Ex-Pat Pied Piper and the Economy

A bamboo shakuhachi

I know that we need food and we need shelter. I love a good movie, a good book, some music, a nice plate to serve dinner on, a great table to sit at, and a handy gadget that helps me clean up after. But am I less happy without those things? Does my happiness, and the happiness of everyone else, rely on me buying all that stuff, or if I don’t have the money, to buy it on credit?

It takes a decade to learn to make a good flute out of a piece of bamboo. It takes a decade to learn to play that flute. It can take just as long to learn to write a novel, and it could take just as long to read one. One professor I had said we can never read great novels, we can only re-read them. Appreciation requires repetition. Is the third reading of a book still consumption, or have we become dead weight at that point?

A guest post by Sean Sakamoto at No Impact Man explores the effects of material goods (and lack thereof) in his life as he moved to Japan.  He argues against the mentality that consuming breeds a good economy while thrifting only ruins it.

When I studied abroad in Osaka, I heard many other students exclaim that despite Japan being so full of consumerism and material goods, most of their Japanese friends do not actually have a lot of stuff.  Every time I go back to Japan, I feel like I should purge my room and leave only a small bookcase filled with things.  Compared to the miniscule rooms of my cousins, my room seems almost extravagant.  (And that is nothing to say of Roy’s room, which is actually an entire basement!)

This article raises some interesting points regarding consumerism’s impact on the economy, one’s life and the environment.  But what most stood out to me was that this came from a person who – much like the No Impact Man himself – chose to discard materialism for a simpler life, but did so in another country.

Sakamoto’s account is interesting to me because so often do I see Japanese wives being the ones relocating overseas (as was the case for my mom) and not the other way around.  I appreciate stories like these because it shows that despite all the bigots and racists and ignoramuses, there exists those who are willing to embrace cultures that are not their own.* I think many people take for granted all the ex-pats in America who left their lives (and sometimes families) behind in other countries in order to better the quality of life for themselves.

*I am not positive but it is my understanding that despite the last name, Sakamoto is not Japanese.  Perhaps he took his wife’s name?

Via No Impact Man.