It’s amazing how culture shock works. A month plus in, I finally feel pretty normal living my everyday life—amazing how normal something totally different can become so quickly! And yet, everyday I am still fascinated with the differences, in the way that’s inspired so many poets; fascination with a simple landscape, with the way people dress and operate; the seeming “normalness” of society that’s often taken so granted is still so unfamiliar, I experience the comfort of routine simultaneously with the everyday spontaneous comparison with my conception of “normal” that just keeps taking place, substituting itself over and over as if the last exploration left no impression at all—a continual fascination with the new even as it slowly ceases to feel novel.
Take the fashionability of so many Japanese, for example. If the average American dresses like a cross between Sports Authority (located a convenient five minutes from my apartment!) and Wal-Mart, the average under 25-something Japanese dresses like a member of the Strokes: perfect recreations of punk and ‘60s rock n roll, put together from the trendiest high-end shops. It’s neat, in that it’s way cooler to be surrounded by pseudo-hipsters than by pseudo-jocks, and the fact that everyone wears pretty awesome boots is interesting, but then you stop and think about it for a second, and there are so many follow-up concepts: the perpetual behind-ness of Japanese culture, the shallow absorption of American “coolness” without any of the ideology or history, the Japanese existence as a pseudo-colony of American capitalism. Even though I see it every single day, it just opens up so many different trains of thought; and it’s like that with almost everything around here: the prevalence of (bad) English, the beauty of the Japanese landscape, the excessive politeness of social rules. It’s really so overwhelming, it’s almost a good thing I can’t understand the language, because my mind is so preoccupied as it is…or perhaps I’m over-Orientalizing as a result of my inability to properly integrate, being unable to fully comprehend my surroundings and what not. Still, everyday arouses such fascination—it’s gone from being scary to being really awesome. I really wish my closest friends would just transplant over here. You can just live, completely free of politics and ignorant rednecks and all the other bullshit that comes with American life. Sure, you’ll step on some toes, break some customs, but the Japanese are so innately submissive and polite, they’ll never tell you and will never make an issue out of it. You really can just kind of do whatever you want, completely detached from the bullshit, free to admire and question and think and just do whatever you want—I write so often now, my mind’s been set free from all the distractions of American life, and the fascination results in constant defamiliarization, and consequently, constant inspiration. It really is pretty amazing. On the other hand, I do sometimes feel like I’m taking the easy way out—like I should be at home, looking for jobs that mean something to me, looking to improve American society rather than living the bubble of a lifestyle I live now, detached from the world around me. It’s constant stimulation, to the point where I start to write about it and I risk getting a headache…
In other news, front page news of the Japan Times (English newspaper round these parts!) was that some famous actress was caught possessing nearly microscopic traces of illegal stimulants, and thousands of people lined up to catch a glimpse of her at her trial and see what would happen. She’s so sorry, she says: I have caused so much trouble against society and so many people around me because of my thoughtless actions, actress Noriko Sakai told the Tokyo District Court. Can you believe that! The idea that actions you do yourself, that affect only yourself, can cause so much “trouble” against society…yet another way Japanese society differs so profoundly from American…and, as usual, I come out with the conception that American society is further along in its intellectual progress. Of course, the garbage and recycling system here, among other aspects of Japanese society, is so much more government-mandated micromanagement of everyday life, it blows America away in its left-leaningness—and I often find it annoying! But there are obvious benefits—I mean, as much as I miss some people in America (and I do), and I miss being able to understand my surroundings, I rarely think “Oh man, America’s the better country to live in.” People say you go to Japan and you never want to come back, and there’s a reason: it’s prettier here; the people are more polite; there’s no crime; there’s nothing short of turkey sandwiches that American society has on Japanese. I’ve even found Italian bread and brie, and Spanish olives with pimentos! Pizza’s way more expensive here, but hey, I’m making real good money, so who cares! Beer’s expensive here too, which is a drag, but I guess now that I have a job, I’d be buying above-barrelbottom beer anyway, so it probably comes out the same.
Anyway, as you can probably tell, one strain of thought just leads to another and pretty soon I’m writing a novel, and I’d rather be writing a new song, so I guess I should just cut it short. But yeah, Japan is really great once you get past the insanity of the entire thing. I really wish maybe ten people from America would just move here with me—you can live perfectly well on this salary, the hours are incredible, and it’s (mostly) rewarding. I do miss the American garage punk scene, but shit, that’s what the internet’s for! And being able to talk to people, but hey—that’s what you guys would be for!
Seriously, what are you waiting for?
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