Sunday morning

Looking closely at my disgusting-but-healing-well index finger, I notice the scab is beginning to look quite scenic. There are follies, and crevices, and a piece of glitter which has somehow attached itself to a bit in the middle that could easily be a tiny replication of Ayres rock. I’ve become so reflective recently. Japan is really different, I’m still being reminded of all the small things that I’d forgotten about this country since going off to Uni. Some things back home are really grey. There are things which make me confused and depressed, and when I’m home in England I don’t understand why. But now I’m back in Japan, I do.

I’ve wanted to be here ever since I was 5, when I was made an honorary member of the Japanese children’s friendship group at primary school, and I went to their birthday parties and ate chips shaped like alphabet numbers and sticks of strawberry pocky and played mini tenpin bowling and dressed up like Sailor Moon characters. And ached desperately for hello kitty. I’d beg my mum to find me tiny packets of scented tissues with characters printed on them. I’d save cute Japanese sweets until they were too old to eat.

We’d look at each other with keen interest, me and the Japanese children. I liked their straight black hair and peeping dark eyes with the soft brush of lashes. They liked my white blonde hair and big blue eyes. To me they looked perfect, and I was the deviant. Now I live in Japan and people still have that keen interest in me, and I in them. But it’s grown up somewhat. I mostly feel the gap between us, and am aware that something as stupid and shallow as my appearance will forever hold me in the position of outsider, no matter how long I live here, no matter how much Japanese I know. I am a foreigner. Even if I gave birth to half-Japanese children, they wouldn’t be considered pure. This is an impossible concept for a girl who grew up in multicultural London. I am held strangely at the centre of attention, yet also completely on the periphery. My personal tutor said it was a good position to be in because this juxtaposition of placements means that I can get away with less than is expected.
I suppose he is right, every position has its good qualities. And I think life is very hard for those who are born here. The pace, the environment. Sometimes the word human doesn’t describe those who I meet…they are more machine than organic. They work very hard, and they live a life of colour and plastic. But who am I to say?! I really don’t know! It’s infuriating but amazing.

Yesterday was a good day. I went into the city with new friends, nice friends. I’d forgotten that excited feeling you get when you meet new people.
The heat was baking and all the more intense with skyscrapers glaring down from all angles, with straight-faced serious city people trying to get places while you gawp and stare and stand. I felt like every step I took was a mistake. Just like learning to dance, one must learn how to walk through a new metropolis. I’ve got the dance perfected in London: if you’re rushing and there are tourists on the tube, you’re patience is allowed to run out quickly. You can scuttle past feeling important and put-out by the stupid foreigners. Now I am that stupid foreigner, figuring out the steps to a whole new movement. It is almost pointless. David is thoughtful and mischievous- he dares me to ask a pair of pretty young women where the nearest Mc Donald’s is. I try and portray a sense of urgency when I ask. They seem unfazed and point me back down the street. I am expected to ask such questions. Nevermind. Next time I might ask in loud American English, while on the train, perhaps while talking loudly into a cell phone and chewing gum. I want a reaction. Come on people! I’m a disgusting foreigner! It’s going to be an interesting few months.

The walk around Shibuya was fun. We ate a strange but cheap and convenient lunch, and wandered around gormlessly gazing at everything. Erica, Gwyneth and Maud are my housemates. Eva and David live with families. Eva’s family won’t give her a key and kicked her out for the day. Davids’ takes him to karaoke and overfeeds him (he rings home and unashamedly asks to talk to Mum). My halls are nice, strange. The Japanese residents don’t even seem to talk to each other but maybe that’s because everyone goes to different universities. Gwyneth, Erica and I cling onto each other somewhat. Maud’s Japanese is better than her English, so she can cope. I can cope. I keep reminding myself of the wild and unprotected lifestyle I lived here in Japan before. It was the purest kind of happy, when I realised that I could cope on my own. It was like watching the end of an intense film and relaxing because you finally knew what happened. I used to live differently in Osaka. I’d spend hours working out how to get to obscure parties in tiny warehouses, and huge raves up mountains. Things are different now but it’s good to be studying again. It’s a slower lifestyle, money is tighter, but its nice finding my feet again.

Finally, here is an image which i stole a shot of the other morning. It is a visual aid to my previous post about the Salaryman, enjoy.