TENRYU, Shizuoka Pref. –

In my last column I wrote about change, and staying with that theme, I will here answer a question I am asked often:

"What are some of the changes you've seen during your years in Japan?"

My years in Japan now number 24. Those years seem few indeed next to the 50 years and more of some of my foreign friends and acquaintances, who have lived here since just after the war.

In the past 50 years or so, they've witnessed such important episodes in modern Japanese history as Japanese women being given the right to vote, and full legal equality; they saw first-hand this war-traumatized nation not just change, but transform itself.

Long before I was even really aware there was a Japan to explore and experience, these folks, writers and artists, were not just observing, but documenting, many of the truly momentous changes this country has gone through.

As one of them once said to me: "So you've lived here a couple of decades? Why, you're the new kid on the block."

That's a fact. And I have to admit, many of the changes I've noted fall into the category of the superficial and cosmetic.

In any case, to even comment on change in this country, I have to first qualify everything with the fact that I live so far from where everything is supposed to be happening, who's to say if I know what's really going on? I am not in the fast lane, not in the mainstream, maybe not even on the right track. Where I live nothing changes.

Well, that's an exaggeration; yesterday it was cloudy and rainy, today it is sunny and clear.

Still, to answer the question what changes have I seen, I'd want to list the changes under such headings as: Common-sensical; Trivial; Change I'd Like to See; Change Not Likely to See; Change I Never Believed I Would Live to See; Obvious Change; Change You Don't See but It's Change Nevertheless. These following changes are some of the first that come to mind.

Common-sensical: doctors required to tell patients the names and possible side effects of medicine they prescribe and dispense.

Small change but greatly improves quality of life: more sidewalks.

Change I'd like to see: an honest-to-goodness, serious and determined government-led campaign to educate people, especially young people, about the hazards of tobacco and adverse affects on health of smoking cigarettes.

Change not likely to see: an honest-to-goodness, serious and determined government-led campaign to educate people, especially young people, about the hazards of tobacco and adverse affects on health of smoking cigarettes.

Change I wish had happened when my children were still in school here: five-day school week. Schooling that recognized the importance of educating the individual and that encouraged and nurtured individual talent and ability.

Change I never believed I would live to see: legalization and approval of the birth-control pill.

Change made with great dispatch: approval of a world-renowned blue diamond-shaped pill.

Well, check out this change: so many men who have diagnosed themselves as clinically impotent and are willing to spend over 1,000 yen per above-mentioned pill to correct this perceived dysfunction.

Obvious change: gaijin everywhere; signs in English (and Portuguese); women smoking in public.

Change they should hurry up and implement: Forbid drivers of motor vehicles to let their engines idle. (Of course, idling is the last thing those vehicles are doing, since each one is busy polluting the air.)

Change you don't see but it's change nevertheless: hotter and more humid Japanese summers. (It's not just me. This has got to be a fact!)

Change not likely to happen anytime soon: rational and reasonable prices on consumer goods.

Change we haven't seen yet: a real law against real sexual predators, like the dregs of mankind known as pedophiles, child molesters and child-sex traffickers.

Change that shouldn't have taken this long: a law requiring infants to be in car seats when in cars.

So why not make this change, since that change has been made: a law forbidding toddlers to stand up in the front seat of cars while leaning on the dashboard.

Real change: People actually stare, point and giggle far less when they see foreigners. More Japanese, even here in the rural provinces, who have changed and widened their perspectives and appear much more aware of the world outside of this little island.