As I wrote in the about page, Nagoya is a peculiar city. It is often overlooked despite its vital role as an industrial center in Japan. It is often bypassed by tourists despite boasting a lot of interesting sites and unique cuisines.
Perhaps no one articulated Nagoya's paradoxical nature more clearly than Haruki Murakami in his 2013 novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki. In this post, I want to explore his description on Nagoya and give my thoughts.
All born and raised in Nagoya, Tsukuru Tazaki and his friends (nicknamed, Red, Blue, Black and White) spent their whole time at high school together as best friends. After high school, his friends stayed in Nagoya but only Tsukuru decided to leave the city he grew up in and go to university in Tokyo. During Tsukuru's second year at university, his friends suddenly and collectively decided to end their friendship with him. 16 years later, he decided to meet each of them to find out what happened.
Spending all your school years and work life in Nagoya..It's like Conan Doyle's “The Lost World."
Nagoya is of course a big city, but when it comes to the cultural aspects, you can't deny the impression that it's a small regional city compared to Tokyo. However, they deliberately chose to stay in Nagoya, lowering the level of the universities they went to.
I don’t think I regret staying in Nagoya.…Nagoya is a place where local connections matter. …There is such a strong network in Nagoya's industrial world.…But that's only relevant here, not in Tokyo. You think so, don't you?
I think there were practical reasons why the four of us decided to stay here. We chose to stay in the comfort zone.
Murakami also left comments on Nagoya on other occasions.
After all, there is a Nagoya Standard, and when you are born in Nagoya, grow up in your parents' home, and settle down in Nagoya, you feel very comfortable. You live comfortably within the Nagoya Standard. Of course, in the modern world with an easy access to information, they naturally compare the Nagoya Standard with the standards outside of Nagoya, but it is confusing them. It's in the details. I think that's what makes Nagoya so interesting.
What's so boring about Japan these days is that no matter which city you go to, there are the same shops, the same things are trendy, and all young people dress the same way. In that sense, Nagoya is different and unique. For example, I don't think people in Nagoya know that miso cutlet is not spread in other parts of Japan.
If these descriptions sound familiar to you, you are right. After all, in my opinion, Nagoya is to Japan as Japan is to the rest of the world. It is unique. It is strange. It has a different standard from outside world. It is frustrating. But overall, the people inside feel comfortable.
I think my affinity for Nagoya is similar to foreigners who come to Japan and end up staying here for a long time with a love and hate relationship. I find this place a bit strange, but I love Nagoya because of it.