We have no idea of what lies ahead of us. We don’t speak the language. We don’t know how the terrain will look like. We are perplexed by the seemingly complicated codes for social interaction. But what we lack in knowledge we make up for in enthusiasm. Understanding is overrated anyway, as we learned from Alan Booth:
“The old man had asked me where I lived, and I told him I lived in Tokyo.
“Tokyo is not Japan” he said. “You can’t understand Japan by living in Tokyo.”
“No,” I agreed. “That’s why I’m taking this time off to have a good look at the rest of it.”
“You can’t understand Japan just by looking at it,” the old man said.
“No, not just by looking at it,” I said. “Not by looking at it like tourist might out of a window of a bus, but by walking through the whole length of it.”
“You can’t understand Japan just by walking through it,” the old man said.
“Not just by walking through it,” I argued, “but by talking to all the different people I meet.”
“You can’t understand Japan just by talking ot people,” the old man said.
“How do you suggest I try to understand Japan then?” I asked him.
He seemed a little surprised by the question, and a little hurt, and a little angry.
“You can’t understand Japan,” he said.
—From the book The Roads to Sata
