The Slow Life, Japanese Stye!

"Similarly, Kakegawa City in Shizuoka Prefecture declared itself a “Slow Life City” in December 2002, joining more than 60 such metropolises around the world, a number that promises to grow. "

I am reading an article about a woman named Watanbe, manager of a slow life restaurant in Tokyo whose bucking the Japanese tradition of a rushed, workaholic lifestyle. The Japanese put their faith in constant consumption and constant exertion and that mindset has improved thier material lives according to this journalist. But some people and even whole cities (including the one I am living in now) have tried to turn the tides and to express that "slow" and "lazy" are not synomous.

This subject is close to my heart. I have lived my life anxious about free time. as I've mentioned before, I read in the john, afraid to waste the minute it takes to do business. I believed that slow and lazy were the same thing. Funny huh, that I would find such insight once coming to the land of "Ganbare!" (an common exclaimation meaning to work harder).