I’m not sure if this exactly fits in with our theme of global issues or not, but I am still absolutely astounded by all the people I see when I go to Osaka. I mean, there are people everywhere. I have never seen anything like it in my entire life. Maybe the sheer numbers of people are almost like the crowds you can find in a suburban Canadian Mall on Boxing Day, but even on Boxing Day in Canada I don’t feel the same soul crushing anonymity I feel when I am surrounded by thousands of people I don’t know as I ride the escalator underneath the giant fiberglass whale in HEP Five. I wonder if my Japanese students feel the same oppressiveness that I feel in these huge crowds, or maybe they are used to it. After all, I am the foreigner, and I come from one of the least densely populated countries on the planet. It is obvious that I am going to be affected in some way by the huge numbers of people all over the place, but still I can’t help but wonder if my students sometimes feel lost as well when they are surrounded by so many people they don’t know.

I just finished reading a short story by Haruki Murakami. It is called “The Window”, but I am not sure of the Japanese title. It left me feeling incredibly sad and empty. It is about this guy who has a part-time job in a company called “The Pen Society”. People joined this society to learn how to write better letters. The guy in the story would answer letters that people wrote, and give them corrections, comments and guidance on how to write better letters. The thing is that all the people who wrote letters to this society actually probably didn’t really need to learn how to write better letters. They were lonely, and they had no one to actually write to. That seems so sad. I mean, here we are in one of the most crowded places on the planet, and there are people that are so lonely that they have to join a letter writing school to find someone to connect with. I wonder how people can live in such huge crowds, but not really know anyone. I also wonder if that isn’t the reason that some people actually join English conversation schools like Nova or ECC. It has nothing to do with learning English, and everything to do with the fact that they don’t know how to meet people or connect with anyone around them. Suddenly, by joining a school they can belong to something and connect to someone, even in a small way.

Anyway, is this sense of alienation that people suffer from in modern society a global issue? I’m not sure, but I do feel that it dehumanizes us all just a little bit. There must be better ways to connect with people than joining letter writing societies. The question is how do we connect. The point is we must. It is what makes us human. As E.M. Forster said “only connect!” Human relationships are what are most important. Hmmmmmm, maybe if we can get rid of the sense of dehumanization, we can start to empathize more with our fellow humans. By empathizing with others, perhaps we can escape the sense of alienation so that we can start to think beyond ourselves . . . . who knows?

That’s enough! So long for now . . . .