Although there were a lot of things that I wanted to see and experience, I tried to remember that the main purpose of the trip was to see my friends, and made a three-day schedule. But as every person I met told me, and especially when they added "The Japanese tourists always come with a bus, take pictures in five minutes, and then leave for somewhere else," I felt a bit offended.

It was when I went cycling for six hours on a round trip between Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake. I found the family that I saw on the way to go still sitting down at the same place on the way back again. I can imagine that, to those who spend their days off like this, the way how a party of tourists travels must be incomprehensible.

"Seeing how so many people visit from Japan, I assume that you can take vacations, right?"

"I have a week off in the summer, another week off at the end of year, and some more days off that I get separately. So I guess that I have about three weeks off a year."

"Can you just take a three-week vacation in the summer?"

"I'd lose my job if I'm gone for three weeks."

"Well, I understand considering that Japan is in recession right nowÉ."

Even if we are not in recession, how many companies are there in Japan which would give you consecutive three-week off for travel?

I can't forget what my Thai friend who was studying in Canada said.

"When I first went to Japan from Thailand, I thought that Thai people couldn't be richer because they were not working enough. But when I came to Canada I came to think in a different way. The Canadians are not working all day from morning to night but they are really well off."

Japan may possibly be a poor country which pretends to be rich. Is that true?

Well, it is easy to bring it into a tone that Japan is culturally a poor country. I can also come up with a number of examples to indicate such view. But, I just don't want to reach that kind of conclusion. People believe that we live by unconsciously choosing "what we really want to do." If that's the case, I think that, for those who don't try to change their environments, the present state must be quite comfortable. Perhaps there also may be a number of people who find it valuable to have a busy life. I sometimes get amazed while talking to my colleagues because there are quite many people saying "I don't feel comfortable when I'm not busy with job because it makes me feel that nobody needs me" or "I find it fulfillment working as hard as I don't even have time to breath." I can't say that is wrong, and similarly, I also cannot deny the state of Japan as "poverty." But what should not be overlooked is the fact that there are quite many people feeling unhappy as living under pressure everyday, and also there are a number of people who believe that Japan is culturally poor.

By comparing vast Canada and tiny Japan indiscriminately, it is impossible to say which is superior. (There is no way I can make a comparison as I only have knowledge for three days about their lives and values anyway). But the statement of my friend who is neither a Canadian nor Japanese made me think in various ways.

With this trip, I've managed such a big schedule which would require a week for an ordinary person to do only in three days, and made my friend say "The Japanese are strongly-built." I think that there is nothing for it as we can't help feeling extremely happy and enjoyable to be "working at full blast from the morning to the night." It's just that we need to develop a way of communication, which avoids any misunderstanding, and to explain our values to other people with a different sense of values not to let them think that we are incomprehensible. From the next time, I'll be writing about what surprised me in Canada and about another destination of my trip, Chicago.

Translated by Maiko Noda