To see Japan—simply Japan—as it is in the 21st century, with its qualities, its flaws, its vastly different cultures, its multifaceted people, and its regions that have nothing in common with one another, one must get lost in Japan, and one must necessarily get lost alone. I feel a little sorry to write this because among those reading these lines, there are people who have been to or will go to Japan as a couple, with family, or with friends, and what I am writing may certainly disappoint them. I ask for their forgiveness, and I will elaborate on my point of view, better explaining what I mean.

I do not claim in any way to know better than anyone else what Japan is today. Needless to say, the brilliant writers who have written about Japan, the non-Japanese people who live in Japan, and many travelers who have tamed this country are far more knowledgeable about Japan than I am. However, since 2018, I have spent a lot of time in Japan, and I have always traveled alone.

Apart from France, there is no other country where I have traveled so often and for so long, and above all, where I have traveled alone without ever truly being alone. In fact, I have more often felt truly alone in my own country, as I have never really felt I belonged there. Japan is a form of therapy, an ode to escape, to quote Henri Laborit, which I hope one day to make permanent.

Traveling alone from the start has allowed me to connect with this country in a truly unique way. Not to mention that strange and mysterious feeling that gripped me from the moment I arrived in Tokyo—the feeling of returning home after a very long absence. My Japanese friends call it the hidden memory of a past life in Japan.

In Japan, I travel alone, but I never feel alone, and this has been true since the very first day—May 29, 2018—the day of my second birth in the same life. That day, everything changed. I changed. I discovered a path I had never sought before finding it in Japan. I love chance; it lies at the heart of the fleeting Japanese encounters I cherish so much, but I cannot bring myself to think that I came to Japan by chance. I did not come to Japan; I returned to Japan—a country that had been calling me with its small, timid voice for years without me truly hearing it, and that whispered お帰り久しぶり when I arrived.

お帰り久しぶり
Okaeri hisashiburi – welcome home, it’s been a long time.

From the very first day, I understood that traveling alone in Japan is the best way to get closer to the people who live there, to set foot, even just a little, on “the closest inhabited planet to Earth,” as the French journalist Robert Guillain so beautifully described Japan. Otherwise, it is almost impossible to see Japan and the Japanese people in any way other than through a distorting lens—often one created by the Japanese themselves, for that matter—because it is extremely difficult not to be seen as a tourist.

At the table behind me, in the beer bar where I am writing, there are two Americans speaking in English. They are not tourists; they work in Japan and speak Japanese very well when addressing the server. I hear the younger one say to his much older colleague: “I love this country, and I can’t stand going back to the United States anymore, but I’ve been living here for 20 years, and I still can’t understand who the Japanese really are.”

His remark resonates with me, and I agree with him. I know it—it is almost impossible for a Westerner to truly understand what it means to be Japanese because the social structure, education, and culture itself are based on elements entirely different from those of Judeo-Christian Western societies. I have never read a book about Japan that does not highlight this in one way or another, and it is the first thing one must understand about Japan. Without accepting this premise, relationships with Japanese people—whether friendships, love, or anything else—are extremely complicated, if not impossible. And even knowing and accepting it, as I try to do, most relationships remain, in many ways, mysterious.

Man is undoubtedly a social animal, but on this planet close to Earth that is Japan, society is made up of solitary individuals who live together. A friend of mine who lives in Japan once told me: “The Japanese are the loneliest people in the world.” Solitary individuals living in a society where the individual is worth little—if anything at all—within a social structure where each person’s place is precisely defined, a product of Japanese education from an early age. Westerners struggle to grasp this because their entire education today is based on the notion of individual freedom.

I do not claim to hold any universal truth, and it is perfectly legitimate to disagree with what I am saying. But this is a powerful feeling I experience when I am in Japan—a strong paradox in which, in this country of solitary people, I am never alone.

Perhaps I am lying, perhaps I am making all of this up, perhaps this text is just a fiction born from my troubled mind. Perhaps I do not exist. Perhaps you are only dreaming that I exist. Perhaps Japan never even existed at all.

It does not matter whether this chronicle is fiction or reality, whether it is written and read or simply dreamed. What matters is that, just like in quantum physics—where the world exists only when measured—Japan exists for me when I write and for you when you read.

You are reading the story of a solitary man who discovered the land of solitaries, where he meets people every day, and it is not a paradox. Solitaries are meant to meet but not to live together; often, these are encounters for a day or an evening, with no hope for tomorrow. The one who is paradoxical in this story is me, and that makes sense since I am the one writing the story. I am paradoxical because I keep returning to the same places in Japan to try to see the same people while also meeting new solitaries every day. This intrigues the Japanese.

The majority of Japanese people I have met and spent good times with, I have never seen again, even if we often stay in touch through messages. Encounters are, by nature, fleeting because the Japanese are solitaries, and I have grown used to it—I like it—I am like them.

When I meet someone in Japan, I know that the most likely scenario is that we will never see each other again. That is the nature of travel encounters, and it is even more true in this country. One should not take offense; Japan is the land of the ephemeral, and that suits me, even if I am not truly capable of understanding what it means for the Japanese. From my point of view, solitude is a form of freedom.

Of course, when traveling in Japan as a couple, with family, or with friends, it is very difficult to have these brief encounters unless one leaves the other—the others—to become a solitary traveler, even if only for a few hours. But very few people do this because the barrier of language, culture, and what Japan represents as a unique entity in the world is too vast, too insurmountable. To experience this, one must be alone and accept being alone. Solitaries speak to solitaries—it is an unwritten rule that proves itself in travel.

On the other hand, as my friend Takashi has taught me and constantly encourages me to do, one should never hesitate to ask a Japanese person a question, even in English. One must always keep in mind that Japan is a country where people are kind, polite, helpful, and always willing to assist. If you ask a question, they will do everything to help you; if you talk to them, they will be delighted. One should not be deterred by faces that may seem closed off—it is just shyness. Smile, and Japan will open up to you.

I, who had found it so difficult to smile for so long, smile all the time in Japan. Because I feel good, I am happy, but also because it is the key to all encounters, brief or not. This is why one should travel alone in Japan, be a solitary traveler, to be able to meet people and discover a Japan that many tourists will never see—a Japan beyond the stereotypes.