Similar? Japan and Nepal

The majority of Japanese people practice Shinto and Buddhism, whereas in Nepal, the dominant faiths are Hinduism and Buddhism. The two countries are separated by a straight-line distance of approximately 5,150 kilometers—a journey involving connecting flights that takes about 14 hours. Yet, upon arriving in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, I felt a surprising sense of familiarity.
Temples dot the town, the streets are dusty and littered with trash, and the air is filled with the din of car horns. While the sight of vendors selling vegetables and clothing by the roadside differs vastly from the Japanese landscape, the atmosphere evokes a nostalgic comfort—a feeling that perhaps this is what Japan was like in the past.
Regarding religion, while I could never quite bring myself to accept rituals involving animal sacrifice, the concept of a multitude of deities is shared by both nations; in Nepal, just as in Japan, people worship objects like stones or holes in the ground as manifestations of the divine. During festivals, respectful individuals lift the ropes used to pull deity floats rather than stepping over them, and cloths are laid in the center of the street to create a sacred path for the gods—a practice where people avoid stepping across the path, mirroring the concept of the seichūsen (sacred central line) at Shinto shrines. It all felt completely natural to me.
During my time in Nepal, I would spend my mornings making rounds to offer prayers to Hindu deities, even though I am not a Hindu myself. I simply respect the divine across different faiths; furthermore, some deities share common roots between Japan and Nepal despite having different names. They feel approachable to the Japanese, and as long as one treats them with reverence, there is little risk of causing offense.
The Kumari—a living goddess embodying a virgin deity—likely feels familiar to the Japanese as well. In Japan, too, there are customs where children—particularly young girls—serve the gods, act as temporary vessels for the divine, or possess special powers. While the specific meanings may differ, the Japanese saying “until age seven, a child belongs to the gods" reflects a concept that is easy to grasp: the idea that childhood exists closer to the realm of the divine than to the human world. For the Japanese, visiting Ise Grand Shrine might evoke a feeling akin to the presence of a young girl or boy who embodies Amaterasu Omikami—a deity who dwells within the sacred inner sanctuary and appears in public only a few times a year. This image calls to mind the monoimi—young girls who once served at Ise Grand Shrine—though that tradition was abolished during the Meiji Restoration.
In Japan, many people visit shrines only at New Year’s. I feel that in Nepal, one can experience—in a living, present-day context—the very sensibilities that Japanese people cherish deep within their hearts. Yet, like the rest of the world, Nepal has been undergoing rapid change in recent years. It feels as though the material is encroaching upon the spiritual. It is said that Japan and Nepal have maintained diplomatic relations for seventy years now; one wonders what kind of changes await both nations in the decades to come.