I didn't go to Japan expecting a reality check. I went for the food, honestly, and the aesthetic. If you've spent any time on TikTok this past year, Japan has basically been everywhere. Matcha lattes, rice masks, jiggly pancakes, and those soft pink cherry blossoms that go viral every March.
But here's what no one really shows. The people actually living there aren't performing any of it.
I first noticed it in Kyoto. I was in a tiny vintage shop, the kind with no sign, hidden in an alley you'd only find by accident. The girl working there couldn't have been more than nineteen. She had such a cool style, with layered clothes, hand-sewn patches, and shoes that looked like she had been working on them for years. I really wanted to ask where she got everything. But the more I watched her, the more I realized that question didn't really make sense. She didn't "get" her style. She built it, slowly, over time.
There was no version of her outfit that you could just find online and copy.
Back home, and I include myself in this, we talk a lot about having our own style, but most of what we do is just faster shopping with better captions. We see something we like, we screenshot it, order it, and post it. The whole thing can happen in two days. Somewhere in that process, actually creating something gets lost, and posting becomes the main focus.
That's what Japan kept showing me. Not the creating part, because people there really care about what they do and put a lot of time into it. It's that they don't seem focused on showing it off. It doesn't feel automatic for them.
And I keep wondering what that does to us when everything we like turns into something we perform. Does it change how we figure out what we actually like? Does it make us avoid things that don't look good online? Does the algorithm slowly push us to only like things that other people will understand?
There's a Japanese idea called kodawari. It's hard to fully explain, but it means putting a lot of care and effort into one thing over a long time. Like a ramen chef who spends years perfecting one recipe, or a tailor who works months on one jacket. From the outside, it sounds extreme, but there it feels normal.
It's a different way of thinking about value. It's about depth, not attention. It's about building something, not showing it off.
I kept thinking about what that means for us. We are the first generation that can share everything instantly, but also the first to feel burned out from doing that. So who really benefits when we let an algorithm decide what matters?
I came home with skincare, ceremonial matcha powder, a lot of respect for people who keep their interests private, and some questions about my own habits that I'm still thinking about. Maybe that's the most "Japan" thing I can say. Sometimes the point isn't to share what you found. Sometimes it's just to let it change you.
Written for Interculturalism and Global Exploration, a 3-credit course at Southern New Hampshire University, taken online through EF Educational Tours.