Rice Field Blues (pronounced brues)

How America makes the rice fields blue.

"We humans are becoming the drivers of the climate system, and we are doing so without knowing where we are going."
-Elizabeth Kolbert

The repercussions of global warming are irrevocable. Further, once under way, they swiftly gain force through various feedback cycles, therefore accelerating their rates of irreversible destruction. Although it is too late to undo the negative effects of warming we are already experiencing -- melting ice caps, disruption of climate-embedded food chains, etc. -- there is good news: we can still mitigate its repercussions.

However, many modern nations have persisted in ignoring this urgent scientific knowledge. For example, my motherland, the United States, continues to produce approximately 25% of the entire world's CO2 emissions. Imagine that: the U.S. significantly out-CO2-pollutes China -- responsible for a trifling 14.5 % -- even though China outpopulates the U.S. by over a billion people, and shows notoriously little regard for CO2 emission regulation.

Although I have never shied away from vocal expressions of my disgust with America's obscene pollution culture, ever since I moved to Japan, a country that boasts a uniquely progressive environmental policy, my actions and behavior have vividly contradicted my political commitments.

You see, growing up in America, I have become so used to all of the cultural signs celebrated by a society that willingly ignores its pollution problems -- trash everywhere, smog and parking lots littered with SUVs and Hummers -- that my initial impressions of Japan's commitement to energy conservation were overwhelmed by feelings of shock and alienation.

Frightening as it is to admit, I allowed my aesthetic and lifestyle-based cultural prejudices to undermine my political and ethical investments in the importance of CO2 emission regulation and of pollution control.

Though I do not deem it urgently relevant to harp on the specific examples of my hypocrisy, a brief list of the aspects of Japanese culture to which I initially reacted negatively, but have now come to appreciate, would include:

1) Small Cars. I focused on how spatially uncomfortable the automobiles here are for gaijin of, shall we say, Western physiques, exaggerating and misinterpreting their significance as signs of Japanese cultural insularity.

These days, I feel dedicated to embracing both the fuel efficiency and spatial practicality of the compact automobile. Yes, it has been an emotionally-charged effort. Yet, I believe, an important one.

2) Lack of trash cans -- or "rubbish bins" as my British/Aussie/South African mates say -- in public spaces: I regret concentrating on how the scarcity of public bins creates daily inconveniences for me. You see, in New York, I grew accustomed to finding trash cans (usually several) on the corner of every block -- and a piece of litter atop every plot of cobblestone.

One might deduce that a scarcity of public bins would increase the amount of trash on the sidewalk. However, if in Japan there are no litter and no bins, and in New York there are a veritable wealth of litter and many bins, an inverse correlation between trash and litter emerges.

You see, Japanese citizens feel distinctly responsible not only for organizing their private spaces, but for respecting the upkeep of their public spaces as well. In other words, if a Japanese person is eating a bag of crisps on the sidewalk and, when done, fails to find a bin in which to dispose the empty bag, said Japanese person will take responsibility for holding on to the empty crisp package until finding a bin -- even if that does not happen until s/he arrives home.

In New York, on the other hand, regardless of the public availability of trash cans, there is a 99% chance that crisp bag would have ended up on the curb anyway. Basically, were the crisp eater not directly in front of a trash can at the exact instant of first desiring to be relieved of her/his refuse, the bag would be littered and dropped onto the sidewalk.

Concisley, despite my culturally-conditioned desires to circumvent personal inconvenience regarding trash disposal, I now take pride in toting about my empty snack containers because I understand that doing so benefits the aesthetic and sanitary status of the entire community. How often in life does one get to enjoy feeling noble by doing something as simple as taking responsibility for an empty candy wrapper for a few extra hours?

3) The Sangi Line: this is a slightly more obscure issue. My local train line goes by the name of Sangi. It is an out of the way means of transport that runs infrequently, ends service early and takes thirty minutes just to connect me to a more central train station -- not itself a location where I would desire to be for any other reason. However, these, my initial sentiments, which I have allowed to color my views of Sangi for far too long, reluctantly withdraw in the face of more reasonable evaluations.

You see, I live in an adequately rural environment -- rice paddies outnumber shops in my town by about 30:1. Inabe is perhaps the geographical equivalent of a smallish suburb in Nebreska. However, if I lived in that remote Nebreskan suburb, would taking the train into town even be an option? No, it would not. Rather, I would be forced to invest in an expensive, teetotaling-inducing and pollution-producing automobile.

Yes, I complain about how Inabe is rural and how few exciting attractions intersect with my Sangi train's destinations. However, I fail to acknowledge how lucky I am to live in a society that even takes pains -- extensive and well-coordinated ones at that -- to produce a train service in such a rural climate.

Thank you, Japan! I know I do not give you enough credit, but I want you to know that I do appreciate your thoughtful efforts to make rural life more convenient -- and less destructive to the environment.

4) Central Heating. Simply put, Japan does not believe in central heating. Structured in accordance with the rest of its fuel efficiency efforts, Japan, unlike America, lives under the notion that a brisk winter's stroll through the corridor -- which itself lasts about two seconds before linking from one sufficienty heated individual space to another -- is neither a devestating atrocity, nor terribly invconvenient, really. Although shocking to my uniquely pampered, New York-cultivated central heating dependencies, such strategies save money and conserve vast amounts of energy. And dammit, they build character!

The next time I shiver a bit en route from heated staff office to heated classroom, I will try to resist losing absolutely all sight of proportion, which I do by insisting to myself that a piddling thirty extra seconds of warmth is indeed worth excessive amounts of energy waste and pollution.

Further, soon my frivolous American addiction to central heating will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

5) Rice. Yes, this issue represents a uniquely focused site of my anti-Japan sentiments. Even the title of my recurring 2nd Law blog segment laments Japan's committed rice culture. However, to return to my original point about global warming, I have recently discovered that my exaggerated and irrational aversion to all things ricey simply culminates a theme of hypocrisy regarding my attitude toward Japanese culture.

Several days ago, whilst perusing the Internet, I happed upon an article about a study conducted by Nagoya University and the National Institute for Environmental Studies that outlines the significant and imminent repercussions of global warming -- many of which are already under way -- for Japanese society. The study reports:

"Global warming will seriously affect agriculture. In Japan, the impact of global warming is already being seen in the production of rice, the country's stable food...Rice harvests...are likely to decrease in [many] regions. It is also possible that global warming will trigger frequent natural disasters, including accelerated activity of weeds and harmful insects, allowing harmful insects from the tropical and subtropical zones to spread to the temperate zone and damage harvests."

Yet, one might ponder, why does Japan take such rigorously painstaking measures to regulate its own CO2 emissions, if the effects of irresponsible countries', like the U.S.'s, Russia's and China's, will disrupt its food production climate and economy, in spite of its own conservation efforts?

Following with the Japanese lifestyle routine of taking care of one's own trash, even if not a bin is to be found for miles and miles, it would never occur to a Japanese society vindictively to create more world pollution just because other countries do so anyway. The Japanese ethic compels its citizens to take responsibility not just for themselves, but for their community at large. One Japanese (wo)man's burden is everyone's. Although, from my limited and selectively focused gaijin perspective, the evidence of this J-ethos primarily manifests itself on a national scale -- which is largely due to Japan's literal geographical isolation -- its attitude of consideration towards its own people embeds even its global environmental policy.

In other words, while Japan suffers as a result of other nations' disregard for environmental ethics, it persists in its noble conservation efforts. Japan does not indulge in a conveniently dubious pollution culture -- despite the many immediately satisfying lifestyle options produced by such cultures. Japan denies itself excessive energy consumption because it is satisfied to mitigate, even if just a bit, the devestating destruction that other cultures' hedonism shall surely wreak upon the globe.

Further, one of the most visible examples of Japan's role as environmental whipping boy points back to its rice industry: oddly, my chief complaint about the national culture here. Rice supports Japan's economy, creates a basis for its labor networks and feeds its people. Yes, as a bourgeois urban American, I prefer overpriced cafe bread -- or baguette, if you will. However, I think I at last see the relevance of overcoming my silly and rather arbitrary, yet thoroughly all-consuming, negative attitude towards Japanese white rice.

As a starting point, I will even admit how much I enjoy white rice when sandwiched between seaweed and a bit of tasty mayo-smothered tuna. Moreover, if it wasn't for white rice, my community would be constituted by heaps of empty plots of fallow land. Call me a philistine, but I far prefer the aesthetics of fertile rice paddies.

Finally, if the message is not clear already, I hereby acknowledge that when I complain about Japan, or indulge in less than positive attitudes regarding the national culture, it is only a sign of my emotional rigidity in adapting from an urban Western lifestyle to a rural Eastern one. However, I have been living in Inabe, Japan for over 6 months now, and it is high time to move forward, and to cease dwelling on subjective -- and rather ethically dubious, on a global scale -- cultural prejudices.

Japan, I, Margaret DeKoven Hennefeld, sincerely apologize for my disgraceful behavior. Now, can you find it in your heart to forgive me?