AmyJo posting from Okinawa with help from Boz

Slogans from the "Smoking Room" in the Osaka Kansei airport.

What I love about the Japanese ethos--these were my first sign that I was truly in Japan. These are all anti-smoking slogans, but they read like haiku. Also the emphasis is on cooperation with others, and community, and they say nothing about the individual's health and make no overt moral assumptions about smokers. Check it out:

"Inhaled. Burned. Thrown away.
If it were anything but a cigarette, it would be crying."

"When I looked back I realized
I was colliding with the person behind me
even though we weren't touching."

"A man waiting on a girl. Cigarette butts piled up
around him. It was a common scene in dramas from the Showa era."

"A person was waving at me.
He was waving away my smoke."

"I was passing through a crowd
carrying a flame.
But that's best left to an Olympic runner."

"Poster saying"don't litter with cigarette butts" are like children
scolding adults with paint brushes."

"Where does the smoke go?
Only the person producing it
is unconcerned."

My mom is yelling and watching sumo. Her favorite wrestler just made a good move and she screamed like a football fan. More when I am less jetlagged.
Thinking of you all (but esp Boz).
XOXOXOXO
AmyJo