People

Whether dodging the grandmas walking down the street, or being passed by an elementary school student while boarding the train. The one thing that always seems to come to mind when thinking about Japanese people is how independent and self sufficient they are. In the supermarket rather than the cashier bagging the groceries or the all American bag boy, each shopper is given a certain amount of bags and they move to tables to bag their own groceries. Each person is responsible for taking care of this task themselves, which in turn speeds up the entire check out process and helps everyone else as well. So as children grow up helping their parents with the bags they are learning to take care of themselves and also do what is needed to help the community. A simple restaurant also shows the independence of each individual because some rather than having tables to sit at and converse have just a long counter. In the above picture each person is there by themselves and the only interaction I witnessed was with the employees. While some might think of such a meal as slightly depressing everyone their was enjoying themselves and it seemed rather a place to take care of your own needs as you are on your way somewhere, just a pit stop. So while Japan is often thought of as a homogeneous society each person can identify themself as an individual.