Japan

I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to visit Japan. I can’t even tell you why. I had reasons when I bought the ticket: an interest in their long tradition of fermented foods using special techniques and microorganisms, products such as Miso, Shoyu and Sake; a strong desire to live out a language I’d studied for years yet had no practical use for; a fascination with their moral philosophy via Shinto and Buddhism and how it translates into social and physical practices for example in martial arts; and maybe just some good ol' fashioned weeaboo fondness for J-Pop, anime and video games. But I don’t know what triggered my initial fascination with visiting Japan as it predates most of these interests, going back to a point where I regarded a visit to Japan as a death sentence, for I hated fermented foods and seafood in those days. I was quite certain I’d have starved to death.

Still, upon arriving at Narita airport I was plagued with a malaise, a gnawing anxiety that I was not going to enjoy my time in the land of the rising sun. It seems so obvious: having landed in Japan, the goal, getting to Japan, was complete. I’d accomplished a lifelong dream. It was all downhill from there, certainly, as the vapidity of my new, directionless, goal-free life at away at my sense of meaning, infecting me with nihilism. Japan could hardly fail to disappoint me, I thought, having hyped it up for at least two decades in my mind. I was going to hate it, even, I was quite sure by that point. This weighed on me more heavily than my backpack as I lumbered through the airport trying to figure out how to get to Tokyo.

Everything went better than expected

Despite my concerns and my general stress trying to navigate a new country, and its busy transit system during rush hour, I loved every minute I spent in Japan. It was a great example of what a country could be. Not perfect, by any stretch, but the cleanliness, the efficiency, the ease of use of transit and commercial infrastructure were something unlike anywhere I’ve ever been. On top of that is the general respectful and generous attitude I encountered consistently. Occasionally elders would give us money while we waited at bus stations, especially in rural areas, or offered to buy us food. Hitchhiking was easy and the people who picked us up were enthusiastic about being able to help — often going well out of their way to get us somewhere — and once someone, disembarking from the bus, gave us a paper crane with welcoming and inspirational messages written all over it and some money folded into its wings. Where else do such things happen? Do such things happen between Japanese citizens or was our foreignness a lightning rod for their hospitality? Nevertheless, nobody has ever paid for my fare in a foreign country except once when I was in Canada, and then only because I was holding up the line.

Nom nom nom

Of course I didn’t starve as I’d once assumed I would. At this point in my life I’m much less picky an eater, even an adventurous eater, almost, and even enjoy seafood these days. The pickles ranged from abysmal to incredible. I’m not terribly found of seaweed but I found a pickled seaweed in the free section of the fridge at our first hostel and kept buying it over and over throughout our trip. We actually failed even once to go to a sushi place despite having all the right intentions, but still I had some amazing sashimi, particularly at a small, friendly izakaya in Awa. And as I’ve also before written, the fried food scene in Japan is killer. Karaage is amazing and so widely available and of such general high quality that I don’t know if I’ll be able to eat fried chicken anymore should I return to the states.

Sake was, as expected, of a completely different caliber in Japan. On one occasion I bought a large bottle of an award winning one and my host remarked that it must be very expensive, I must have paid a lot. It had been one of the priciest bottles at the store that day, but still comparable to what I was used to paying in the US for smaller bottles of significantly lower quality. We toured only one sake brewery but it was fascinating to see the contrast they presented between traditional and modern brewing methods and technology. In a throwback to the pandemic, the singular time I got drunk in Japan, I was getting getting my ass whooped in Go.

Getting my spirituality on

I’ve been quite detached from any sense of spirituality for the past few years. Briefly was I studying Tai Chi Chuan, but fell out of it during the pandemic, and was never as focused on the spiritual aspects as the self-defense. Briefly was I studying at a Zen temple, but fell out of it after moving. One of the big tourist things in Japan is to visit the beautiful shrines and temples. Here I started to reconnect. Watching locals and visitors alike pay respect to the Gods and the Buddha, praying and engaging in religious ceremony, reminded me of something positive in my life. It’s not something I know how to manifest back in the states. The culture, for that matter the spiritual infrastructure, is too impoverished, to faddish. I don’t know how to move forward with something like religious observance that feeds rather than chastises the soul.

Good friends and hard goodbyes

We stayed on a farm for several weeks in rural Shikoku, working with a dozen or so other foreigners. I loved hanging out with these people. They exemplified what I have mentioned before: that tourists to Japan often have a deeper interest in and respect for their host culture than travelers to other countries I’ve visited. They practiced martial arts and the Japanese language, tried out local food in both restaurants and the kitchen. I learned so much from so many of them and it was absolutely heartbreaking to leave.

And this is how it felt leaving Japan in general. We had a few weeks traveling around after leaving the farm and before departing for Thailand, but the whole time I had this new feeling of gravity, this sense that I was being pulled out of the sky, being grounded to something other than what I wanted. Japan was such an incredible place. It felt so natural to be there, so easy, so welcoming, so livable. Why did I leave? How can I get back?

I guess I could always just buy another ticket.

Honeymooning

Maybe there’s really nothing that special about Japan after all. Maybe this is just a classic experience: leave home, find wonderful things about places that do it differently, and decide to resent having to return. How much did I rave about Colombia after my first visit. I don’t think I ever claimed they had it figured out, but they had a certain something that made the country feel irresistible in some way. Whatever it is feels foreign, like the clunkiness of relearning to walk, but it’s desirable in some way, like something unknowingly missing from life all these years.

It’s tempting to say that Japan is the answer to my problems. Specifically my problem of not knowing where I want to live, what region of the world would be acceptable in terms of safety, green space and access to things like transit. But something reoccurred to me on the farm, pulling wimpy daikon out of the cold January earth. The only thing keeping me from being happy anywhere is myself. For judging any place I am for what it’s not rather than what it is, and vice versa for those alternative lives seemingly just beyond reach, I am only torturing myself for choosing correctly, because the only life I have is the one I choose. Life doesn’t wait to begin until one reaches some point, achieves some degree of development, success, actualization or comfort. It begins when I stop telling myself that it’s just one move, one book, one relationship away, and start breathing.