Japan, a peculiar place —日本って不思議
15 Feb 2026, Göteborg Sweden.
(日本語は下部に↓)
People in Sweden speak relatively clean English. It's because Swedish is close to English, and with a population of just ten million, films and such aren't dubbed into the local language—they come in with English subtitles. And here I was, studying so hard back in Japan, finally reaching this level.
Living in an environment where English is taken for granted, what I've come to think lately is that being able to speak English matters less than the ability to share what it means to have grown up in Japan—to convey that experience and those ways of thinking in terms Westerners can understand. That's what holds real value. That's what I want.
Japan is, after all, such a peculiar country.
You often hear about Japan's soft power being incredible, and it really is. A friend from Syria and Lebanon grew up watching Hamtaro as a child, and people in Sweden dig up their old Tamagotchis from their parents' house with delight. Things I thought were strictly domestic turn out to be global.
My friend once asked: "If you're creating culture with this much reach, don't Japanese people have some special attitude toward culture?"
Maybe so. I tried suggesting that Japan's population is ten times Sweden's, so perhaps it was easier to sustain as a market. But honestly, even as someone raised in Japan, I can only answer: I don't really know.
Even in conversations about architecture, when Metabolism comes up, it almost always turns to Nakagin Capsule Tower, and people say things like, "Japan is so interesting." But from my perspective, contemporary Japan places very little value on architecture. There's almost no broader societal understanding of it. Everyone lives in flimsy houses built on the assumption they'll be torn down in thirty years. I don't think "architecture," in the Western sense, even exists there. When I said this to an architecture curator, they replied, "Japan is hard to understand." Quite apt, really.
Yes, Japan is incredibly strange.
Lately, I'm consumed by a desire to understand this strange country. The book I'm reading now, Archipelago History of Philosophy (Ryohei Noguchi, Misuzu Shobo), is so fascinating I want to share it with everyone.
The Japanese archipelago has always been a "peripheral civilization," importing rice cultivation, pottery techniques, writing, and so much more from the central civilizations of Korea and China, absorbing them through friction with indigenous culture. Even the name "Japan" itself was originally an exonym—seen from the continent as "the eastern edge," the place "where the sun rises," rooted in a continental solar deity worship. They took that outsider's measure and redefined it as their own.
Reading this, so many things click into place. It's exhilarating, the way thoughts unfold.
Japanese exchange students tend not to flock together. There's always a certain number who actively avoid clustering with other Japanese—I was one of them two years ago. Meanwhile, Chinese students, wherever they go in the world, form groups with their compatriots from the start and support each other.
And then there's this: I've basically lived my whole life carrying a sense of inferiority, a stigma, toward Europe and America.
I don't want to let that inferiority end as something purely negative. I've long wanted to know what it really is, this feeling. And now this book tells me, "That's just the way the Japanese archipelago has always been," and I'm reeling.
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スウェーデンの皆さんは、比較的綺麗な英語を喋ります。スウェーデン語が英語に近いこと、人口が1000万人しかいないので映画とかが現地語に翻訳されず英語字幕で入ってくることが理由。日本ではあんだけ頑張って勉強して、ようやくこのレベルに達したのにね。 そんな英語が当たり前の環境にいて最近思うのは、英語喋れることなんかより、日本で育ったこと、その経験と考え方を西洋人にわかるようにシェアする力の方が価値があるし、それが欲しいということ。
日本というのはつくづく特殊な国で。
日本のソフトパワーはすごい、って話はよく聞くと思うけど、実際そうで。シリア・レバノン出身の友達は幼少期ハム太郎を見て育ってて、スウェーデンの人もたまごっちを実家で掘り出して喜んでます。日本ドメスティックだと思ってたものは、実はグローバル。
友達曰く、これだけ浸透力のある文化を作ってるんだから、日本人は文化に対して特別な姿勢を持ってるんじゃない？ 確かにそうかも。日本の人口はスウェーデンの10倍だから、マーケットとして成立しやすかったんじゃない？とか言ってみる。けど、日本育ちの私にもよくわからない、としか答えれない。
建築の話をしていても、メタボリズムの話となると、大抵中銀カプセルの話になって、日本面白い、みたいに言われる。けれども、私からしたら、現代日本は建築に対して置く価値がとても低くて、社会全体としての理解は全然ないよ〜。みんな30年で建て替えるの前提のペラペラハウスに住んでるよ〜。西洋的な意味での「建築」は存在しないと思うよ〜と返す。そんな話を建築系のキュレーターとしていると、"Japan is hard to understand"と言われた。言い得て妙です。
そう、日本はとっても不思議なんです。
最近は不思議な日本を理解したい、という思いでいっぱいの私。今読んでいる、列島哲学史(野口良平, みすず書房)が面白くって面白くって、みんなにもシェアしたい。
日本列島は元来、稲作文化、陶器の技術、文字などなど、いろんなものを朝鮮や支那の中央文明からやってきて、土着の文化との軋轢を経験しながら受容し続ける、「辺境文明」なのだという話。そもそも「日本」という名前さえ、大陸から見たときに「東の果て」="where the sun rise" という、大陸的な太陽神信仰の尺度をベースにした他称を自称に再定義したという話。
この話を受けて、思い当たる節、広がっていく思考が楽しい。 日本の留学生は日本人同士で群れたがらない傾向がある。極端に日本人どうしてつるむのを避ける人というのは一定数いるし、私も2年前はそうだった。中国の人とか、世界中どこ行ってもはなから同郷同士でグループを組んで助け合ってるのにね。 あと、私は基本的にずっとヨーロッパやアメリカに対する劣等感、スティグマを抱えて生きてる。
その劣等感をネガティヴなもので終わらせたくない。この劣等感の正体を知りたいとずっと思っていたけど、「日本列島の在り方って元々そんなもんでしょ」とこの本に言われて喰らっている。