Mixing, but not chaotic

Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city.
The first thing I felt upon arriving was a strange sensation: 'It's a big city, yet it's not noisy.'

At cafe and bar terraces, people are slowly enjoying conversations with friends. On the streets, a Christmas atmosphere is beginning to drift, and trains and trams come and go.
There is movement, yet the air feels somehow relaxed.
There is none of the impatience or pressure typical of a city.

And here, people of various nationalities and cultures live together.

The cafe staff, the people passing by at the station, the supermarket cashier.
Their features, skin colors, and the languages I hear are all different.
Even so, it functions as a single society.

One might imagine that a 'large city with many ethnicities' would be noisy or prone to conflict.
However, that was not the case in Melbourne.

Of course, I only stayed for four days. There are parts I haven't seen.

Still, in terms of the atmosphere, there was definitely a sense of 'peace and harmony.'

Perhaps problems don't arise because nationalities or cultures are different,
but because we don't know how to handle those differences.

Even if languages are different, even if customs are different,
if there is just one thing in common, a city can blend together.

That 'one thing' might be rules.
It might be respect.
Or perhaps it is the 'room to enjoy differences.'

In Japan, too, we sometimes hear voices saying, 'Foreigners have bad manners' or 'They are noisy.'
But is that really because they are 'foreigners'?

The habit of speaking in terms of nationality rather than individual differences.
The attitude of trying to draw strong boundaries.
I felt that the real problem is hidden there.

Melbourne might not be perfect.
But instead of saying 'It's no good because it's different,'
it had the attitude of 'This city is interesting precisely because it is different.'
It had that kind of room to breathe.

Perhaps the social issues and friction we have now are not things that 'cannot be done,'
but simply things where we 'don't know how to do them yet.'
What do you think?

When you encounter differences in culture or values,

isn't a world where we 'approach to understand' more interesting than one where we 'keep our distance'?