Japonica asked me about my favourite Japanese places, activities, foods, books and so on. The last question was the most difficult.
What do you like about living in Japan?
A maelstrom of images came to mind.
The air, the light, children’s voices, the rattle of trains, the yells of welcome when you enter a shop, persimmons, white gloves on taxi drivers, vivid green mosses, the labels on sake bottles, the Meiji Restoration, Beat Takeshi, wasabi up your nose, kimonos on coming of age day, the Emperor, Golden Gai, the Liberal Democratic Party, bunraku, the rainy season, Shibuya scramble, elaborate envelopes at weddings and funerals, Akira Kurosawa, strings of natto hanging from your chopsticks, the Japan Communist Party, the bing bing bing sound at level crossings, roast ginko nuts hot enough to burn your fingertips, carp streamers on boys’ day, the smell of yakitori in neon-splattered alleyways, the office workers’ competition for witty haiku, the high blue sky in winter, the Edo Period, the glare of a 7/11 open at 4 a.m., Shohei Ohtani, Yukio Mishima, Maki Asakawa, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Ryu Murakami, Setsuko Hara, Shuji Terayama etc. etc.
Those are my impressions. Yours will be different.
The entire interview can be found here.