Closing time

So gather up your jackets, move it to the exits
I hope you have found a friend
Closing time
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

                                                                      -Closing Time by Semisonic

The tickets have not been purchased or the paperwork filed, but I have decided I will be leaving Japan the first part of May.  As they say, all good things must come to an end, and after almost two years here, it is about time to say goodbye.

 It wasn’t an easy decision – there is still so much I want to see and do.  I have fallen in love with this country and the idea of leaving is difficult to accept.  Riding the train, walking down the street, shopping for groceries, I think about all the little moments I will miss.  Watching the clouds snake like smoke around the mountains makes me sad to leave such natural beauty.  Clicking through news articles from home about racism, violence, and politics makes me long to stay here where I feel safe.  And spending the afternoon in Namba, Umeda, Tennoji, or any crowded neighborhood, watching the sea of humanity ebb and flow around me, makes me cringe to return to a quiet, rural existence.  The people, the food, the culture – I have loved every second of my time here and part of me really does not want to leave.

But another part of me says it is time.  There will always be things left undone, but now it is time for the next big adventure.  It is time to process all the experiences from these two years.  To take stock of the changes I have gone through physically and mentally.  To apply what I have done and learned.  This was always meant to be a journey of self-discovery and growth.  I feel I have achieved that in spades.  I have gathered the pieces, now it is time to put the puzzle together. 

冬

As the vibrant reds, oranges, and golds of fall fade into the dull greys and browns of winter, a small part of me is relieved that this will be my last winter in Japan.  Not because I am ready to leave – there is still too much to see and experience in this amazing country – but because winter in Japan, like winter everywhere, is best spent with family and friends.

 The days grow shorter.  Darkness comes earlier and stays later.  The color seems to bleed from the world.  Outdoor adventures become fewer as the weather gets colder and more sullen.  This year the change is more acute since I am living alone.  No coffee and mumbled ohayous while darting across cold wood floors.  No hot, homemade soup waiting after a dark and freezing commute home.  Not even a heater I can program to come on before I get home.  Just a cold, dark house.

 If I were Japanese – or living in a Japanese house at least – I could look forward to lazy days snuggled under the kotatsu, eating mikan and napping.  If I were in America I would have warm, fuzzy puppies, my favorite winter foods, holiday celebrations, and central heating.

 The days will pass, though, growing slowly warmer and brighter.  I have a visit from Anata to look forward to, end of year school parties with coworkers and friends, and indoor adventures I have been putting off.  The weeks and months will slide by, probably faster than I want, and I will soon be looking back wishing for more time.  Just a few more weeks of winter so my time here can last that much longer.

 However, I have not reached that point yet.  While I am excited about my winter plans (especially my Christmas visit) I am already looking forward to Japan’s second most beautiful season – Spring.  Perhaps it is by design that the melancholy months of winter separate the two most colorful seasons – a chance to cleanse the mental palate to better appreciate the colors and excitement as the world returns to life.

Fallen Stars

I guess when you reach a certain age, the heroes, celebrities, and artists of your youth begin to pass away.  It is inevitable – even the brightest stars burn out – but it is still deeply upsetting.  In some ways, the death of a celebrity isn’t as personally impactful as the death of a close relative or friend.  You did not know them personally, so the daily struggle with their loss isn’t quite as poignant.  But in other ways, their death can cut even deeper than the loss of those near you.  These are the people that helped you dream.  That inspired you.  They shared their soul with you without you ever meeting them.  They shaped your mind, fashion sense, and personality in ways no other person in your life could have.  In a way, the death of an artist is a small death to that part of your soul they touched with their art.   

Since coming to Japan, I have felt the loss of four very important people – two actors, a musician, and an author.  Each time I have felt that the world lost an amazing talent.  That there was just a little less magic in the world.  And that I had lost an amazing source of inspiration and wisdom.

Watching the news of David Bowie’s death unfold across social media was painful and isolating.  As most of Europe is waking up, I am half way through my day.  Checking Facebook between episodes of anime, I was shocked to see the headline.  At first I thought it was a joke.  But then I realized it was a BBC post and the reality of it began to sink in.  As my day turned to night, and my friends and family in Europe and America were just waking up, the number of posts increased.  Comedy and nerd sites I follow, new sites and celebrities, artists, musicians, and friends – my Facebook feed became a memorial of pictures and music revolving around this amazing artist.  Some of my Japanese friends and entities shared their thoughts and feelings, he was an international icon, but as I scrolled through, I couldn’t help wanting to be home right now.  I felt isolated in my grief.  While some people here knew and understood how amazing the world was because of this man, many people around me did not.  Even worse, I could not even express my feelings with the ones that shared my pain.  As the news swept over Europe, I wished I could call friends and family in America.  Being the first to know and being unable to share your shock and distress with those you turn to in such situations adds so much pain to an already painful event.

Death is always sad.  But when it is an unexpected death, death at what seems an unreasonably young age, it is even harder to cope with.  For me, David Bowie’s passing wasn’t just the loss of an amazing man; it was a reminder of how fragile and short life can be.  I have spent almost two years in Japan.  Two fantastic years of self-growth, adventures, and just pure wonder.  But I have also spent almost two years away from those that I love the most.  I have been away from my fur babies the equivalent of fourteen dog years.  I have been separated from Anata for one fifth of our relationship and a quarter of our marriage.  I have missed holidays, weddings, and births.  And I have missed countless tiny moments with people I love – moments that might not be milestones in life, but the moments of pure being that are what really make up a life.  I do not regret my decision to come to Japan, but I am also beginning to understand what I gave up in exchange. 

As the world mourns the loss of a great man, I hope we do not forget the things his life taught us about magic, acceptance, and the stars.  Or those things we learned about ourselves from his death.

Eerie Japan

Magic exists.  Not necessarily the Harry Potter-esque magic – Expecto Patronum and all that – but there is magic all around us.  It is a slight ripple in the veil between fantasy and reality.  In some places this magic is stronger.  New Orleans is brimming with this magic – the mixture of history, culture, and atmosphere can convince even the stoutest nonbeliever that maybe the handsome young man with hungry blue eyes that just passed wasn’t completely human.  Places with magic inspire us.  They make us dream.  They enchant us into believing that maybe the fantastic is just out of sight – the figure seen out of the corner of your eye, the whispers not quite audible on the other side of the door, the smell that stirs strong memories but vanishes in an instant.  These magical places tell us that all the stories, legends, and beings we have loved and feared our whole lives are waiting just beyond the veil.  And as you walk the streets of these magical places, you realize it is possible to pass through the veil into the world of the fantastic.

Japan is one of these magic places.  Walking down the quiet, nighttime streets you can feel the magic like heat radiating from the buildings...the streets.  Like New Orleans, Japan has the magic of time.  You can almost see the ghosts moving through hundreds of years along the same streets, past the same houses.  In a place that resists change, where even simple residences have stood for hundreds of years, time has cast its spell.  The old man in the kimono walking toward you could be real.  Or he could be a phantom, moving down familiar streets in another time or reality.  But it is more than just time that weaves its spell over this country.  The architecture itself – the meeting of old and new – creates bazaar shadows and throws sounds in ways that make you wonder if you are really alone.  The streets are well lit, but in such narrow alleys and winding pathways, the electric lights can easily play tricks on the eyes and deceive the rational mind.  The people themselves have their own kind of magic. Homogeneous by nature, a crowded street or subway can bewitch a tired mind, allowing feelings of isolation, otherness, and fear to creep in.

As I have wandered the nighttime streets of Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo I could swear I have walked with ghosts, seen the impossible peeking from the shadows, and somehow picked my way through the dangers of the unexplainable to return home safe and inspired.

Outside the cities, in the forests and mountains, there is magic too.  Unlike the cities, where time seems to bleed together, the country is timeless.  Walking down a mountain path, you never know what time you will emerge from – the present, a hundred years in the past, even further back.  Away from the noise of the modern city, time simply ceases to exist.  Coming around a bend in the path could frighteningly, but not impossibly, bring you face to face with a bear, a boar, kitsune, tengu, or even a dinosaur just as easily as a fellow hiker.  Even the many temples and shrines hidden in the mountains, valleys, and forests across Japan exude this feeling of timelessness.  Covered in moss, twisted with roots, and eerily quiet, these places of worship seem to have been grown rather than constructed.  It is as if they have always been – just like the trees in the forests and the rocks in the rivers. 

Japan is full of magic.  It inspires me and fills my soul with stories.  It makes the fantastic come to life and sets my imagination ablaze.  It makes it easy to believe there is something amazing, maybe frightening, but certainly exciting waiting just out of sight.  It is a place of waking dreams, where anything can happen if you only let it. 

Pearl Harbor Day

Today (well, technically yesterday if you are going by the actual date) is kind of a tricky date to be living in Japan.  For the most part, the Japanese and I dance around the topic of WWII.  We are more concerned with cultural exchanges and modern topics.  But every once in a while I run into a history buff or an ojiichan who has had a drink or two too many and the topic comes up.　This year, with the 70^th anniversary of the atomic bomb drops, increased talk of militarization within Japan, claims of revisionist versions of history, and the violence all around us, this topic has come up a little more than I feel comfortable with.  For the most part there is no bitterness or hatred.  Japanese people are peaceful and kind.  But the subject does make me uncomfortable.  Especially today.

I have only told this to one Japanese person – my grandfather was on a ship in Pearl Harbor.  Before he met my grandmother.  Before he brought his new bride to America.  Before my mother was born.  Before all of that, he stood on the deck of USS Hull, watching hell rain from the sky brought by planes with the rising sun painted bright red on their wings.  He never talked much about that day.  I guess that is the way with most soldiers.  

I can’t imagine.  Hate would be easy.  But Popsie was never one to hate.  And that is what I choose to take from this anniversary (and every other day).  Hate is easy.  Fear is easy.  Forgiveness is hard.  But it is not impossible.  Popsie forgave.  When his daughter decided to move to Tokyo with her husband in 1970, he encouraged her.  Others questioned her decision, but not the man who had seen the worst of the Japanese.    If he were alive when I decided to follow in Okasan’s footsteps in 2014, I am sure he would have showed the same enthusiasm for my choice.  Because Popsie always believed the best about people.

Today is not hard for me because I hold any anger over the events of that day so many years ago. Today is hard for me because I realize how close I came to not existing that day.  Today is hard for me because I love these people and this country, but I can’t help but be reminded that a faction of them do not feel the same way about me.  Today is hard for me because I cannot tell my Japanese friends about Popsie because I don’t have the words.  Today is hard for me because I see Japan, America, and the rest of the world falling to hate and fear.  Today is hard for me because Popsie is gone.  Each year there are fewer and fewer Pearl Harbor survivors to teach us about forgiveness.

Black burgers and other foods you can only find in Japan

Japan has a long history of assimilating things from other cultures.  From religion, to language, to technology, they cherry pick the most useful and culturally acceptable bits, rework these bits within their existing culture, and create something uniquely Japanese.  Whether this is good or bad is a discussion for another time.  But the process does create some very unique things – especially when it comes to food.

With the introduction of McDonalds in 1971 Japan took its first step on the path to becoming a fast food nation – at least in the Western view of things.  Japan has always had a taste for food stalls, deep fried dishes, and convenient food.  But McDonalds opened the door for Pizza Hut, Domino’s, and Burger King and many more.  Taco Bell even tried to conquer the Land of the Rising Sun.  It failed initially, but they are back for a second round as Japanese people discover they really like Mexican style food.  But Japan didn't just adopt these restaurants, keeping their Western style menu intact.  Instead they took one look at the dishes, kept the ones they liked, added soy sauce here, nori there, and corn on everything to create original Japanese food.

When you step up to the counter at McDonalds in Japan you can get a Big Mac and fries.  Or you could try the teriyaki burger.  You can wash it down all down with melon soda or Calpis.  Around Halloween you can dare yourself to try a black burger from McDonalds or Burger King.  Everyone gets in on the holiday themed fun in Japan.  If pizza is more your thing, Pizza Hut offers pizza with tuna, seaweed, and many more combinations that only people in Japan can really appreciate.  Or try Domino's crab gratin, garlic shrimp, or the charcoal grilled chiki-teri with onions, spinach, corn, teriyaki chicken, and mayo.

While many of these sound terrifying, they are actually quite good.  When Japan does something, they tend to do it right.  And Japanizing food is no different.  Crepes and confectionaries have reached new heights of flavor and beauty.  While Baskin Robbins still offers thirty one flavors, many of them include green tea, red beans, and other Japanese favorites.  Like the world of Toriko, our world really is in a gourmet age where people quest for yet unknown flavors.  These flavors are being realized in Japan. 

Japanese people really can’t stand the cold!

“How are you today?”

“I am cold,” my student replies.

I smile and say good, but in my mind, I am shaking my head. It is seventy degrees in the classroom, how in the world can he be cold? But he is. 

The first morning with a touch of chill I walk into a classroom full of students in layers.  Underarmor, their usual long sleeve uniform shirts, school sweater or other light weight jackets, and school blazer on top. They say they are freezing. I keep a straight face, but inside I am giving them the raised eyebrows of disbelief.

For a country that has yet to embrace the concept of central heating, I find it baffling how intolerant Japanese people seem to be when it comes to the cold. And it is not just my students. I saw scarves and light jackets already out when I was still trying not to sweat through my thin t-shirt in the last days of summer. Now, with autumn clearly knocking on the door, the stares have increased when I walk around my neighborhood in shorts. Aren’t you cold, the neighbors ask (in Japanese). No! I think the weather feels great. I am just excited not to be drenched in sweat from just sitting and doing my best not to move. Soon it will be time for a light jacket, then winter will be here and I will be just as layered and freezing as my students, but for now I plan to enjoy every moment of fall before pulling out my sweaters.