I LOVE my neighbourhood

I live in the part of my city that most people fear, the one with the reputation for the most crime and danger. I don't have a car, so I walk all the time, to bus stops if not further. Some people think I'm nuts, even some who live in the same neighbourhood. I want to know what's wrong with them. Why have they bought in to the hype?

Random crimes are really not that common in my area. You get house break-ins, but that usually occurs when one is not at home. There was a rape near my house a few months back, but there was also one across the city in a "safe" neighbourhood, in the middle of the day, when a 15 year old girl was home alone, with the doors locked, and a man forced his way in. Car thefts and break-ins occur all over the city. Most crime does. I don't really get why people think my neighbourhood is so much worse.

I think mostly it's prejudice. I live where the street people and hookers are, but they won't bug you most of the time, and after a while you learn how to deal with or avoid them, neither of which is difficult. And, the area is poor. People seem to assume poor=criminal. That's ridiculous, and they just need to drop that idea.

What people don't see is the beauty of the old, established trees, the character of homes that have been inhabited for 100 years, the natural beauty that thrives in large part thanks to the trees. They don't see the people who live in the houses, and how their mostly just ordinary folk who are fabulous to know. And, they don't consider how convenient it is to live right in the middle of the city.

People need to stop letting fear form their opinions for them.

This is why

In a comment, Lanney asked why certain Japanese folk lock themselves away. Well, take yourself back to the most intense peer pressure experience you ever had, the one where you really didn't want to do or be involved in what was going on, you really wanted to get away, and you just had the worst feeling in the pit of your stomach about the whole thing. Whatever the situation, you were convinced it was bad, and felt even worse knowing everyone around you at that moment wanted you to go their way, and they were not going to like you if you didn't. So you were stuck between your conscience and your peers. Pressure!! If you choose to go with your peers, the pressure alleviates. If you don't, at least you can go home and get away from the peers for a bit. You can find some "shelter" from the pressure.

Now imagine that such a peer pressure situation isn't an isolated event that you come across in certain circles in life, but that your whole country is exerting that kind of pressure on you, including your family and closest friends. What are your options for getting out from under the pressure? Well, there's conformity on one side, and in Japan at least, suicide and complete isolation on the other. Suicide and isolation are the "shelter".

Now, of course, the overall situation in Japan is not that simple, as life never is. Japanese people are individuals as much as anyone; the amounts of pressure they feel or exert on each other vary, and the ways they choose to cope are numerous. Not everyone who disagrees with the societal peer pressure becomes isolated or suicidal. Not everyone disagrees with the norms of their society. Those who lock themselves away are some who have chosen not to conform. And yet it would seem they have enough hope not to give themselves over to despair and suicide, although there have been cases where in time they did. Pray for these people, they are trapped in a form of hell that we in North America are fortunate to find very strange.

First Time

I got a massage for the first time yesterday, a real, professional one. It hurt, but not real bad. Apparently I was really tight and she was taking it easy on me. I'm not surprised. I've likely built up a lot of tension over the years. It made me sleepy and I slept the afternoon away. But I haven't felt so good in a while.

It looks like spring may finally be coming to this lovely city. I declare that with extreme caution.
You just never know around here, not until June, anyway.

I'm reading a book on Japan, which I first borrowed from the library but then quickly went out and bought so I could mark it up and keep it. It is called Shutting out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation. It's fascinating for someone who loves Japan, like me. It's about many things, but I'm still at the beginning where the author writes about the people who lock themselves away, usually in their rooms, and never come out. This guy has interviewed them, and from what he's written I want to meet them my self. I always figured they were mentally ill people and dangerous, but the ones in the book are intelligent, articulate, and very interesting. I guess there is some degree of illness, but not like I think of it. They're not crazy. Anyway, you should read the book.