Dear friends,

Not the 誠 – Makoto in the flag of Shinsengumi we talk about today, but this 信 – Shin, the trust, the faith and the belief. This kanji is beautiful because it’s a combination of 人 (hito), meaning “person,” and 言 (gen), meaning “word”. The kanji stands for a person who stands by their word. It’s a lovely sentiment as to be seen, but on the surface, it seems to permeate every corner of Japanese society. In Japanese daily life, we trust that the trains will be on time, we trust that the convenience store has exactly what we need, precisely where we expect it, we trust that the lost wallet or the suica card will find its way back to its owner in one piece. But, is that so?

This kind of societal trust is beautiful, I assume? Like a well-oiled machine humming with silent agreement. But you know for the fact that this system is getting old and it might fall, soon. When a single cog slips, the whole thing grinds to a halt. If you live in Japan long enough to know, then you know. Because I know it the hard way.

It’s not the pinkiest glasses or vision as those tourists always say for views in their social flatforms. We do trust the system, the unspoken rules, the societal pressure to maintain harmony. But what happens when that trust is placed in someone, undeserving? It’s the irony that a culture so built on collective trust can be so spectacularly vulnerable to a single act of betrayal. We believe the news, the corporations, the politicians, because we’ve been conditioned to believe that the system is trustworthy. We’ve been taught to trust the mask, the face of order, and never dare to look behind it.

And so as a Vietnamese living in Japan, I sometimes find myself in this hilariously tragic situation: I’ve been bullied in my language school by my Japanese teachers because I’m not Japanese and Japanese is my 3rd language. We have a society that is both a testament to the power of communal trust and a cautionary tale about the dangers of blind faith. That can fool those who never live here. We’re all standing in a line, ready to catch the next person, hoping that everyone can see it clearly without delulu, or being forced to be delulu?

But it’s just my point of views as a foreigner living here. I still love Japan, but I dislike the right wing populist political party when they aim to blame foreigners for their country’s problems. I do pay tax, I do follow the rules, I am after all a nice person who is trying my best to have a better life in a foreign country.