New People...

I wrote a fairly long reply to a comment on one of my YouTube videos, so I thought I'd put that in here as well.  The comment I received was this: "I wonder how different I'd find Tokyo after so long. I left in December 1992."

Time and change are something I'm often thinking about, so this is something I could go on and on about, but for now, here's my short (or long, depending on your point of view) reply:  "Thinking of this question, I immediately recall an experience of mine one evening in Shibuya.  Back in the 1990-93 period when I was taking analog video, I used to go to and/or through Shibuya at least once a week, but then my schedule and work changed and there was a period of many years where I didn't go there at all (more than a decade maybe?).  Then one day I was feeling nostalgic for the place, so I went back for a look.  I arrived one evening and joined the sidewalk crowds of young people and just as I was expecting to feel "Just like the old days!" an uncomfortable feeling crept up on me, so I focused on and tuned into my surroundings to figure out what it was.  Basically, this is what I thought/perceived/realized while walking down that sidewalk: 'Why do I feel uncomfortable?  Why does this feel so different?  Things look pretty much the same... it's pretty much the same young crowd on the sidewalk... !!!!!  Wait!  No!  It isn't the same young crowd!  It's the children of the young crowd I used to walk among!  No wonder it feels different!  It's a completely new group of people!  The people I walked here with before are out there somewhere, but they're doing different things and no longer dating in Shibuya....  These people I'm walking with now were not on planet earth back then!  No wonder if feels different!  Different people!'"

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
youtube.com/lylehsaxon
lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/
lookback1997.blogspot.jp/

tokyoht.blogspot.jp/