Eastern Journeys: From Japan to the Edge of the World

Abstract

In the decades of the cold war, our world stopped at the Iron Curtain. What happened behind it remained a mystery. But to the east of the communist empire lay Japan. And Japanese companies like Toyota were conquering the world. I decided to go to Japan, where I learned that a society can organize itself in a completely different way than in the West. Learning that fact did not come without a very unpleasant surprise, however. Later we wanted to push further to the edge of the world. What we experienced in Papua New Guinea was beyond our imagination. Thanks to my uncle, who was a missionary there for decades, we came closer to the native culture than one could ever get as a tourist.