Reverse Culture Shock: When does it end?

So we know about all the little things that startle you when you come home after a long time abroad. But for me there's been a sneakier side to reverse culture shock. It started one day several weeks ago when I realized that at some point while I was wrestling with New York, I had taken that last stumbling step out of my life in Tokyo. After months of knowing intellectually that my time there was over, I finally felt it to be true.  

And you'd fuckin hope so, right? Good lord, my friends, it is March of 2012. It's almost the anniversary of the earthquake! I got on that plane nine months ago. Tokyo is long behind me. I have a new city and new friends and new jobs. I don't even look the same. I've moved on.

So what's weird about it? I hate these four words, but: it's hard to explain. First of all, just because I've moved on from Tokyo doesn't mean that I've found a place here. I haven't. I've had a hard time in New York, a really ugly streak of bad luck after what was already an unusually queasy year, and I don't think I've ever had such a terrible attitude in my life. This might make you sick, but I've always  felt that I have a pretty good relationship with the universe -- that my hardships are always balanced out by the countless amusements and possibilities scattered all around me every day. That's the truth! I admit it! 

But lately I've started wondering if that's just because I've spent my life in the Northwest and abroad. Because yeah, it's easy to feel like the universe is on my side when I'm skipping along the river eating huckleberries in the Siletz Gorge, or when a bad night means throwing on a killer outfit and going out to smoke cigarettes and sulk under a billion neon lights and soulful gaze of a cheesy pop idol... 

...but that sense of cosmic benevolence doesn't shine as bright when strangers shriek IDIOT! at me on the street. Or when volatile drunks throw their arms around me outside my workplace. Or when a dark liquid from somewhere up above splatters against my cheek on 33rd St. And these are just the publishable calamities! The effect on my superstitious soul, already wearied by the whole homecoming saga, has been disastrous. I mean, one night I sat in pee on the train. I don't think I've ever felt my sense of humor under so much strain! I can take a lot, but that's some heavy lifting, right? 

So here's the point. Yeah, I've moved on from Tokyo. I can reminisce and start to miss it, but I don't die over it every day. I want to live in America right now. No question. BUT: if I went back it would be so. easy. One night recently my nerves were shot again, and I was thinking like, who is this person? What is this attitude? This is terrible! And it occurred to me that if I flew back to Tokyo tomorrow, I'd know exactly what I was doing. I'd get off the plane and onto the train like a breeze. I'd be surefooted in the stations, I'd know what to have for a snack at 7/11, I'd send a hundred texts and I'd have someone to meet by the time I got to the city. I'd have places to sleep and people to call for jobs. I'd know the good places in the right hoods and I'd probably have a few orgasms within the first day.  

You know what I mean? Tokyo's behind me, but that doesn't mean I know where the fuck anything else is. I'm still wary of my foothold. And sometimes, when I get a little tired of the long-haul process of settling in, I think of how easy it would be to run back to Japan and know just what to do. And that is rough. That kind of thinking is harder than the loud voices, the close-talkers, the subway circus, the aggressive strangers -- by far!

I have enough sense to recognize this as part of the process, for me and for many, many others. It's a theatrical ultimatum: stop or go, back or forward, fold or gamble. And you know what, I Googled this shit -- and I read a whole lot of words by people who, after 9 or 10 or 12 months back home, just said fuck it! and started making plans to go expat again.

I respect that, but it's not gonna be happening here. I'm over that shit! Rats don't scare me. Pee on the subway bench can't stop me. Recession, whatever. I'm here now and I'm gonna do this thing. So, wish me luck! And I wish you luck, too, if you're in these shoes. You know, being a foreigner in your own country for awhile is as worthy an adventure as anything -- and making a life for yourself is as rewarding and enlightening an accomplishment there as anywhere. No matter what you decide, please enjoy this advice my mom gave me when I was at critical mass last Monday: Don't forget to enjoy what's good where you are right now -- so even if you decide to leave next week, make sure this week is awesome. Hang in there, baby! Tomorrow can be brilliant! 

xoxo

NOW I'M IN NEW YORK

I didn't know how to break it to you, but I did leave Japan.

Oh, man, it was hard. I can't tell you how hard it was. That's probably why I haven't been near this blog in so long. I mean that was an awful process, leaving Tokyo. I had so much to love there. I cried all the way to LAX. By the time I got to Portland, I felt fine. It wasn't the shock I expected. It was quieter and it took me awhile to realize, like I realize now, that my heart is still aching.

What is wrong with me? That's what I was thinking in those last few weeks. Why would I come to this place and work so hard to find these people I love so much and this life where I can do anything I want? Why would I do that and then force myself to leave it? Why am I hittin' myself? Why'm I hittin' myself?

I don't know why! I was so weary and grateful and devastated during those last days. On my date of departure, I drank coffee in Koenji with someone I cared about very much. When that person left the shop, my Tokyo life was over. There were no more friends to see and I was just waiting for my flight to leave. I couldn't stand that feeling, so I wiped my nose, cleared my table, picked up my bag, and walked across the street to get on the train.

And I'd go to Oregon and be with my family and my dog and my rivers and trees and bay, and I'd have a beautiful summer and I wouldn't cry for that other life much at all.

And a few months later it would be September and I'd be in New York and feeling lost. Here's now, and it's a strange moment to be in. I love being back in America. But nothing can take away this ache in my heart for the streets I walked, the trains I rode, the drinks I drank, the friends I loved, the city where I once said "I found myself in the white-hot nucleus of my youth!" Haha. Oh, Tokyo. You'll forget me and I can't help it, but I will remember our love forever.

Well, anyway. Now I'm in New York. Stay in touch and check back with my new blog here and/or on tumblr. Let's do it.

AKB48

There are 56 members in the idol group AKB48, all girls aged 12 to 24. AKB stands for Akihabara, the notoriously eccentric Tokyo neighborhood where the group was invented, and where they perform for creeps on the 8th floor of Don Quixote every day.

AKB48 members usually appear as schoolgirls, popping cute little blinky faces and wiggling their limbs in talent-show dance moves. When they're not dressed in school uniforms, they're in bikinis or sexy (but sweet) lingerie.

AKB48 is used to promote an incredible variety of mainstream products, and you see images of the group in convenience stores, on train platforms, on magazine covers, on drink bottles. Sometimes it seems like AKB48 is everywhere. This distresses me because in my dreams, Akihabara is a quarantine for this kind of gross lolita bullshit.

The neighborhood, famous for its concentration of game and electronics shops, has cultivated a similar concentration of shopping and entertainment catering to anime, video game, and pornography subcultures. What you can find in Akihabara ranges from awesome (vintage game consoles and offbeat memorabilia) to distressing (pornographic comic books featuring toddlers). Unfortunately, the neighborhood leaks.

About a year ago, my junior high school and high school students started showing up with AKB CDs and writing in their class journals about going to the convenience store to buy chocolates to get AKB member trading cards. Before long I'd lost count of how many times I'd watched groups of 12 year old boys unfold the jackets of AKB48 cds to exclaim over photos of the girls in thigh-high fishnets and skimpy pastel bras and panties making pouty porno-moe faces. I'd lost count of how many times I've heard 12 year old girls discuss which AKB member is the cutest.

This is a group that was invented specifically for otaku men who fetishize young girls. The idea was to assemble a bunch of fresh young female faces and bodies to be sexually idolized, and keep them close and accessible to the guys who idolized them. AKB48's fans get chances to meet them at events in Akihabara all the time, and, like most idol groups, AKB48 makes it a point to acknowledge its otaku fanbase and ply them with sweet comments like "I consider myself an otaku, as well!"

Choose your favorite member and pretend she's looking at you while she drinks juice!

Akihabara bothers me. Idol groups like this bother me. Adults drooling over young girls bothers me. Encouraging cuteness as a major female virtue bothers me. That a sizable portion of men in the world can only think of girls as a mystifying and intimidating species, approachable only when they act like talking cupcake babies, bothers me. But AKB48 in particular bothers me.

Kiss me...

It's disturbing that someone can create a product as a porno fantasy for men who like underage girls, and then, having cornered that market, push the same product onto children through heavy mainstream exposure with singalong songs on the radio and advertising tied to bottled soft drinks, chocolates, and snacks. It bothers me that parents of young boys and girls aren't disturbed by the idea of their kids sipping this sickly sweet lolicon brew.

I'M BACK!

I am! I am SUPER back, because it's 2011 and it's MY LIFE, man! So I have two more months of tedious exams and stinky breath on trains, but to those things I say WHATEVS. I've got good bones for a good life and all the boring stuff can blow me.

Hey, fuck you, desk! You're not important! You didn't create me! You're not my life! I have better things to look at!

Like long lonely winter corridors, like long lonely walks under tracks at night with my headphones on and my boot heels in the background! That's better. That's what I want to do. Miles of that > hours of desk, DEF.

And SUNSETS! Over MOUNTAINS! Over BALCONIES! I'll take that.

And BOOZE? And TIGHTS? And FLORAL SHEETS? Yes, these are good.

Art museums, also welcome!

Oceans, bays, rivers, you are always number one. You are number one! Walks, nights, booze, beds, tights, bays, dreams, fits, trips, smoke, sun, AFTERNOONS, film, rock, and big yellow sweater. You are all number one. It's 2011, and I'm still 25, and I'm not gonna be in Tokyo forever. Hit it!

Little stamps! Little boxes!

This year I finally got a hanko, the magical little stamp that proves your identity anytime you deal with official paperwork in Japan. And today I finally got a case for it. Too bad I already chipped it, which will probably result in my being deported. Like I'll go stamp something from Amazon and they'll be like "WHAT! is this little GAP IN YOUR STAMP! There was no gap in the last one! Holy shit counterfeit, this is a serious problem. You must not be who you say you are! You cannot have this package." And I'll be like "oh my god are you kidding me? Here, look at my foreigner's card and my passport and my health insurance card and my bank card and my employee's card, dude it's me I promise." And they'll be like, "Well, miss, that's some straight-up evidence you've got there, and I see here that you have used this strange and inimitable handwritten signature of yours many times, so there should really be no question that it's you. Unfortunately this little stamp -- which your co-worker actually went and got for you in your name for about 15 bucks -- is the only true key to confirming your identity, so I'm afraid this spells doom for all future endeavors that require you to be yourself." "Fuck!" Oh, hanko. You make all the sense in the world. Nice case, though!

Look, little candies in cute boxes! Now stuffed in an envelope that has been sealed, addressed, and waiting to be sent for one month plus. Exotic old-fashioned packaging, labels in another language, thrill me no less today than when I was little. I love them! I could buy entire grocery stores when I'm abroad, I love foreign labels so much.

It got cold today. Winter! Why are you like this? I just ordered an electric blanket. I expect us to be best friends. I hate winter here! There is no escape from the stupid cold. It's impossible to insulate these cardboard walls and as soon as you turn off the space heater the cold rushes back in. There is no escape, absolutely no escape, no safe place to shave your legs or put on lotion. Conditions so harsh even I am compelled to keep my pants on as often as possible. I ordered this blanket from AMAZON JAPAN which is viewable in English, has free shipping, lets you schedule delivery and pay in cash when stuff arrives. For every nuisance there's a convenience. Talkin' bout you, Japan. P.S. Amazon doesn't require a hanko, I carelessly made that up.

Neglected Photos

I was just going through neglected photos and I still marvel at the cute little bitter mess I was in Yamagata. Look at me. Look at that face. Look at that hair. The work clothes. The parka. The cigarette. The cold. Sorry. I will never get over that winter. Move on to some more forgotten photos.

Team Clean

My first night in Yamagata. How things change! If you put me back there now I'd already have one of those cans shoved halfway into my mouth and I'd still be bitching about something. Hahahaha. A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together.

How to have shoes. Thanks, box!

Pains me to think I missed one fucking epic tantrum in the stockyard.

Do you wonder that I'm high strung?

I do appreciate the veranda.

I don't miss elementary school lunches.

Sick __ Japan

I fucking hate going to the doctor. I hate it in America and I hate it in Japan. I hate Japanese clinics especially. I have National Health Insurance and I don't know if I'm just going to public health clinics or what but every time I go to a clinic in Tokyo it looks like some fucking neglected bankrupt funeral home chapel entryway or something. They're not dirty at all, they're just really run-down with peeling wallpaper, low lighting, old carpets, and more often than not, faded artificial flowers, just like, you know, the ones in cemeteries.

I don't know why I'm so outraged by this, I mean I'm always preaching the grunge... maybe it's just that in a country where you can't get a cup of coffee without 5,000 watts of fluorescent light blasting down to prove how clean the tables are (and how marked your blemishes) you would think that any place offering any kind of medical care would at least keep the paint fresh. Maybe when I'm sick and miserable enough to go to the doctor I want to feel like I'm actually in a medical facility, not some sketchy old cat lady's parlor. This is like the fifth time I've been to one of these clinics and they are easily the five dingiest looking places I have seen in Japan. That's counting dive bars.

And every time you get sick in Japan they're like GO TO THE DOCTOR GO TO THE DOCTOR! Then you go to the doctor and here's what happens.

Doctor: What's the matter?
You: [wheezing in your face-mask, swaying in your chair, eyes half-lidded, voice raspy] I have a fever of 39.5, chills, my throat is really swollen and it hurts to swallow, my body is aching, I have terrible nausea, I'm super tired, it hurts to move...
Doctor: Sooo, you caught a cold!
You: Ummm, well there's a big flu outbreak where I work, so...
Doctor: Ah! Let me look at your throat. Ah, yes. Very swollen. Okay! So I will give you some medicine for fever and throat pain. Please wait a moment.
You: ...okay, well, I can't go back to work if it's the flu, so do you think it's the flu?
Doctor: Oh, sure.

Then you pay like $14 for a bunch of little paper bags full of pills that you have to take three at a time three times a day for five days or something.

Is this just like, the experience I'm stuck with if I'm using National Health Insurance? Or can someone recommend a good place for regular medical care in Tokyo?

Help

Nice view.

I got this rose for my birthday but it just wouldn't listen.

Tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored,tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored, tired, bored

This Old Sweater

I am not a fan of cropped leggings AT ALL and this photo shows me they are not doing my rather shapely legs any favors but I still dig this today. My 90s brown lace-up ankle boots were the killer but I was too lazy to get them in a photo. P.S. this picture is exactly what I feel like lately.

Offensive Train Behavior

Putting on make-up on the train is considered rude. I don't get this. The only reasoning I've heard is that you disrespect other people by acting like you're alone in your house thus pretending they're not there. I don't get it. Anyway we have other problems. Here are the top five examples of very common train behavior that I find really offensive. I spend three hours a day on trains now, so pardon the bratty bitching.

5. Bad breath.

Brush your fucking teeth. Fuck. How old are you? It smells like you've had a dead fish stuck in your throat all week. Whenever that rotten breeze hits my nose I think about how I'm actually breathing your nasty exhaled cat-breath into my own lungs and I want to barf.

4. Reading porn.

Hi, I'm a middle-aged businessman in a suit. I look so respectable. I am a pillar of society. The best part of my day is when I stop by the station kiosk to pick up the latest copy of my favorite shitty soft-core porn comic book full of junior high schoolgirls in sexual situations, then sit down on the train in the middle of all the real-life junior high schoolgirls and flip through it in front of them. Adult men like me just want young girls to know, HEY! Little ladies! We're thinking about fucking you! So if you're thinking you can look to us for advice or guidance or support in life, well, we're thinking about fucking you.

3. Sleeping on me.

Dear stupid gross jerk from last week: Hilarious! -- how you kept uncontrollably dozing off and slumping all the way over onto me over and over no matter how hard I woke you up with my elbow or pushed you upright, and then when another seat opened and I moved, you suddenly sat up and started intently playing your DS.

2. Using me as a recliner.

This one is bad because it's painful and mean. It only happens once in awhile on packed trains. These guys hold onto the handle and then relax by leaning their bodies back, putting all their weight on the back of the person behind them. Has this ever happened to you? It's so uncomfortable, it pushes your body forward and you can't do anything about it because there's nowhere to move and you can't push back much against the entire body weight of someone bigger and heavier than you when you've got no leverage. If it's really bad I'll bust out the elbows but they just ignore it -- one even scowled over his shoulder at me. But I can see they've got space in front of them to stand up straight. They just want to lean. It's so selfish! :(

1. Picking your nose.

They don't just pick their noses, these guys! They dig, without shame, head held high, mouth wide open, sometimes for several minutes, stopping to inspect whatever they've got on their fingers, dusting their hands out in front of them to spread their booger-dust everywhere. SERIOUSLY WTF. This is the only thing that will make me give up a seat on my long commute. I wear a lot of black. One sprinkling was enough.

My Worst Day in Tokyo

I woke up unstable and spent all day looking stupid in a stupid ponytail and a stupid outfit. I was stranded in Tokyo Station for almost two hours because all the trains to my destination were canceled due to mad winds and nobody could figure out whether to reschedule or what. I finally ended up taking two different trains for another hour to what seemed like the middle of nowhere and had to trip through puddles looking for a bus. The bus driver was really mean to me for no reason.

My bangs got all messed up in the wind and the clammy trains and I had to pin them back on a wild bus with a compact mirror balanced on my knee while I tried not to cry. The bus dropped me off someplacee I'd never been and I had to run around looking for my school, finally arriving to the meeting 40 minutes late.

Afterward I was advised to walk to a different station for a quicker trip home, avoiding delays. I got lost in the rainy back roads of the urban backwoods carrying a 10lb textbook with the wind blowing in my face, my eyes watering all my makeup off while I yowled to a friend over the phone.

I finally got to a station and shuffled onto the right color of train without paying attention. A half hour later found myself at the end of the line in Chiba. Heartbreak. I dragged myself off the train and across the platform to the one going in the right direction and refused to move. Until over an hour later when I realized I'd managed to take one of the trains that ends before my stop and was now heading back toward Tokyo.

This was the worst commuting day I've had yet in Tokyo but the worst part was being in a weepy awful mood the whole time and finding out my new co-workers are friendly and normal native English speakers and having to scramble to rediscover my social skills after a year of working in an isolated corner of hell. I was not so successful. I'm so excited about my new job but I must have made a horrible first impression because all I could think was Don't cry, don't cry, soon you'll be home eating scrambled eggs.

Today fucking sucked. Tomorrow: hanami, ganbanyoku, my first laser hair removal, and coffee. By 4PM I will be made of gold.

Men/Boys/Girls #1

Remember when I was always complaining about being broke, and then I didn't complain about it anymore? Did you notice?
A sugar daddy is a rich guy who showers a younger girl with money and gifts in return for companionship. My sugar daddy "hired" me as an "English teacher," which meant he wanted me to look pretty and meet him twice a week to walk around arm-in-arm, go to the movies and have fancy dinners. He paid me a fixed amount every time we met, sometimes extra, and usually brought me flowers and gifts. I never so much as kissed him and I got about 120,000JPY/month. For like a month.

Sugar Daddy was a Japanese CEO in his 60s. He was handsome enough, fit, and he wore good suits. Not my favorite suits, but tailored and Brooks Brothersish. I love suits and read GQ and critique them on trains, but I can't say what a suit says about a man. Every older man I have ever known who wore a suit all the time was boring or an asshole, usually both. Foreshadowing.

It was the hardest job I have ever had. We had nothing to talk about but he wanted me to talk the whole time. He was always acting mildly displeased by random things I said. I mentioned that I did taekwondo and he said "I don't know about such a strong womans!" I said I liked art and he gave a strained smile like he knew my kind. He liked Mariah Carey and romantic comedies. If I couldn't think of anything to say fast enough he would lean back, look at me critically, and ask, "Bess, are you tired?" I'd have to smile big and cry, "No! Just relaxed!"

The outfit and face I wore the first time we met (I know, brillz)

He spoke English well, but the gap between his speaking and listening skills was incredible. I've been doing classroom and private lessons for a long time now but it was enough to put me at a loss. Every single thing I said had to be repeated so many times. Once on the train I almost cried because he made me say something like "I ate pizza there" in a loud voice for almost five minutes. But he never wanted anything that would actually help his English.

He was always suggesting shopping trips and gifts for me. It's unbelievable, but I didn't take advantage. His money saved me, but gifts, I couldn't deal. Once he took me to an amazing stationery store and told me to pick anything I liked for me and my friends. I was so uncomfortable, but he started acting irritated that I wasn't picking anything, so I took two cards. He was pissy for like ten minutes and wouldn't stop asking why I don't like gifts.

Don't just say it with flowers!

One night over blowfish he asked me what he should give me for Christmas. As always I got super awkward. Under pressure, I finally confessed that I like art supplies. He decided that because I'm a writer, I need a fountain pen. I have no use for a fountain pen. I tried to explain that I am the kind of "writer" who scrawls 50 pages in cheap notebooks every night (then sobs "NO GOOD, NO GOOD, NOT A GENIUS" and goes to bed), and the pen would waste ink and soak through the paper. But he just got really patronizing and said I didn't understand the value of nice things.

I decorate bars with nice things.

The next time we met, he took me to Tokyu Hands. I was done for. The thought of him buying me gifts was nauseating until the gifts were art supplies. So I picked a sketchbook, and then I went to pastels and started choosing colors I needed.

His reaction was crazy. "Bess! What's this? Why you want such a things? It's such a small things." What?! I was confused by his irritation so I quit with two colors. He asked "How about pencil?" I didn't realize he meant pen, so I was like, sweet, graphite pencils. But of course he was even more disgusted by those. Finally he steered me to the pen case and basically bullied me into this 17,000yen Waterman fountain pen. Then he bought me a leather case. He spent so much money on me but he just wanted to buy what he wanted to buy for me, whether I was interested or not. I imagine that's how it often is with sugar daddies.

(Not that I wasn't happy with that bag of stuff once I got on the train, and the pen is very pretty and I bragged to my friends, but I never use it. Then there are the bears)

Sugar Daddy worked me to my last nerve. I was always waiting for the Moment. On our second date he couldn't find the restaurant and when we went down a street with a few love hotels I almost had a heart attack. He had a habit of starting sentences with "So, Bess..." followed by a long pause and my stomach dropped to my heels every time. It's not that the thought of sex for money freaks me out that bad, but not knowing what I was in for made me anxious.

Still, he was generally civil and polite to me and supported me when I was down to my last 1000 yen and rent was due, so I did my best. I never gave up on trying to get to know him, looking for things we could talk about. And after the pen, I was even thinking I could try to roll with some more shopping.

Then, one day, Sugar Daddy tried make a date with me a few hours in advance. I don't do same-day meetings because at any moment I might be passed out in a bed across town next to my dead phone. By the time I caught up with my messages, he had called me twice, left messages, texted, and sent two emails. The last email said, "Beth, do you live in the Mars? How can I reach you quickly?" UM, TRIPLE MY PAY IF YOU WANT ME ON CALL, IDK. I was really soothing though and wrote him that I can't always get my calls right away and that's why I don't do same-day appointments and I'm really sorry blah blah, and suggested a meeting the next day. He replied, "Sorry, I'm busy. Maybe another time." I wrote him another apology and never heard back. That was the end.

I was mad and offended, which is how I can make such a shameless post! I think he was unreasonable and unprofessional. He offered me a long-term arrangement and then dumped me when I didn't answer the phone fast enough. One more jerk in a suit!

Clearly I am not cut out for the Sugar Daddy business which is a great disappointment. I always wanted to try it and thought my dream had come true, but it turns out I can't cooperate with it. I tried so hard and it was frustrating. How difficult can it be to let someone buy you things? Does anyone want a pen for 5000 yen? Because I'm broke.