It’s been one whole month since I uprooted myself from New York and moved to Japan. This may come as a spoiler to some of you as my intent was to announce this on the final episode for season one of the podcast, but here’s another spoiler for you—I have yet to finish editing that episode. (But I promise it will be released, and that more episodes are being planned!) As it turns out, moving to another country requires a lot of energetic output, which also happens to be the case with this platform.
With that said, here I am: sitting in a new apartment in a new country navigating a new culture and a (semi) new language. “Semi new?” Absolutely. Because although I’ve been studying Japanese for the past three years, it seems anything I thought I’d learned decided to stay in New York. Any terms and turns of phrase have evaporated from my skull, leaving me standing there like a baka with my mouth wide open anytime someone says something to me. And that is only the half of it.
Most of my perspective of what it means to be “typed out” has always been rooted in being a queer man living in modern America, but now I’m experiencing a new form of being typed out. It’s a very odd thing to be in a country where foreigners make up only 2% of the total population, and most of my experience thus far has been completely counterintuitive to my life in America. Rather than trying to stand out, I find myself trying to blend in—but it is akin to an orange trying to be an apple for the simple fact of no matter how much keigo (humbling mannerisms) I employ or Japanese I try to speak, the simple truth of it all is that I look and act differently.
Foreigners in Japan are known as gaijin. It’s a slang term abbreviated to mean exactly that: foreign person. In addition, there is another term Japanese people use when referring to foreigners who don’t follow the standard etiquette, and that is, “gaijin smash.” Basically, gaijin smash is when you quite literally smash through certain rules or cultural etiquette because you don’t know any better. Therefore, I am trying my absolute best not to commit such incivilities. But, when in a new country, such things are unavoidable, especially if you are not yet fluent…
However, what this article is not meant to be is me realizing for the first time what it truly feels like to be a racial minority, although I am deeply grateful for the sliver of insight. It is very surface level (one month compared to someone’s whole life), but it has illuminated some areas of my brain. What I do want this article to be is a reflection on the ways in which we rely on things like language and culture to communicate.
Living in Japan has, hands down, been the single hardest thing I’ve ever done. Yes. Only a month in. Because what I have done to myself is removed all sense of habit and any social crutches I once relied on. Light-hearted humor and jokes become nothing but empty air when they don’t translate. (I learned this the hard way trying to tell a group of 5th graders a joke about a pirate’s favor letter. Even after delivering the punchline in earnest, I was met with blank stares, and when you have to explain the joke, we all know you might as well offer a eulogy than expect any kind of laughter.) Simple questions I would once ask to get to know someone better feel awkward and forced, or I find myself teetering on the edge of asking simply because I’m unsure if it’s appropriate. (“Are you married? Do you have children? Where do you live?”)
The experience—a combination of appreciation and overwhelming frustration (with myself and sometimes those around me)—has gaijin smashed the reset button on my life. I’ve been forced to learn new ways of connecting, of getting my meaning across, and trying my best to become a member of the community. And when language fails me, I’m reminded of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist—that there is a universal language beyond the tongues we speak; how body language and emotion can reach corners of the soul that words cannot.
But more than anything, I want to prove to myself that I can do this—that I came here for a reason and it wasn’t necessarily to be liked by everyone or to perfectly assimilate into Japanese culture, though some level of that would be nice. I want to leap the bounds of miscommunication and fumbling through basic interaction to really see the person’s character, and allow them to see mine. I want to exchange ideas. Learn new things, and most of all, discover what it is that brought me here.
No, it’s not all ramen and matcha, especially when I’m cussing at my bike because I’ve almost fallen into traffic or when I jump fifty feet in the opposite direction because there’s a giant spider, but there are definite moments of good. As there always is. Nothing is entirely shadow just as nothing is entirely light. Both must exist, and I only need to remind myself of that in the moments when I feel like the river is moving against me. But piece by piece, stroke by stroke, and bochi bochi (little by little), I’ll remember how to swim.