Shibuya - 渋谷 Extrovert? Introvert?

Tokyo has many interesting areas. Each neighbourhood has a story of its own. In this previous blog post I talked about particular countries being introverted or extroverted.

The other day I was in Shibuya. If you have never been to Tokyo, you might be familiar with some photos from that area.

This is the main intersection outside Shibuya Station and believe it or not, this isn't that busy.

Maybe you can get a better indication of the crowds from this photo:

Anyway, the point of my post today is to consider the fact that do all the extroverts of a large city reenergise in these big cities? Are people who live in the countryside all introverts who want to get away from it all?

Those are interesting question, aren't they?

For those of you who live in the sticks or the wop wops (by the way, that isn't a racist term. That is what New Zealanders call the boondocks) a big city like Tokyo could seem overwhelming or just down right dangerous, but believe me when I say that a big city can be very lonely.

I have never lived in a community of only a few hundred people but I can imagine that it would never be lonely because everyone knows everyone (and their business) so there isn't a shortage of people to say hello to. While in a big city, there is just an endless line of emotionless faces (especially on a Monday morning) going to and from here and there.

So it begs the question, does that mean to get away from it all it is better to move to a country area or a city area?

Well, I suppose if you want to get away from people per se, the best thing is to move to a country area but as I said in the country area you are quickly going to become part of the community (whether you like it or not) and that privacy might be difficult to acquire unless you live in a very remote community.

In a large city you are going to be faced with a large number of people around you, but because they don't know your name you can walk around in relative anonymity.

So to go back to the original question, do introverts reside in the country and extroverts reside in the city?

That is a very difficult question to answer and it would take a substantial study and that might be out the bounds of possibility for this blog.

What you can ask yourself though is, why are you where you are now? Is it because you are looking for anonymity or is it some completely different reason?