I've been working in Asia these past 2 weeks

[betsuni]

24. Small businesses are great.

Up the street there's a little factory that makes soup broth. I see containers full of animal bones outside. There's a laboratory of some kind, an old dirty workshop where signboards are made, warehouses, a place that makes stone tombstones, lots of businesses like that. Mom-and-pop stores, too, although mom-and-pop are elderly: dry cleaners, barber shop, stationary store, coffee shop, noodle shop, a small convenience store that's now mostly attended to by the middle-aged son of the mom and pop. My favorites are a tiny grocery store with hardly anything on the shelves run by an ancient toothless man, and a grilled pork place without a sign that's only open on weekend afternoons (if the grumpy old guy who does the grilling feels like coming in to work that day, that is).

Also, another thing I love is how, when you go sightseeing like I did yesterday, there are local products you can buy. In a mountain town I bought locally made miso, honey, wood products, charcoal, pickles. My husband's hometown is famous for sweets made from chestnuts. In summer I go nuts at roadside vegetable stands, fill the car with bags of delicious things incredibly cheap. I'm planning a trip to the Noto peninsula soon because I need to stock up on the good sea salt they make there. In very rural areas like the peninsula, yes, there are lots of abandoned buildings, shrinking populations, not many job opportunities. But no drug epidemic. It's a complicated situation, but I wonder why Americans lost ... I don't know, they lost something. Some kind of cultural poverty.