I just flew back from Japan; boy are my arms tired.
If the rest of this post seems to have a lot of presumptions and stereotypes in it, I hope you will view this as an opportunity to educate rather than deride me; that’s why I’m here.
On the flight with me (from Nagoya to Detroit) there was a group of Amish folks. Or at least that’s my presumption: I didn’t have an opportunity to chat them up, but they were wearing what appeared to be traditional Amish clothing (except the two women weren’t wearing bonnets), and three of the four men had classic chin-strap beards (the fourth appeared to be young and so was probably unmarried).
Question: Individual persons will always have their individual motives for whatever they do, but is there some larger general factor about Amish culture that might explain why a group of Amish folks would travel to Japan in the first place?
As parochial and insular as the Amish tend to be, I would not have expected them to go there for a vacation, and AFAIK the Amish don’t engage in missionary work.
There is considerable interest in the Amish on the part of the Japanese. Japanese folks have been known to visit and study Amish communities in the US, but this (Japanese interest in the Amish) doesn’t particularly explain why Amish folks might choose to visit Japan.
There is a Hutterite colony in Japan, but judging by their clothing, my fellow travellers were definitely Amish rather than Hutterite.
Did you ask them? Amish folks are usually friendly.
You said the women weren’t wearing bonnets. Were they wearing something on their head? Headcoverings for women are universal among Amish people iirc.
Also, it’s possible that they were conservative Mennonites rather than Amish.
“Plain folk” do travel - you will sometimes encounter them on (US) east coast trains or at tourist sites. They even go to amusement parks - I saw some at Hersheypark this year.
They were probably Mennonites rather than true Amish. Amish are among the most conservative of the Mennonite sects but there are plenty of others as well. The Amish generally do not travel by airplane at all but it is allowed in some of the other Mennonite sects. However, there is no central authority among the Mennonites so each community makes its own rules. If they were Mennonites, they may have visited Japan just as a vacation or educational opportunity. Many Mennonites travel for the same reasons other people do.
Even among the Amish, properly so called, there’s wide variation in what’s considered acceptable. Some communities would consider it unacceptable to own a motor vehicle, but have no objection to traveling in a vehicle owned by another. Some communities might keep a few practical vehicles for use by the whole community. Some might have no objections to private vehicles at all, so long as the fuel was produced within the community. Each community sets its own rules.
It’s rather easy for someone in the mid-Atlantic US to box Amish and Mennonites together and talk about “them” or “those people”. But the truth is that there are not only different communities with different standards, but individuals and families may have different interests, motivations, and ties. There’s nothing in US law that makes them follow the rules - they follow them to the extent that they are willing to.
It’s quite possible that the people you saw were not tourists but were traveling on business. Maybe they were coming back from signing a deal to sell X bushels of wheat and Y bushels of corn to a Japanese food processor.