Contradict this!

I LOVE contradictions. Who doesn’t? That is why Japan is so great. If I don’t think “what the efff?!?” at least once a day I think I must not be putting my self out there enough – I’m just not truly experiencing Japan. So I go outside and open myself to Japan. I say Japan, throw something incomprehensible or at least mildly confusing at me! And Japan does not disappoint.

And last weekend as I pulled my scooter out of the driveway a car going twice the speed limit flew around the blind corner, I swerved into a wall, my poor Hondo Cesta’s ego bruised. The man laid on his horn and gave me a look of utter disgust. I choose to love how rude this man was for the depth it gives to the cultural stereotype that Japanese people are super polite, something severely contradicted when they get in a car. This particular contradiction gives me such as rush. But moving on, as I stoked my Cesta and whispered sweet nothings, we rode to the store and I thought “what will I buy today?”

If it is February , some “obligation chocolates” to show that I was thinking of my co workers. I love how  a “just thinking of you because your special” becomes literally an obligation. Or should I buy an eco bag for my future shopping needs to cut down on the last layer of excessive packaging (those obligations chocolates are the only things individually wrapped, put in a plastic tray, wrapped again and  sometimes put into a box before getting its own bag). Of course the cashier puts my new bag into a bag.

Japan is still one step ahead of me and has designed an intensive trash collection system where the excessiveness must be separated and recycled, reclaimed material for more excessiveness. How can I use the word “excessive” so much in Japan when portions of food are smaller and things are generally miniature? I don’t know. That is the beauty of contradictions.