Japanese Fernweh
False memories? Obsessive hope? Reincarnation? New Series: INDEX
Do you know this feeling? Places are calling for you. They urge you to visit them. And when you enter these terrains, you feel at home. As if you came back after the long exhausting journey.
Some call it false memories. Some speak about reincarnation. Some explain it just by over-enthusiastic interest, becoming a mania, empathic feedback, like Déjà vu works. I don’t care about esoteric stuff; I also don’t need a scientific explanation.
I just love Japan.
And after several visits, I discovered a place where I know and feel every street, every stone, every pine tree: Kyoto.
Temple Kiyomizu-dera (清水寺).
Heian period.
I can stay on the terrace of the temple for hours, indulging in reminiscences I never had. Call it imagination.
But I also can roam around Japanese streets with eclectic architecture, full of light and music. And I feel home. Back to the roots.
I know other people who are in a similar way emotionally bound to some location on our small planet. Where they have never been. But this where, oh they do adore, yes they do.
In German, there is a word Fernweh. It describes precisely the feeling of longing after distant places, as opposite to Heimweh (= longing for home).
In my new series, I want to share with you Japan. My Japan. Far from sightseeing tours. Far from ridiculous ethnic stereotypes. Far from exoticisms (because let’s face a fact: since everything is exotic to somebody on this blue sphere, it doesn’t count anymore).
So, welcome to my Japan.
