Today marks 2 years since I took that long journey from the UK to start a life in Japan. Where'd all the time go?
When I look back at first arriving in this country, the person I was is almost unrecognizable. A much younger man - one with short, tussled hair, in his fresh pressed navy blue suit. One who knew essentially nothing about the world he'd swan-dived into, with Japanese skills that could barely even pass as intelligible...burbled grammar, and the speaking confidence of a shy 13 year-old. Those first few days after I stepped foot in Japan, I was both mesmerized and frightened beyond belief.
I'd left my family, friends, people important to me far behind. My share house at the time had no Wi-Fi, and for 3 days I had to trek to the station and ride the train to Tennoji Starbucks to mooch off their internet supply, for the promise of a brief bit of contact with my family who would ease the growing anxiety in my stomach. My mandatory mask tightly affixed everywhere I went in the sweltering September humidity, plunged into a world of noise, color, unfamiliarity at each and every turn. At night, I sat alone and wide awake in bed feeling completely severed from the life and comfort that I'd known, my only company being my own thoughts and Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad on Kindle. I remember that feeling that I had no idea what I'd gotten myself into.
In those days Japan really felt like another planet. With no tourists crowding the streets and everybody's features covered up with masks, as if they were astronauts on another world. This was only compounded by the language barrier, and the social routines that I had utter bewilderment toward. With each nervous step I paced around my local area, no map and not a clue what lay in which direction, as if a phantom spectator in a place I wasn't sure I belonged.
On my first day at ECC HQ I was very nearly late. I recall bursting into the lobby in my fully pressed suit with my housemate, expecting to be chewed out by some disgruntled corporate bigwig. Instead I found a mixed bag of friendly faces from all over the world - Manchester, New Jersey, Los Angeles, London. I'm so grateful for all of the friends that I met on that first day - people I very gradually came to know, who I never knew would become such an integral part of my life. Friends I'd climb Mount Fuji with, dance with, drink with, travel with, hug, and live with. Friends I'd cram into camping huts with and who'd explore ancient festivals together. People who'd come to see me at my worst and my best. Being for all intents and purposes the first group of new teachers to arrive for 2 years, we learned to stick together; we shared a bond.
Japan was so very different then...and in a way, it's a little melancholic that I'll never be able to experience anything like that again. I've been shaped since then, I don't think I could be so naïve nor have such whimsical awe, or become so anxious over something that should be one enormous adventure. Landing in Kansai airport, listening to Tatsuro Yamashita's best hits on my MP3 player, locking myself out of my apartment on my first day...wandering around those peculiar, humid streets in a city I couldn't begin to grasp the size of. Eating strange foods I couldn't read the packaging of - buying train tickets before I could figure out what an IC card was.
The share house, weird as it was back then, was the only respite of comfort I had to retreat to, with a fridge filled of the previous occupant's miso paste and dried fish flakes. The whole building eerily empty save for myself and my other flatmate.
So many new places in that first week! Laying my eyes on the majestic ancient city of Kyoto for the first time, buying the bike I treasure dearly to this day and getting lost more times than I could count, just like the child I was.
And now look at me. This place is home - people have come and gone, loved, left a lasting and unforgettable impact on my life. This country has given me an awful lot to be happy about. I always thought to myself, in those early days, that if I stayed here for this long then I'd lose the spark that brought me here in the first place...that somehow I'd become embittered or sour, that life would turn into something too mundane for me to see any enjoyment in as I settled to a routine of working and taking out the bins. But yet, that feeling never did go away. This place is well and truly home, and of course it's had its ups and downs - so have I. Sometimes I stand out of my balcony, look the stunning view of grey apartment buildings and concrete streets - and smile, fall in love with it all over again. It's a place that's profoundly wonderful and special to me, with a language I still struggle to burble half-properly. Those same friends I first met two years ago that I love.
Maybe the fresh-faced recruit that arrived 24 months ago isn't so unrecognizable after all.
To finish off, I'll leave you with a little writing I did when I first arrived in Japan, a day and a half after stepping off the plane. Without internet and no clue what to do, I sat down at my kitchen table and started mashing my keys in an effort to get the crazy thoughts rushing through my head down. Here it is.
31 Hours in Japan: the realization of a dream
As I write this, I'm sat at the dinner table of my shared accomodation in Bishoen, Abeno, Osaka. The television is on; the news is reporting on the floods in Pakistan, COVID cases in Tokyo, and baseball. I have been in Japan for a grand total of 31 hours, and it is perhaps the strangest I've ever felt in my life.
My journey to Japan was rather nice, actually - on Thursday morning, my parents drove me to the airport where I checked in my bags and I said a rather melancholy goodbye. I grabbed a bite to eat and got onto my flight to Hong Kong, where I realized my first mistake of picking a window seat and having to wake up the guys sat next to me if I needed to use the toilet. The food was good and I watched Goodfellas. I chatted to a guy from Wigan in Hong Kong airport and met a girl who's starting with my company ECC in Kobe, by pure chance.
The flight to Osaka was short, very roomy and much quieter than the one to Hong Kong, I even had a row to myself! I watched the Grand Budapest Hotel, then when we landed handed over a good 30 documents to immigration to undoubtedly prove that I AM Joseph Bowman Smith, and I certainly do NOT have Coronavirus.
I said gooodbye to the girl going to Kobe, handed over my luggage to a baggage delivery company, and got the train to Tennoji station in Osaka. My landlord is probably one of the nicest people I've met all year, and spent a good amount of time showing me around the apartment, giving me my keys and stressing that I DO NOT LOSE THEM. Then he took me out for a walk around the neighborhood - we went to a local Konbini and I grabbed the train with him from Bishoen station to Tennoji, where we parted ways.
I should probably explain at this point that, unfortunately and very painfully, my shared accomodation does NOT have WiFi. Like, at all. If I want to talk to my family, my mates, I have to go to the nearest Starbucks at Tennoji station and drink a coffee whether I want one or not - and even then, it's only for an hour or so before I have to go back home. When I slept last night my anxiety got the better of me.
For the next 4 hours I dropped in and out of restless, uncomfortable sleep. Intrustive thoughts and overthinking dominated my brain and I had to constantly get up to calm myself down. Am I doing the right thing? Why am I here? I want to talk to somebody. How's my mum doing? However, at about 4am I fell asleep and was so cozy that I slept for a good 9 hours. I woke up and realized, now in a more peaceful state of mind, that as much as this hurts, this is a good thing, all of it - even the anxiety which had plagued me for hours the night before and the loneliness I felt without being able to speak to my loved ones. It's taking me out of my comfort zone - it's teaching me what to do in difficult situations like this, how to manage my emotions properly. I might be scared and worried, but that's only natural! You'd be hard pressed to find anybody in my situation who WOULDN'T feel the same way. This is the start of a new chapter in my life, one that will teach me immeasurable things about the world around me, about life and relationships, about myself and how I can manage my own wellbeing healthily. It's literally only my first full day in Japan, and once I am settled in with my job, friends, internet, a schedule - I will thrive, and I know this. I set out today with a bold ambition for the day, a plan, and a smile on my face.
And then I locked myself out of my house. Bastard!
I stepped out of my apartment at about 1:45pm. As I heard the door click and lock shut behind me, I reached down to my pockets. Headphones, phone...that's it. No keys. No keys.
Oh god, I'd done exactly what my landlord specifically warned me not to do! I ran to the door and tried it, but it was firmly locked shut.
I rushed to the intercom where I buzzed Ethan, my flatmate...but then remembered he was out visiting a friend all day, and therefore I got zero response.
I tried my Japanese flatmate who I haven't even seen yet, but he was at work. The girls downstairs too. I was well and truly stuck in the sweltering heat and humidity of Japanese summer. I drafted a plan there to wait for the delivery man to arrive and borrow his phone, so I sat and I waited outside. A heavy rainstorm hit and I got quite wet - I opened my mailbox and read the pamphlets that were in there, but soon got bored as I could only pick out maybe 5 words I knew from the paragraphs. I wandered up and down the street, jumping at every truck and car that drove past and assuming it was the delivery man, only to be firmly disappointed when they didn't stop for me.
At about 2:45, a three-wheeled bike pulled up outside my apartment and off came my suitcase. I nervously asked the delivery man in shaky Japanese, "Is there a telephone?", then motioned that I was locked out.
He very kindly handed me his mobile and informed me that he would be going down the street to do his rounds and would be back when I'd finished. I thanked him and managed to call my landlord's office, only to be informed it was his day off - the lady on the other end would call his mobile for me and I should stay put. So I did. This was at around 2:50.
At around 3:35, as I was halfway through listening to one of the XFM podcasts I'd downloaded and shading myself from the sun, my elderly neighbor from the house opposite mine approached me. In the standard fashion that I'd learned so much about in Japan, I bowed multiple times to her and greeted her in my best formal Japanese speech. She asked me how I was and, though she didn't speak any English, gathered that I was locked out because of the pacing I'd been doing for the past almost 2 hours.
We chatted for a few minutes, and she reassured me I was going to be okay.
Around an hour later, the lady came out once more, and handed me a cold, refrigerated bottle of Barley Tea, telling me to drink up. I put my back out bowing to her. This single act of kindness toward a young, incompetent foreigner who can't even hold a conversation in Japanese filled my heart with nothing but joy. Tomorrow I will try to buy a packet of nice biscuits to show my gratitude.
At around 5:20pm, my landlord walked up to my house with a smile on his face and the spare key. I celebrated my return with a change of clean clothes from my suitcase.
I'm sat at the dinner table of my shared accommodation in Bishoen, Abeno, Osaka. The television is on; some sort of fantasy drama is playing and the strange adverts keep distracting me from writing this. I just had some delicious Onigiri with Seaweed. I'm going to wrap up here, have a shower, and try to sleep as best I can. Tomorrow, it's my intention to travel to Osaka station and try to buy a prepaid data-only sim card so that I can at least speak to my friends and family. Thank you for reading this far is you have, I'll be updating tomorrow night with my day's activities. As I said in the first few lines of this post, I still feel strange. I'm alone for the most part, I can't understand anything on the TV. I have zero internet and my only company for now are the episodes of XFM that I downloaded off spotify. The weather is stiflingly hot, I haven't been shopping yet, and I miss my family and girlfriend more than I thought was possible. But on the flip side, I am living the dream that I have been working hard toward and pushing for the past 18 months. I am here, I am safe. I have money, I have things to do and plenty to see. I am excited to start working, and every person I have met or spoken to has been so wonderfully, refreshingly friendly to me. Even when I stumble on words, use the wrong grammar, stare blankly at them, they accommodate for me and are genuinely happy to help. I will be okay, and the adventure has only just begun. Talk to you soon, cheers.
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