Why indeed? What, exactly, am I doing? ….. well….I don’t know. And I guess that is the point of this introductory post – to noodle thru some openings, to put some thought into WHY I am doing this blog, and my associated Youtube channel- Gaijin Steel. First of all, I AM gaijin – I am an American living in the Northern Tohoku region of Japan. I retired early from the Navy a couple of years ago, and I purchased an akiya （空き家 – literally an ’empty house’) up here, with agricultural land, and remodeled it. So….I am a foreigner here – a ‘gaijin’.
Isn’t ‘Gaijin’ a…..slur?
It certainly used to be, though that harshness has mellowed considerably since the Meiji era! It is a term that the Japanese instantly recognize, but rarely use – not out of any ‘uncomfortableness’ at the term in a ‘racist’ kind of way, it just is a bit ‘older’ term and fallen out of fashion. The term in vogue now is ‘外国人- gaikokujin. Used the same way as ‘gaijin’ is now, without the explicit ‘suspicious outsider’ baggage of ‘gaijin’. Ironically, it is foreigners who use ‘gaijin’ most often these days, as a bit of amused self-deprecation. But there is a very deep reason that I chose to use ‘gaijin’ as my site title. One of the hardest things that foreigners often find about living in Japan is that we don’t get the ‘Western’ signals of inclusion that we are used to experiencing as we slide into a community. We often feel like ‘outsiders’. I will write extensively on the illusion, and the reality, of that feeling later! But suffice it to say that, in the ways that are ‘real’, you ARE an outsider – and that does have some friction, but it also gives you tremendous freedom that Japanese people don’t enjoy. Social freedom from expectation that a Japanese native can never shed, in Japan. So embrace being ‘gaijin’ a bit – it isn’t the curse you might think it is! More on this later 😉
What about ‘Steel’?
This one is personal. I grew up in the logging communities and camps of the West Coast. Hills echoing with the sound of large-bore chainsaws, ringing axes, crashing old-growth timber, and the sounds of high-lead logging. Steel was in our tools, our backs, and our bones. I joined the Navy out of college (yes, even timber faller sons go to college!) as a submariner – ‘steely eyed killers of the deep’, HY 100 steel hulls, nuclear powered engine rooms, MK48 adcaps torpedoes and, yes, nerves of ‘steel’. Somewhere in there our family moved to Alaska and what was a casual hobby in the Northwest became a full-blown winter income stream – fur trapping. Lynx, wolves, fox paid for a lot of family logistics in the land of the midnight sun. Running traps in that community is called ‘running steel’. So ‘Steel’, both physically and psychologically, is a core pillar of my entire life.
Yeah, but why ‘Gaijin Steel’?
Heading to the deep end here. We get ‘Gaijin’. We understand ‘Steel’. But put together brings out the central theme of this site – the whole purpose. To UNDERSTAND Northern Japanese culture.
Composite Culture
A Japanese katana is one of the most recognized sword forms in the world – yet….some aren’t aware that the steel for the Japanese katana is traditionally made from vastly inferior ore. Very heavy in sulfur and other critical impurities. The only way the ancients could turn this inferior ore into weapons-grade steel is the folding and forging process, thousands and thousands of folds, that most of us are familiar with. When you break open and inspect a Japanese sword you can see the grain pattern of all those thousands of folds. It isn’t ‘one sword’ – it is a composite of thousands of paper-thin ‘folds’, all working together to accomplish its famed mission of slicing baddies in half. In contrast, Middle Eastern, Turkish, and European swords are made from much purer, cleaner iron ore and DON’T require all that folding and forging to be ‘weapons grade’. That realization, that Japanese swords are a result of composite mastery, is reflected ALL throughout the Japanese culture.
Specialists vs Generalists
Specialists exist everywhere, but Japan has taken that concept to an astonishing resolution. The economic boom of the 80’s had Japanese products flooding the world as ‘the best’. When the West came to Japan to learn how they built electronics, cars, appliances, etc. they were astonished to find that much of the ‘backbone’ of the Japanese industry was tiny little families who built, or assembled, ONE component. They would get a box of parts in the morning, assemble that ONE item all day, then pass the box down the road to the next family. The idea of one factory churning out an entire product was not really done here (with exceptions). Out in the rural hinterlands peasants managed vast acreages of rice-land collectively – no one farmer could even begin to do it ‘alone’. It took a village. Not unlike pre-industrial Europe or the U.S., but on a sophistication developed over 8000 years. In contrast, especially post-industrial revolution, American ‘frontier’ culture values individualism. The American archetype is a Renaissance man, a jack-of-all-trades. He needs no one and everyone comes to him for those ‘hard’ skills. He is a self-contained island, at least in ideal. For most of Japanese culture, this is radically contrasted. There most certainly are areas of ‘individualism’ – some professions, some communities. But the ‘ideal’ is shared. Shared load, shared burden, shared struggle. And yes, shared reward.
So WHY ‘Gaijin Steel’? Because I want to experience what happens when you drop a ‘Gaijin’ blade into a collective of katanas. What will I have to do to be a ‘part’ of this machine? What social skills, what signaling, what humilities, will I have to learn to function here? I am genuinely curious how this culture builds consensus, how it works – and when it doesn’t.
So what is this site? It is a collection of field notes, musings, meditations, and meanderings loosely orbiting my journey into the heart of Northern Tohoku Japanese culture. A slower rhythm than Tokyo or Osaka, a deeper melody than the heat-soaked southern climes of Kyushu or Okinawa. Here, the winter snows still invite quiet meditations, spring rice planting is still done as chonaikai coordinations, the summer heat is endured with Asahi beer and friendly sheens of sweat – not air conditioning, and Fall festivals flow with laughter and sake. Maybe I am ‘gaijin’, maybe I always will be, but I am honored to have a dinner guest seat to a world that is content to know nothing of AI, pop singers, or ‘salaryman’ lifestyles!
