Japan is well known for her honesty. If you dropped something, chances are it’ll still be there when you return to look for it. I don’t think anyone appreciates this honesty as much as a kendoka (剣道家), a kendo practitioner. In Japan, instead of carrying our kendo gear around everywhere, it is perfectly ok to just leave it in a corner out of everyone’s way. Leave it in a corner, go shopping, have lunch and it’ll still be there when we get back.
Kendo armor doesn’t come cheap. A decent set might cost anywhere between ¥50,000 and ¥60,000. Anything more than decent, the sky’s the limit. To me, Kendo armor is a very personal piece of equipment; that’s because we sweat half our body mass into it.
Although I can’t imagine anyone wanting to use someone else’s sweat doused kendo armor, I’m sure if we left our stuff unattended anywhere else in the world, it’ll be gone in 2 seconds… maybe even 1.
I used to practice Kendo everyday when I was in Sydney. I was quite active within the UNSW Kendo Club. We had many club activities. Competitions, training trips, paintball, beer etc. The Force was strong in our club. We won many competitions. I left my medals in Malaysia before I came to Japan. Hope they are still around. ^^.
When he was around, Futoshi was our club ace. He’s back in Japan now. Last I heard, he was doing pretty well in the coast guard. He loves the sea.
This photo was taken during our Melbourne training trip. I’m somewhere in there. ^^. We visited every Kendo dojo and trained with everyone there. It was a great experience. I carried my bogu and shinai everywhere I went. Never left my sight even for a second.
Do you Kendo?
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wow thats amazing. I really appreciate the honesty of japanese people, as evident in the cleanly kept environment all around tokyo, even for such a highly populated area.
i can’t help but ask how can a kendo enthusiast just leave his/her gear out there unattended?
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i had a kendo class back in collage! ^^ I agree about the honesty. Cannot do it in my country, I took my eyes off my motorcycle for 5 minutes once, then it’s GONE!!
nico´s last blog ..Tokens of Affection
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I completely agree. In the US, that gear would be gone in seconds. If not, someone would call the police and the bomb squad would come out to take a look at it. Japan is totally different.
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k Reply:
January 23rd, 2010 at 10:52 am
I don’t want to see Japan going down the same path as the US in this aspect. Hope people will continue to respect and not start abusing Japanese honesty.
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Don’t do kendo, but have thought about it loads of times. Would love to try it out sometime:)
Morten´s last blog ..Done with exams!
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I don’t kendo, but my brother was the president of the Harvard kendo team. Seems like a lot of fun but I never had the opportunity to try it.
Protocol Snow´s last blog ..Las Vegas 2009 trip – Photo wrapup
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k Reply:
January 23rd, 2010 at 10:38 am
President of the Harvard Kendo team?! wow!
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intending to pick it back up when uni starts ^^!
bk201´s last blog ..Colour Change
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k Reply:
January 23rd, 2010 at 10:35 am
Which uni will you be at?
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My parents tried to get me into kendo when I was a kid–my uncle is a hachidan hanshi–but it wasn’t quite my thing. Now that I’m older I’d consider doing it…
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k Reply:
January 24th, 2010 at 11:47 am
hachidan hanshi! he’s practically a kendo god!
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Kyle M. Reply:
January 26th, 2010 at 4:41 am
I had no idea about his rank in the kendo world for decades. I’d see him a few times a year and we’d talk, and I knew he was really into kendo, but he never talked rank.
Anyway, enjoying your blog very much. My wife and I were in Japan for three weeks in October, riding the rails, and I wish I was there now. Reading blogs like yours eases those pangs of longing just a little bit.
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I stuffed up my ankle somewhat bad a while back playing sports and when I tried to do Kendo at Uni it aggrivated it :< making me have to quit, but I agree, in Adelaide I would never leave my Bogu/Shinai alone or even farther than 5 meters from me (when I was not in the dojo that is) XD.
The honesty in the Japanese culture, I think, is one of the things that makes Japan more alluring than other countries (Such as the USA) for me.
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