Here and there... and everywhere

Does anyone remember that sketch from Sesame Street, where two of those characters - I have no recollection which ones they were but anyway - talk about being HERE and THERE. One keeps asking where she is (I think it was a she...) and the other keeps telling her that she is over THERE while he is over HERE. She desperately wants to be HERE too, so she keeps moving over to where the other stood, while the other moves to her previous location, and is frustrated to find out that she is still over THERE and not HERE. I don't remember how they finally solve the problem, but right now I feel so much like that little one desperate to finally arrive in the HERE, instead of always being THERE. Or rather, in my case I keep wishing I was THERE instead of HERE. 

I know HERE, well, most of it, and the bits I haven't explored only become apparent with a bit of distance. I keep dreaming of things to come, things I want to do in my life, with my life, places I want to see, people I want to spend time with, things I want to learn or experience... Don't get me wrong, I think this is a good thing, dreaming is one of the most important things, in my book, for each and every person: Once you lose your dreams you lose everything, your motivation, your energy, maybe even your reason for being here in the first place. I can't imagine a life without dreams, for me that is like living death, nothing to aspire to, nothing to work towards, nothing will ever change, constant sameness and no way out. Heck, I believe even lab rats have dreams, why else would they launch at every opportunity they get to escape? I feel sorry for anyone who just resigns themselves to whatever they have been dealt in life. I mean, yes, there will always be things you have to do in order to have the life you lead, sacrifices to be made, barriers you have to overcome, but you should have a reason why you do this. If you hate your job, but you do it because you need the money for your dream, well, go on a bit longer until you have achieved your dream. If you don't have a reason to do a job you hate, quit it! At least that's my way of going about things. And I often feel impatient with people who keep complaining about their lives but don't do anything about it.
Still, how do I get to a point where I am content with one place? At least enough to live there and go to other places to visit? Why is it that I am most interested in seeing what it is like to live somewhere? Just visiting means you stay a visitor, an outsider, just a quick look and you are gone again. I don't want that... but what solution is there? If I was real rich I could just build a couple of homes in different countries and go live wherever I feel like at that moment... lacking those kinds of funds, what to do? I keep telling them I need a Scottie, you know, a machine (or Scottie who operates that machine) that gets me all over the world in a second. Then nothing would matter, I could just decide to have tea with my friend down in Sydney, or try out that new Okonomiyaki place in Osaka I heard of, or come over for dinner at my friend's in Germany... pending that, I guess I will at some point have to settle for one place... I just don't know how to make that decision yet! And the alternative, keep on moving from one place to the next, clashes with my longing for one place, one home, where I can have my stuff around me, my bed, my books, my music... Komatta ne!!! So I just keep waiting for some realisation that finally tells me I am home. And I'm still waiting...

    

Education programme of another kind

The other day I went to Amemura here in Osaka, to meet a friend who was looking for some clothes for her 11 year old son. And in one of those shops I fell in love with a spudmonster t-shirt. No, not the band, the Ghostbusters thingy. You know, the green thing that flies around and eats any food that comes within reach... and slimes on people whenever the fancy takes it... Anyway, having bought the t-shirt and getting home again I was shocked to realise that the kids had no idea what that green thing was! I mean, seriously Ghostbusters! It's basic education! Especially when you are a nine year old boy! The parents knew of it, but never bothered to show him the movie. 

So, first on the agenda was to teach him the Ghostbusters song, which he has almost managed, well, the refrain at least... and with the video came some of the marshmallow man images, and curiosity was at full blast... 

So, the next step was to scout all the Book Off places in the area to find the DVD second hand. And in Kyoto I was lucky, finally, and brought it home. The nine-year-old loved it, of course, I mean, why wouldn't he? Monsters, jokes, action and a lot of slime in between... The five-year-old girl had some more reservations... nothing really cute about it, plus the monsters, so she would just cry out "kowai kowai" (scary scary) most of the time and hide in someones armpit, whoever happened to be nearest. The little two-year-old watched fascinated, some kowai comments in between, but mostly he just pointed at whatever he thought looked exciting...

Well, now they know. And another part of my job is done! Yoisho.

Meeting an old love...

Last weekend I went out to Awajishima, right here in Osaka Bay, with my friend... to her parents' place in the countryside... to get some fresh air and good seafood. And to meet my old love again. 

When we all used to live together in Chochiku House, he was living at the front with the family. I remember the first time we met. I went to chat with my friends in the front flat of the house, and have some tea, and he was there. He was looking at me suspiciously, after all he was living there and I wasn't. It was his place, what was a stranger doing there? But soon after there was a lot of touching and cuddling and dancing... the latter mostly by him. He has a very special happy dance, for when he is, well, happy. He shakes his bottom, then stretches out his legs and wags his head while making some indescribable sounds, something like yapping and neighing and laughing all at once. Oh, and licking of course. He would lick any free stretch of my skin he could reach.  

After that, whenever we met we would just fall over each other in embraces and cuddles. We were in love.

After I moved away and my friend had her second child, he moved out to Awajishima to stay with their parents. Now, six years after, he has become an old man. He is slowly going blind, and one of the legs won't really do what it's supposed to anymore. And his stature is a lot more filled out by now, since he can't walk much, but hangs around the kitchen most of the time where he will always get some snacks and goodies from otousan. But he recognised me instantly, and for the whole time I was there he would not leave my side, and we would again cuddle and he would still do the dance, if all a little more slowly than before.  And he still has the spirit, if not the energy or braveness to follow up on it. But he will surely make known when he is displeased with someone else taking his food. Even if he only grumbles and glares at the culprit, but not shout or hit out at them. Which is, effectively, useless, but he seems to be happy just having made some noise at all.

I am glad I was able to see my love once more. He will probably not be around for much longer anymore, turning older and sicker. Non, I love you, and I miss you already, after  being away from you again for just a day. I will always remember the time we had together!

 

How to talk when you don't know how...

  So, I am back in Japan once again, the weird place that holds a strange fascination for me, because even though I am highly critical of so many aspects of this society and will never succumb to many of the rules I still want to stay here, at least for a while longer. Call it what you will, masochism, love-hate relationship, challenging myself, I keep coming back, even if I sometimes have to run away half-way across the world just to get a break.

  Among one of my biggest challenges here is that I am a foreigner. Visibly. And a female at that, too. For a male foreigner many things are quite easy here, the nerdiest and positively attraction-free guys find those pretty chicks here, end up getting married and go off their heads in their own imagined super-sexiness. Outside of Japan they wouldn't have had a chance to reproduce, ever, but here... and it's not that the girls here are stupid. On the contrary, I think they have their own motives, which mostly come down to this: Japanese men are macho pigs. Exceptions do exist, but in general a Westerner makes a more comfortable partner. Or so I hear. For me, a Westerner, many of the guys still appear to be macho pigs, but maybe they win in comparison? I don't know. But fact is: For foreign men it's easy here, for foreign girls less so. Because Japanese men... well, the macho pig comment still stands. And most of the nice guys are too shy or too scared of Western women to make a move. And I have no clue how to notice who is nice and who isn't here, they all look like cute little boys to me! 

  Anyway, that wasn't what I wanted to talk about. What I did want to talk about was that as a foreigner you will always be just that, a foreigner. However hard you try, however well you speak the language, marry into a Japanese family, learn all those rules of conduct and mannerisms and what have you, you will still be the outsider. You will maybe get a glimpse of the inside, but you will never belong. Even if you find great friends or even partners, there will still be those moments where they will exclude you, because you wouldn't understand. And they won't explain. Because some things just can't be translated, linguistically or culturally.

  I came to this country in the first place to learn the language. I wasn't too interested in the culture to begin with, I just wanted to learn a language with a different writing system. And then I got stuck with it, and went on, all the way to Osaka. I stayed for a while, learned a lot, but then forgot it all again when I left. Therein lies the rub, this damn language just vanishes from your braincells if you don't refill them every day... 

  And so, after going on two decades of dealing with this language, I still can't speak it. Oh yes, it sounds impressive to others who don't understand a word of Japanese, and I am definitely able to make myself understood and have simple conversations, but make it a bit more complicated and that's where it all ends. And that is so damn frustrating! I mean really frustrating, the kind where I just want to throw myself on the floor and pound it with my fists and scream at the top of my lungs! And I would, if I even remotely thought it might help...

  So what to do? Luckily in many situation people overlook my lack of Japanese or the parts where I wasn't able to express myself politely or even remotely correctly, and still talk to me the next day. There may be some who didn't, but since they usually withdraw themselves really discretely I didn't notice. And wasn't bothered by the fact that we never met again.

  But still, I wish I could be able to express myself much better, and know what to say in certain situations, and ask the questions I really want to ask but don't know how, and understand the underlying meaning of what I am being told. I mean, I love my friends here, and I know they love me, despite me trampling on their toes every once in a while because I just didn't get it. By now their feet must be flat as pancakes. I just wish I could finally get to a point where I feel like I know what I'm doing. Or saying rather. And be able to say the right thing when they tell me their grandmother is in hospital. Instead, all I can do is look concerned, and give them a hug. And for now, that has to be enough... 

    

The Sick Part of Japan's Society

I like Japan, I really do. There are many people and places and things here that I like, and miss when I'm away. And some things not. Some things I really do not like. And will never understand... 

Japan has a lot of rules. Too many rules. You see people on the street afraid to speak their mind, even on little things, because they don't want to impose on others. A society painstakingly trying to follow their vast set of rules, and never quite managing to, as there are way too many for one person to remember. You can see it on their faces out on the street, empty eyes and vacant looks on some faces, intent on staying in their own little world and avoiding any contact, eyes or other, with any other human being out here. Others are more awake, for example they are obviously interested in seeing a foreigner walk around in such an unlikely place such as Furukawabashi, but at the same time are scared of what it would entail if they actually did engage in a conversation, and therefore opt to only watch me out of the corner of their eyes, too afraid that a straight look might be interpreted as an invitation to talk. And then there are those that have apparently broken under the strain and turned antisocial, to degrees that border, if not cross, the line to sickness.

Like that guy I came across the other day, walking past the playground just around the corner from here, on my way to take a friend back to the train station. The guy was on the playground, the kids playing behind him, his pants down, and intently playing with his thing, tiny as it was, through the opening of his underpants. Right there, with the kids playing, in bright daylight, and standing right by the path, not even trying to hide in a corner or anything. At first I didn't get it, it took a while before I actually understood what he was doing there. We walked on, but I kept on looking back, to confirm I wasn't imagining things. I wasn't. And when I finally thought of taking out the phone and calling my friend back in the house to get the police, he had already started to pack it in. 

When the police did come the kids told him that apparently he was a regular there, some had already tried to tell him to take it somewhere else, but he'd pretended not to hear. The neighbours know him, know where he lives, but nobody dares to say anything. They don't want to impose... And the police can't do much either. Apparently he has a record, but whenever they catch him he says he was just trying to pee, and despite everyone knowing better, they cannot call him a liar, as that would be an affront to the poor guy. 

I really don't get it. I mean, if he was standing in some dark corner at night, that would be one thing, but on a playground? Obviously what turns him on are kids, and what will he do if jerking off in front of them isn't enough anymore? But no, nobody will do anything, not before someone has been hurt. Little kids being traumatised by a sicko on the playground doesn't count. Alright, granted, there really isn't that much in his pants to traumatise anyone but himself with, but nonetheless, the kids feel bad with him there, and can't do anything about it. It is sad to see that apparently this guy was driven to such extents that he lost all sense of shame, only to try and find some release in this sick way. It is even sadder that people have created a society here where nobody will say anything, just because they are afraid of imposing, until it is too late.   

Everything's changed, but all's still the same...

So there I am, back again in Osaka. Good old Osaka. It really is great to see my family here again, see how the kids have grown, each in their own way: Upwards, sideways and in the way they start to handle their fights on their own...

And what a change in volume, from staying in a quiet office with sometimes nobody dropping in for a few days, to a house full of kids and adults, all talking and laughing and shouting and screaming... granted, the latter part is mostly done by the kids, but at a volume that still amazes me, taken that the lungs that produce those sounds are what, a quarter of my own lungs' size? They still know how to properly use them! 

Another 180 degree change is that suddenly your body isn't your own anymore. You sit down at the computer and one of the kids will come and sit on your lap to watch what you are doing. Walking into the room you are free game for hugs, as a climbing frame, or just a convenient means of transport. Oh, and to get them things they can't reach or open, of course. Still, when they come to hug you all of that doesn't matter. 

I have met some more of my old friends that are still in town, and a few more will come back here while I'm here, so I will get a chance to see them again, too. It's funny to see how all these people are linked to me and to others, it's like a huge spiderweb: People I've met on the job in London, who are from Osaka but I've never met here before. Or the friend who I worked with during the Expo in Nagoya, who now lives in Germany but came to visit, and who's friend we once met by accident and who became my friend since then, and who I introduced to the family and who is now their friend as well... and the web grows and grows, and becomes more and more intertwined with other lives... and then you sometimes find the threads you have sent out in one direction coming back to you in some roundabout way.

A lot has changed here since I've lived here, but a lot is still the same. Some people have moved away, some have stayed, some have returned. Some still do what they did five years ago, some have started new things. Some people I still meet, others I have lost contact with. We all make our way through whatever and wherever our path has taken us by now. Everything's changed, but all is still the same... I'm curious to see what will happen next...