“Japan is not merely a place I visit, it is a quiet love that has lived in my heart for fifty years, where every lantern glows with memory, every temple breathes peace, and every return feels like falling in love all over again.” – MJ Martin
A Return to the Quiet Miracle
Once again, I voyage to the land of my heart – Japan. To those who have yet to experience her, a visit to Tokyo, with her 28 million people, there is a magical serenity to this city unlike any other. It has a calm, patience, that offers a gentle quietness that defies its mass.
Fourteen hours and ten minutes, this is the duration of my scheduled flight from Toronto to Tokyo tomorrow, on Tuesday, February 24th, it is a feeling like being suspended between memory and anticipation.
A comfortable seat, a small window, and a very large feeling.
Half a century since my first encounter with Japan, and yet it feels less like returning to a place and more like returning to a part of myself I once left behind, carefully, reverently, so it could age in silence.
Japan has always felt alive in a way that does not demand attention.
It does not shout.
It does not rush you.
It simply exists with a calm confidence, as if it knows something the rest of the world has forgotten.
I remember a country where kindness was woven into gesture.
Where politeness was not performance, but an everyday life constructed upon consideration, respect, and honour.
Where beauty hid in small corners, in steam rising from bowls, in paper doors sliding open, in the way a train arrives exactly when it says it will.
Fifty years later, yes, I am so much older.
Slower.
Perhaps more capable of noticing.
This time, I do not arrive as a curious youth trying to understand everything.
I arrive as a grateful man hoping to feel everything.
Tokyo still hums like a living organism; glowing and tireless.
Neon reflections shimmer on wet pavement like liquid constellations.
Yet beneath the charge of electricity, there is still a deep and ancient heartbeat.
Shrines tucked between towers.
Lanterns glowing softly beside concrete.
A thousand years of tradition coexisting peacefully with tomorrow morning’s technology.
Where Time Breathes Slowly
Around the villages near Mount Fuji, if I am lucky enough to wander these streets again, they will remind me how time can breathe.
How history is not trapped in museums but walks beside you in wooden shoes.
How silence can be rich.
How restraint can be luxurious.
Japan does not try to impress.
It invites you to pay attention.
There is love in the way food is prepared.
Love in the way packages are wrapped.
Love in the way strangers quietly make space for one another.
It is a culture built on respect for craft, for effort, for intention.
A place where doing something well is considered a form of gratitude toward the world.
Perhaps that is why Japan stays with you.
Not as a postcard.
Not as a checklist.
But as a feeling.
Fifty years ago, I first saw Japan.
Many times in between I have returned to look upon her again. It has been a lifelong love story with a special place, its splendid beauty, and its mysterious people.
After perhaps ten trips to this amazing land of mine, this is likely my last time to travel to my home away from home to see her one final time. I am ever so old now.
This week, I hope to understand her. Just a bit more.
To walk slowly.
To bow often.
To say thank you even when words fail.
Some countries feel like destinations.
Japan feels like a relationship.
And like all meaningful relationships, it grows deeper with time.
I am not chasing nostalgia.
I am meeting an old friend.
And I already know how this reunion will feel.
Quiet.
Gentle.
Familiar.
Like coming home to a place that never stopped waiting.
Below is a video clip that I shot out of the window of one of Japan’s famous Bullet Trains, the Shinkansen (circa 2011). On this business trip, on the southern Kyushu Island, we travelled at 320 kph / 200 mph. While it feels extremely fast, I was in fact sipping a cup of tea in complete calm inside the train. Enjoy the view.
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees, in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 60 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) continuous education in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.