Do the Japanese really love nature more than all other people ?

[sabro]

I see more tour groups and busses up here in these mountains, at Yosemite and at the Grand Canyon than from any other foreign country. Perhaps it is just because the Japanese tourists prefer to go on group tours here, but in California, there seem to be no shortage of Japanese that do seem to love nature.

My mother's family... who are Japanese, seem to have a deep and abiding respect and appreciation for nature. We often went fishing, camping, hiking and backpacking. I spent countless weekends in the mountains, at the beach and in the dessert and slept under the stars in wilderness areas for weeks at a time. I don't know if this reflected a "Japanese" value, but it was a value that my Japanese family passed down to me.

[Maciamo]

I see more tour groups and busses up here in these mountains, at Yosemite and at the Grand Canyon than from any other foreign country. Perhaps it is just because the Japanese tourists prefer to go on group tours here, but in California, there seem to be no shortage of Japanese that do seem to love nature.

You may be right about the Japanese liking bus tours more than average. On the other hand I very rarely see Japanese tourists in the countryside in Europe; they tend to stick to the cities, especially the big and famous ones (London, Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Milano, Firenze, Roma and Napoli are probably the most popular).

The only exceptions might be the Cotswolds and the Lake District in England... France has plenty of great regions for nature : the Ardeche, Auvergne, Cevennes, Provence, Jura, Alps, Pyrenees, Perigord... These regions are packed with European tourists in summer, and yet Japanese tourists are extremely rare there. Go to the Galeries Lafayette in Paris or shopping streets of Milano and all you will see is long queues of Japanese women waiting to buy Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Prada bags... My impression from that is that Japanese women prefer a dead animal's skin than a live one.

Another reason to believe that the modern Japanese don't care much about animals is that vegetarianism is almost unheard of in Japan (apart from a few Buddhist priests, esp. around Kyoto). In some European countries (UK, Belgium, Germany...) it has become so popular that it any self-respected restaurant has a vegetarian menu.