionable city in the world. How do New Yorkers carry this off? First, they spend more time at it than in other places. On average they spend 16 minutes on their grooming, two minutes more than other countries. Women take 19 minutes. Women also shave more often than in other countries.
As a result of this preparation, only about 16% of them say that their looks are a stressful part of the morning. Stress levels vary based on their confidence and grooming times. Another result is that 13% claim that mornings is when they look their best during the whole day.
Mornings are an interesting time of the day to observe, because, depending on the place, people approach that time of the day differently. We didn't even discuss mornings in relation to our previous topic, likes and dislikes. I like mornings. To me it's the best part of the day. To me, "Good morning," really is good.
People's likes and dislikes are pretty interesting. What do you like? What do you dislike? That's pretty easy to answer. Certain items might not be that easy to answer for, but when we talk about why we like or dislike something, that is where it gets interesting.
I get asked about food that I like or dislike a lot. When I first came to Japan, I was asked if I like sushi, natto, or sake. I'm still asked those questions regularly. There is some entertainment value in the questions. For example, "Do you like bitter gourd"? Some people like it, like me. Some people don't. There is some excitement attached to those kinds of questions. I think it is linked to the asker's likes or dislikes.
If the asker likes bitter gourd, and I answer, "Yes," then there is something to talk about. If I answer, "No," then there is something to talk about, too, but it's very different. That is a fun way to have a conversation.
Preferences might not be as strong as likes and dislikes, but they are powerful forces on our behaviors. I prefer coffee to tea. I prefer green tea to black tea. I prefer dogs to cats. I enjoy all of those things from time to time. I certainly enjoy cats, but if I had the choice of which one I'd rather live with, I'd choose a dog. Likewise, if offered tea or coffee, I'd choose coffee, but I drink both.
But why do we have those likes, dislikes, or preferences? Are likes and preferences cultural? Biological? Both? It seems that they are a little of both. Babies prefer sweet tastes, and often reject bitter flavors. There is a gene that affects how people taste bitterness. When that gene changes, there will be a change in how children and adults taste bitterness. This also affects how sweetness is tasted in children. This gene stops affecting how adults taste sweetness, though in this case, genes do affect the way people taste foods and drinks.
That may be why adults develop a taste for coffee or beer as they grow older. Of course some people never develop a taste for coffee or beer. Those genes can be tricky, can't they!
People also have cultural preferences for food. In an experiment done in Spain, researchers found that people choose food that symbolically links them with their own culture. They said that it is because the food gives the person a sense of belonging.
This is not only about food choices, though. Food is just one example. There is a lot of information on food preferences. There is even more information on why a person prefers one kind of person over another as a mate.
Some universal preferences are based on where we live. One study showed that people who live in bigger cities preferred manly men and more feminine women. It may also have something to do with the harshness of the environment where they live.
Likes and dislikes are partially determined by genetics, but also by culture. It seems that preferences in mates is similar. Answering what we like or dislike might be easy, but answering why we like it might be more complicated.
Understanding who others are and telling them about who you are important tasks when learning your language. But the basics are not that hard. After I had lived in Japan for a short while, I was thinking about making cards with answers to the most frequently asked Japanese questions. Those weren’t even fun to answer any more, because they were always the same questions and the same answers.
The questions people asked me in Japanese included, “Where are you from”? “How long have you lived in Japan”? “How old are you”? There was a list of others that people asked depending on the asker and the setting we were in, but those were the main ones.
Who are you, and what do you think people from other cultures will ask you? One friend who studied in America said she was often asked a variety of questions similar to the kinds I was asked. For example, “Is Japanese difficult”? “Are there a lot of earthquakes”? “How many hours a day do Japanese people work”?
Since people often start by telling each other their names, let’s start there, too. People who are not familiar with the sound of Japanese names will probably not understand yours the first time you tell them. Though your name and Japanese names in general may be normal to you, they are not familiar to many other people. They may have to ask you to repeat yours several times.
One way you can make it easier for them is to shorten your name. For example, if your name is Yukiko, ask them to please call you Yuki for short.
Westerners are curious about kanji, or Chinese characters. They might want to know how you write your name in kanji. They will be interested to see you write your name on a piece of paper.
They will also be interested in how you would write their names. You will have to explain how kanji work. They don’t understand that one character has several different pronunciations. Just try your best, and try to write a kanji even just for a shortened version of their name. For example, if their first name is Amy, try 笑美, and explain that it means beautiful smile. If their name is too difficult to figure out, write it in katakana or hiragana for them.
People you meet will likely ask about the order of your name. Which comes first, your family name, or your given name? Family names will be a curiosity for them, too. They may ask what yours means, if you got it from your father’s side of the family, and if it is a common name in Japan.
Names are fascinating. Yours is, too. People will be curious about yours and what it means to you.
