By Tatsuya Hidano, junior

When I look up at the Wichita sky, I stand in awe of its size. It makes my everyday commute rather a pleasant experience.

Also, this vast openness seems to affect what people here are like — relaxed and kind.

In fact, even two years after I arrived in Wichita, where time feels extremely slow and where people are so friendly that they actually stop to greet one another, life here still feels foreign to me.

Growing up and living frantically at a fast pace—not by choice—in Yokohama, a suburban city near Tokyo, such an easy-going lifestyle used to be almost unimaginable.

And we are experts on cramming everything into a tiny space.

The Japanese, a population of more than 127 million people, build structures right next to one another, usually five stories or higher, on land about the size of California.

The epitome of lack of space is Tokyo, the world’s most expensive place to live. More than 12 million people live or commute there for work, and this means not much open space.

It is hard to walk around without bumping into other people, and we hardly say, “Excuse me.”

One of many condensed districts in Tokyo, Shibuya, is known for its high volume street crossing. We march in like worker ants

Unlike most Wichitans who prefer driving a car to riding  public transportation, many clear-minded people there do not associate the morning commute with driving, unless they drive for a living.

Traffic is excruciatingly long, freeways are all toll roads, and parking space is expensive and mostly unavailable. So we just take a commuter train.

The Japanese train system is inexpensive to use daily compared to owning and maintaining a car, and it is so well developed that trains usually arrive and leave on time at a five-minute cycle during the rush hour.

But even then you still fight for your standing spot because the number of train commuters exceeds the capacity of trains running. Some people work part-time as a pusher who pushes commuters into a train, so that the train can leave as scheduled.

By the time we make it to work, fatigue fills our minds and bodies. But we still have to live up to our work standard.

Our norm in the work environment may be considered abnormal anywhere else.

Like most Americans, most Japanese work eight hours a day, or at least we are supposed to work only that much. But we usually come to work 30 minutes early with no compensation and work well past business hours. Sometimes we work until the next morning, after which we still have to work just as much and just as hard.

A 2007 poll done in Japan shows over 85 percent of professionals regularly work overtime. Its length widely varied depending on a profession and ranged from up to over 100 hours per month. It is surprising to me it’s only up to 100 hours per month according to the poll. All the people I used to work with or I knew worked way more than that.

Actually my personal record beats this range: 240 overtime hours in a month.

After a long day of hard work, we grab Sake or beer at a convenience store to finish the day, although we still need to catch a train home. Drinking alcohol is not limited to designated places there, so we chuckle as we approach a nearby train station. The last train departs at 1 a.m.

There we cram our sleep on the train, usually seated but sometimes standing. Some occasionally choose to crash on the floor. As long as the sleepers on the floor are snoring soundly, we just ignore them and focus on quickly resting before going home to bed a few hours before sunrise.

Now under the Wichita sky, it feels strange to think about all I went through back home until a couple years ago.