What Japan Taught Me About Identity, Consumerism, and Curiosity

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Although we’ve only been back a few short weeks, Japan feels like a distant memory. That’s what a generational wildfire event will do, I guess.

Now that things have calmed down in Los Angeles and the kids are back into a decent routine, I want to revisit our trip and share a few more findings / reflections.?

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Identity and Consumerism

One of the things you realize right away is that shopping is a big deal in Japan. As I mentioned before, Tokyo feels like one gigantic, interconnected indoor/outdoor mall and the other cities we visited—Nagoya and Kyoto—present much the same.

With the disclaimer that I really don’t know anything about Japanese culture and society—having such a limited data set as I do—I noticed something interesting while I was there:

Japan is a place where you see materialism and consumer-based identity seeking on stark display.

To be clear, this a worldwide phenomenon and evident in America and most of the rest of the world as well. It’s not by some coincidence, after all, that luxury brands have become some of the most valuable businesses in the world.

Maybe it feels more evident in Japan because it manifests in such unique ways: young people dressed as anime characters walking around in the middle of the day, the cosplay shops you see all over the place, the lines of adults you see waiting in line to take pictures with people dressed in fur suits, the people you see who’ve clearly had serious plastic surgery to look more anime-ish…. You also see it more broadly in the carefully curated style choices you see just about everywhere. To be meticulously dressed is the norm there.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with seeking identity and expression via consumer choice. We are, after all, storytelling, meme-making beings driven by an insatiable mimetic desire. As such, fashion and style have always been integral to the human experience.?

There is psychological danger though in over-indexing in this direction, for your identity is so much more than what you can buy, even from a place with seemingly endless choice like modern, urban consumer megalopolis Tokyo. Identity is more about what you do, what you believe, and what you value.

While walking around Japan, I developed a theory: because we are so obsessively focused on productivity and achievement in America, maybe we are less prone to the extreme identity-seeking consumption that you find in Japan. Now, I know I might be way off base here so I’d love to hear from our Japanese readers on this. If you have some thoughts or reactions—especially if you think I’ve missed something—please reply and let me know your thoughts!

If you’ve been reading Profit+, you know that the problems of American culture are not lost on me. There may be more space here for people to seek identity through action—that’s the fundamental promise of an entrepreneurial culture—but we have serious issues when it comes to uniting around shared values and beliefs and we are way over-indexed to seeking identity via achievement. Unlike Japan, there’s not much holding us together here except maybe a kind of sacred belief in things like the freedom of the individual, profit, material success, and power.

Our favorite small talk question here in America is the often off-putting: “What do you do?”?

Intended as an innocuous icebreaker, it’s usually asked in way that makes you feel like judgment is coming. And it is! This question is a sizing-up and a status check. “Just where do you stand in the hyper-competitive social hierarchy that is America?” is its real aim, as if it’s the only thing that matters to the worth of a human being.

Many of my immigrant friends find this uniquely American question rather annoying, and I get it! I find myself answering it in increasingly obscure and oblique ways, sometimes even answering a different question altogether just to switch the direction of the impending conversation. Now, I realize that I have another article to write here about the strategies I’ve developed for more meaningful small talk. Stay tuned for that!

Anyway, what I think we can take away from this little line of thinking is that:

1. We should be really mindful of how we seek to define our identity. The more consciousness we can bring to this exercise, the better, for our culture will influence our subconscious no matter what.
2. It’s not what we buy or what we do, but what we believe and value that provides the ultimate shape and contours to our authentic identity. As fun as it is to shop, build a business, or seek some kind of creative self-expression, don’t forget to make time to stop and really think about what you care about. ?

A Travel Tip—Curiosity as the Antidote

Traveling can be hard sometimes; traveling with young kids can be impossible.

We had a very aggressive schedule involving a whole bunch of train trips, multiple hotel check-outs and check-ins, and lots of walking around. All things considered, the boys did ok. But they were unusually testy with each other and fought and bickered way too much. ?

On several mornings, dreading the thought of trying to navigate the busy streets and crowded subways while dealing with whiny / fighting kids, I found myself not feeling excited about the day ahead. This is never a good feeling obviously, especially on vacation!

Not one to let circumstances control my internal state of being too much, I resolved to make the best of things. Fortunately, I’ve studied a lot of philosophy and had some Stoic/Buddhist principles at the ready. I thought to myself:

“What can I control? Not my kids’ behavior, that’s for sure! Haha. For real though: only my own mindset, attitude, and perspective. And how can I best do that? By being curious, right? Isn’t curiosity the antidote to just about every bad feeling you can have? It is.”

I cannot say that this little mental shift worked perfectly but remembering / allowing myself to be curious about what we were doing helped me a ton. Curiosity has a way of hijacking your consciousness and eliminating negative automatic thoughts like: “I’m really annoyed with my kids right now.” It just focuses you in a different way. You become searching instead of passive and reactive. You notice things you might not otherwise see or hear. You feel things you might not otherwise feel. If you keep it up, it’s only a matter of time before you start feeling good about what you are doing.

Top 5 Things to Do in Japan

I’m so grateful for our trip to Japan, all the amazing people we met, the beautiful sights we visited, and, most of all, the enriching and restorative perspectives we all gained from being in such a different place. Here’s my list of the top 5 things we did on our trip with a little commentary.

1. Visit the teamLab Planets Museum in Tokyo

The best museum experience in the world.

2. Stay at a Hot Springs Ryokan

My favorite day of our trip and the perfect way to recover from the sensory overload of Tokyo.

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3. Visit the Innari Shrine in Kyoto

A visually stunning, meditative, and spiritually awakening mountain hike.

4. Check out the Mipig Café in Hara Juku

Especially fun if you are traveling with kids but a cultural phenomenon you need to experience no matter what.

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5. Experience Tokyo on Foot

For a cultural experience like no other: go shopping in Shibuya Scramble, visit animal cafes and sample fun Japanese treats in Hara Juku, and check out the crazy night scene in Shinjuku. If you are with kids, check out arcades along the way and don’t miss The Mega Don Quijote Store and KiddyLand.