Nagoya’s not the most beautiful city in Japan. Probably not in the top five. Or the top ten. It’s a city dotted with industries that happen to be on the main shinkansen line, so they might as well spruce it up, select a famous food (their meibutsu is tebasaki; think Buffalo wings with a lot less meat and not nearly as spicy) and drop a couple of shopping complexes with international brands so people on the way east to Tokyo or west to Kyoto or Osaka can drop by and pass the time at an intermediary stop.
It’s not an ugly city, either. A number of rivers cross both edges of the city center, and there is plenty of nature along the streets so it doesn’t look like a dark and gray Dickens novel. The city is convenient with all the creature comforts first-worlders need and desire, so it’s not some middle-of-nowhere truck stop/bedroom community that just takes up space. They have those in Japan, too, but so does every other developed country that is large enough to have built up a few major cities. If Tokyo is New York, Nagoya is Delaware. Nice enough, but not a top destination.
It’s in the middle, is what I mean.
And that’s fine. It’s perfect. I’ve lived here for over two years on this ten-year Japan trip, and it’s the most comfortable I’ve felt living in Japan, except for my one year in Fukui (and I loved the countryside; I just wish I could make a living there).
Most people who come to Japan want to see everything, and what they mean is they want to see Tokyo Tower and the electric towns and the maiko-sans and the places to eat fugu and tea ceremonies. And that’s okay, too. That’s the Japanese culture we see on television, and on the ground in Japan as well. Like Yankee caps in America or berets in France. They’re part of the image of those places. But the thing is nobody who lives there goes to seek it out overtly.
Not that people shouldn’t seek it out if they want to. But what I was looking for when I moved to Japan was the everyday life. I wanted to walk into a supermarket and buy the stuff everyone else in town bought. Go into a post office and send some mail the way everyone else did. Flip through channels on Japanese cable TV in the off-hours. Sit down at a Mister Donut and just waste away the time while skimming the nearby wifi connection.
No expat and certainly no one outside Japan thinks of Mister Donut when they think of Japan. It’s a franchise that started in America and stuck around Asia when the parent company went bust all those years ago. There’s nothing originally Japanese about it. But it’s part of the everyday here. There are as many Mister Donuts as there are McDonald’s, and boy do they have McDonald’s here. School children in the morning stop by for a donut on the way to class. Elderly people assemble there on their way to the cycling track for some midday gambling. Salespeople schedule their appointments with their customers at Mister Donut tables to sell them something with their coffee.
A visit to Mister Donut will almost likely not be a part of any travel guide to Japan. But anyone who wants a view of daily Japanese life should spend a few hours here. Besides the public baths, it’s one of the few places where people from all walks of life come together.
So I’ve spent the day doing my writing at my table overlooking the streets just adjacent to the subway station. It’s been raining on and off for much of the day. To a tourist, not much that is remarkable is happening. But I’ve seen in lot in just four short hours. An elderly couple mapping out their eventual hike to the river west of here, even in the rain because they scheduled the trip and they might as well do it. A mother taking care of her baby with bits of a donut, while the baby laughs and makes funny faces in between gurgling noises. A woman apparently with Down syndrome and her elderly mother, not seeming burdened by anything and actually quite content enjoying the day.
I like visiting temples but I don’t usually get to see the people I just described. With a few exceptions of natural beauty around Japan (because any architectural marvel Japan has accomplished has been outdone by the Bank of America building back in Midtown Manhattan, among other modern American buildings), imagining their lives is a lot more interesting to me than any sightseeing spot. And sitting in my spot at Mister Donut, I’m very comfortable and at home.
Nagoya is not what people think about when they think about visiting or seeing Japan. But for now, it’s home, and I love it.
Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ve got some temple or hot spring on my Golden Week schedule.