The Land of Peace

All through my growing years I thought of Japan as 'the land of the rising sun', an epithet I read in Class 3 geography, when we got introduced to different countries and cultures. Some forty summers later, when I got to go to this country, I came away with a multitude of impressions and many 'aha' moments. 

Above all, peace permeates, and that is what remains indelibly etched in my mind. I come from a culture that is widely perceived as peace loving and all-embracing, yet I find this not here, but in Japan. Perhaps I see it from the eyes of a foreigner, a first-time visitor, but I feel it strongly. 

The peace is palpable. It manifests in the courtesy with which one and all interact. It manifests in the consideration for people, time, rules and laws. It manifests in the warmth that transcends language barriers. In the public places, in parks, in shrines. In the order and method. In the lowest (almost negligible) crimes rate across the world.

Popular images of Tokyo are of a teeming metropolis, where people need to be pushed into the subway during peak hours to get them in, of capsule hotels and cramped housing. And yet, one has just to stand by at the famous 'scramble crossing' in Shibuya to see how hundreds of people can cross a road in all directions at the same time in a few seconds without a push or a nudge or an impatient word. Nowhere did I feel the peace more than at the Meiji Jingu shrine in the heart of Tokyo. The verdant green expanse muffled the noise of the crowds, but there was more... vibrations that simply flowed into the body and created an indescribable harmony. 

For a country tormented repeatedly by natural disasters, bombing, wars and nuclear leaks, where does the peace come from? Perhaps from the all-enveloping and omnipresent religious integration, where one has to look through a lens to distinguish a Buddhist home from a Shinto? Or from the fact that nation comes before any individual and, therefore, this is a family rather than just citizens? Or is it just a calm forbearance and acceptance of fate that has got genetically coded into this race over the years?

True, stress levels are high, suicides are high, women are the 'lesser' race (at least in the older generations) and competition is tough, but the country has also developed its own unique antidotes - cat/dog/bird cafes to find furry (or feathery!) solace, maid cafes to revive innocent childhood, anime or manga to entertain, not to speak of the serene harmony created in tranquil gardens and flowing art forms. 

The peace is poignant, especially so in Hiroshima. There is no angst, no bitterness in the relics, no anger in the narrative, just a small remorse and a huge resolve to bring peace to the entire world.

For me, for time to come, it will be 'the land of peace where the sun rises.....'