So you also want to go to Japan

The Japan photos of Swiss writer Adrian Naef depict the everyday life of a traveler. What particularly stands out to us Westerners about Japan? Where does Japan hold up a mirror to our desires, dreams, prejudices, and longings? Is Japan a kind of soul mirror for us visitors? Japan can be anything for us. It invites us non-Japanese to create a country in our own way, whether through a romanticized or disturbing lens. Adrian Naef describes Japan in its daily realities, but also in its secrets, of which the traveler can only catch a fleeting glimpse. The true Japan is still well hidden from the West and has been artfully "packaged," as Naef puts it: a labyrinth "in which every foreigner still gets lost." Nevertheless, Japan is addictive - it beckons for further experiences with people and with a country that raises many questions within us, and from which the answers are hard to extract.