What comes to mind when you hear the word Mauritius? This island is called the Lady of the Indian Ocean. Many tourists from Europe come to the beach resorts of Mauritius for vacation. When I first heard the word Mauritius I did a search on Google to check where it is and I was surprised to find it was a remote island surrounded by blue ocean! To most Japanese “Mauritius” is an unknown place that no one has heard of and probably very few of them actively make an effort to find out more information.

For example, in Mauritius the bus stops have a sign that says BUS STOP. That’s all. There is no other sign about the name of the bus stop and there is no timetable about arrival schedules. There is also no information about which bus is coming and where the next bus will be going. Of course, there is no electronic sign indicating the time when the next bus will arrive. For me I am always distressed about how to ride the bus in Mauritius, but for Mauritius people this is normal.

If you think about it there is nothing more inefficient than this bus service in Mauritius, but the natives here do not seem to complain about it at all.

Now, I have no desire for bus services in Japan to perform the way Mauritius bus services operate but the Mauritius people are so easy going and relaxed and maybe that is something that the Japanese people can learn from them!

Moreover, in Mauritius if there are no nursing rooms to breast feed babies then there are no baby strollers parked outside any store. There are virtually no facilities that help support parents with children. Having said that there a few situations where a woman with children will feel ashamed. People look upon children with kindness, because this society has great generosity.

There are many things in Mauritius that are lacking discipline and proper organization and many things that are unreliable. However, when you live here, I feel that you don’t have to live such a rigid and structured life. In fact, I think there are many places in the world that are not so disciplined and organized. People in Japan who feel difficulty living in Japan may feel relieved to know that there are some societies in the world that do not conform to strict and onerous rules.

Having lived in Mauritius, if I was to summarize what I want to say about life in Mauritius I would say, “Even this can happen!” As someone who makes a living as a writer, what I would like to convey to the busy and stressful life of people in Japan is that perhaps they should adopt the easy-going Mauritius attitude of “Even this can happen!”