Japan Clean

It is certainly common to hear from first-time observers that Japanese cities are perhaps the cleanest in the world while Indian cities define filth. It is easy to understand how people come to these conclusions; Heck, in Japan, you might find as much street rubbish in 1 square kilometer as you do in 1 square meter in India. No exaggeration. Yet, for me, what is of most interest is how you experience these two places back-to-back. We arrived in Japan just a few days ago after a 12 hours day of transit from Chennai and when I walked into the Kansai airport concourse and didn’t smell the noxious cleaning agents that help to define the Indian travel experience, but observed a man mopping a floor that already was immaculate, I knew that I was in Japan.

I guess that I have come to accept my near obsession with Kaia’s cleanliness while living in India. I honestly have nightmares about him milling about and picking up the any number of ubiquitous rubbish items that cannot be avoided while walking, and putting them in his mouth. I know that these are irrational thoughts, much like when he was a newborn and I feared that he would fall into the washing machine or get into the dryer while it was running (!), but they are hardly soothed when you are reminded that, as an Indian friend who is potty training their 2 year old said, “In this country, you can go to the bathroom anywhere! What better place to potty train!” All I could think of when she said that was that maybe there needs to be another stage of potty training—for adults—that reminds folks about the value of consolidate waste disposal. Anyway, considering that much of the ‘relieving’ happens on or around rubbish, you don’t have to be anal retentive to imagine what might be flying about. And this doesn’t even take into consideration the various street dogs, cows and stray beasts roaming around.

So when you go from this scene of festival de urine, to what at times seems like life in an autoclave, you are bound to be struck by the contrast. I can remember that after the first time I visited India, and next arrived in Thailand, that I was misguided into feeling that everything was so clean and, thus, let my guard down, and paid the price. This event ran through my head when, the other day, I dropped a shumai (pork dumpling) on the ground while eating with Kaia in a train station, and actually considered picking it up to eat because the floor looked so damn clean. Yikes.

Why I Love this Time: Even as he becomes more and more challenging with his strong will and determination, he teaches me so much about patience that I never knew I could learn.