Just Another Interesting Anecdote,
Isn't It?

A couple of weeks ago, O. visited Tokyo, or technically the East, for the first time.

I was very relieved when he told me that the journey was immensely enjoyable. O. is a very optimistic, adventurous, and out-going person by nature, so perhaps the horror of being surrounded by a graphic language like Japanese could be overcome easily.

On the night before he flew back to Europe, we had dinner together. He told us an interesting anecdote that happened to him during his stay.
On his first day in Japan, he was stopped by two policemen in Ueno station, who asked him for his passport. According to the immigration law in Japan, visitors to this country are obliged to take their passports or any other identification certificate that is legally equivalent. He said he had left it in the hostel. Then the policemen made some questions concerning about his visit and where he was going at the time. Then they realized O. was a traveler and his nationality, and they let him go. It happened twice to him on the same day in the same station.

According to K., perhaps the police was actually on a mission to find a certain person on that particular date in that specific location.

While O. was narrating his story, my brain was boiling hot, and what immediately came to my mind was the issues of xenophobia and discrimination against tourists. I was frowning at the story and ready to make a complaint. However, before I started my argument, O. laughed away this experience and was somehow pleased by the fact that he was thought to be a 'traveler' instead of holiday maker or tourist.
His reaction then silenced me.

Afterwards I kept thinking if I had been him, I would take that an insult and would complain hard about it.

I don't know whether O. kept to himself any other interpretation of his experience, but his relaxed reaction certainly gave an alternative lesson on being a foreigner and looking at one's own foreignness in a different country.

Sometimes, it might be simply true that I am grounded by some over-politicized arguments about discrimination.

Take it easy and take it light! Perhaps.

Green Curtain

Since the early summer, the city council started growing trailing plant outside its main building.

First, they set up a net hanging down from the top of the building to the ground floor; a week or so after, vines started climbing upwards along the net; then it didn't take too long before the foliage covered up the entire wall.

It was quite amazing to see such a massive green curtain in the city especially when its purpose was still unknown to me.

The buckets in the bottom, one day when I got a chance to have a peek, explained that it's an effort to fight against global warming. The natural shade that the vines provided to the concrete building would efficiently shut out burning sunlight and thereby reduce room temperature significantly. In this way, the use of air-conditioners would be economized.

Afterwards, I noticed that the ideas had been put into practice in many households throughout the neighborhood.

In addition to the environmentally friendly economy that this idea anticipated, the city also benefited from the increase of green spaces in its landscape.


Last week, I was surprised again by another bonus that this eco-economy brought to the community. Since the harvest season began, the vines started yielding sponge gourds, very healthy-looking and huge gourds indeed.
The total yield was given for free to whoever would take it.

The city council is plausible for their ideas and efforts, but what was even more beautiful is the generosity of nature and the greens.