# injuries.
From an entitled dirt bag to you. I know near nothing, but I do know this:
I AM A DIRTY WHITE BOYMy presence IS A BURDENand my discontent is not frivolous.
What is contained in this post is the account and testament of my stay in Japan. The bulk of it written during my stay. But after deliberating and writing three drafts each progressively worse, I have edited together what I think is the most compelling of each.
Trying desperately to stay positive in the face of towers of paperwork and cultural friction. I have been to Japan once before in 2016 for a month. The context of that first trip was much more touristy in its scope. But the institution who's generosity funded that trip is also bringing me out again this time. I came to Japan to help my father who was working at a prominent University.
I initially believed that I would be helping much more, but soon after settling in I found out there was an ample amount of eager undergrad students who would love to work with my father. So the most of my contributions to the campus was through helping students setup a WSL for the purposes of using some genetic sequencing software written for Linux. The software existed on windows, but lacked multi threading so sequencing a usable amount of data without exaggeration would take 6 days.
After 3 days my work was done at campus. I did come to campus with my father a bit more but I was mostly just reading and trying to develop my video game project.
## the smell of my own breath.
I arrived to Japan on September 29th after traveling for 17 hours. It wasn't my first time at the Tokyo airport, but much had changed in 8 years. I was dreading what was ahead of me. I was very well familiar with the embarrassment of trying to negotiate with poor Japanese service workers whose English and my 17 hours exhausted English was not suitable for proper affairs. Emerging out of the airplane's funnel and into the airport's terminal I was met with a hallmark of Japanese iconography: a line. Being some with a keen sense of looking at what's infront of me I urged my dad to join me in this line. But he was insistent because he believed that because of his work visa he was eligible for another line, that I know in our shared imagination was a shorter line. I feel like his judgement was foolish, but he made his decision also based on information gathered from email correspondence with people at Kyoto University.
We sheepishly returned to the end of the line because my dad couldn't convince airport staff to let him to go to another and shorter line. I find lines to be comforting. Even with no end in sight, and no idea to it's purpose. The mutually shared garentee that we're all wasting our time puts my mind at ease. Going through customs tested the comfort of lines.
A
fair greeting to me and many other fat greasy gaijins, we had to trudge
through a customs line that wrapped around a great deal of the airports
terminals. I was stuck in customs for about 2 hours, mostly in part of
poor communication with the person I was traveling with. I didn't have
the address of the hotel we were going to be staying at, so I didn't
have the required information to fill out the "DEBARK CARD". I won't labor you with the intricacies of my specific anecdote but I took me an hour and a half. By the end I was absolutely drenched in sweat and was fatigued.
The Kyoto Imperial Palace (京都御所) Gardens, which made up a good chunk of my commute between my hotel and the campus.
A tall bottle of barley tea was the first thing to touch my lips this
time in Japan. I payed 150 Yen at a familiar vending machine, as it was
the same vending machine that I payed for the same brand of barley tea 8
years prior. The first time on that train platform my dad following me
at the vending machine bought a stout but short bottle of a drink we
were not familiar with at that time called "Bikkle". For the rest of
that 2016 trip, my dad and I became devout followers of SUNTORY and
their yogurt potions.
The trip back to the hotel was quite extensive with hiccups, but none interesting enough to recite. By the time I got to sleep I was drenched in sweat, my eyes hurt to keep open and to blink, my mouth was painfully dry from reciting "sumimasen" (すみません) to the countless victims I had bumped my luggage into and I had been awake for 27 hours. Those seats on the Shinkansen were so hard. Maybe it was because all of my other senses were irritated, but I could not be comfortable for the 6 hours of that train ride. When first boarding the Shinkansen my dad navigated us into a "Reserved Car" just meaning that you needed to pay for individual seats. I felt bad. People staring at me; people not staring at me. People staring at the same page for an hour just to not look at me.
On this ride I thought about people staring at me in North Carolina. I am not a sightly person, so I easily garner glances from passers bys. But in Japan I couldn't feel the same way about it. It was guilt. The sense that I was being made to feel like I was constantly exploiting everyone in a 7 foot radius. I think I do exploit those around me, but truthfully I just don't feel bad about exploiting Americans. Something I think is quite embarrassing. My only discretion being on place of origin. But that guilt was all the same.
Maybe we were in a dance. A young adult Japanese man looks at me caring his presumptions of an American scumbag. But that alone could not create this dread. I must lead us in this dance. I bring to him my own dissatisfaction with my presence. This dance imagined in my head includes two willing participants, but assuming that maybe where all this goes wrong. But how could I deny that their glares were backed behind knowing judgements. An act not just reflective, but maintained while they know I see it. The active part of honing in your scrutiny while I observe. I feel foolish, but I don't feel wrong.
After dragging my two suitcases, my backpack, and my dad's backpack up to the surface of central Kyoto I could breath the air. It was dark, and there was still 30 minutes of walking to the hotel we would be staying at until we could find suitable housing. A man loading a truck blocked my view of the road, and a man eagerly passing by guiding a bike behind briefly blocked my way onto the sidewalk. Some maybe familiar but trash cans are not frequently found out in public in Japan. So this time I was carrying that now empty bottle of barley tea.
During my stay at the hotel in Kyoto I watched the then live CBS 2024 Vice Presidential Debate. Enjoyed in it's first half in my original hotel room and its' second half in the second room as my stay had to be extended.
My stay in the expensive hotel spanned just short of a week. The initial reservation was for 3 days, the expected amount of time we thought we would need to move into an apartment. We had greatly underestimated the sheer amount of bureaucracy involved in buying an apartment. In my life I have lived a securely and without much need for agency. I have never had to be involved with securing housing, so I was going in with no previous experience. While I am sure the bureaucracy in the United State involved in securing an apartment isn't as fast 1-day shipping, it surely doesn't span the week needed to secure this modest apartment.
But
in time my dad and I moved into an apartment in the perimeter of Kyoto. It was nestled between a mountain and a river. Up until then we were living in this state of suspension, where nothing felt sure. But now that we finally had a place to ground ourselves we still had a lot ahead of us.
My pleasant Max from "Where the wild things are" toy resting on the window sill on the first day of me staying in my apartment.
### Iterations
Somethings changed from my last visit in 2016. I am not sincerely suggesting there have been wide behavioral changes in between the 8 years, If I know anything about Japan is that the people who call it home are allergic to changes in habit. It is simply true that I have noticed a new set of behaviors in people because instead of being inhabitants of a world I was visiting, I now had to buy groceries with them and had to work with them. I apologize if my tone is too hostile, I must acknowledge that in between maybe novel observations of Japan's culture there definitely is prejudice. As I have ruminated on this time in my life, I have worked hard to audit those feelings and hope to correctly itemize each prejudice in this mish mash of a diagram.
# Autopsy of days spent still.
The following section was written one week living in my apartment. It is written specifically from that perspective
i have been wrapped in negative feelings about my stay and if you find it ungrateful to document such i must tell you that you are a chump.
i am infinitely grateful for the opportunity to live abroad, but i do not feel like i owe the world to japan the place or its people. I don't think i owe it those here to enjoy my stay and frankly i find it perverse to load those expectations onto me.
i am desperately trying to not throw myself off the roof everyday here (not that it wasn't also the case back home) so I don't know I just hate you, you're such a fucking twat, god.
i wake up and sort through my trash because my dad just throws it all into the same bin. sometimes i gag because of the smell of rotten food. that only occurs if the trash hadn't been sorted the day before.
i go down to the first floor to check my mail box. i forget the code, i walk up stairs glance at the paper containing visual instructions on how to open my mail box. i go back downstairs, forget, and then return again, with the paper in hand i can then open my mail box. usually what is waiting for me are some bills that im a little less than half responsible for and some more paperwork.
i return upstairs and lay down on my tatami mat floor with my hospital blanket and stair at the wall, sometimes i do this to the atmosphere of Radiohead or Duster but if the school across the street is playing sports which they often do i will just listen to that. i try to imagine what they're doing, an inane task because i could just get up and look, but the fantasy is more alluring. every 6 minutes-ish someone starts banging the drums for what i can only assume signals the end of a segment in the rules of the game.
i try to change the focus of my imagination to match the banging of that drum. i move from one child throwing a ball to a girl walking along the perimeter. at the end of this ritual i would climb up, open my balcony door and look out into the school yard and compare my imagination to their world. i wasn't right a single time. maybe if i spent more time as a japanese child, i could of made some better assumptions.
when content with my projection and or reflection i usually read my news, take some notes, or if i'm feeling courageous: coding my shitty zelda clone in c. some mornings i am tasked with going to meet with one of my dad's many colleagues to consult them for help with some home keeping work. often it boils down to some written Japanese that i cannot in confidence translate. the colleagues are very helpful and most of our conversations are book-ended by a sense of grief that i am a burden. not just in the sense that they must help me, but they must help me while they juggle lab work.
i'm often stuck in my own mind, which i don't think is uncommon among people who would read this.
i don't have any internet and i'm not sure if i will have internet any time soon. my father loves to brag about not having a cellphone. he does. he just doesn't have a sim card/phone plan. he insists he just plans ahead, which i disagree but to complain would be tedious for you to read the driest and most petty bulleted list. he must get a Japanese sim eventually. japan has changed since 2016. such that a jp sim card is required for many things. notably getting internet.
it wouldn't be unreasonable to ask why i wouldn't simply buck up and get a japanese sim. i may do so if my father continues to hold out. but the scope of my stay is 3 months and my father's is 6 months. so if i were to take the honest of managing the utilities tied to a Japanese SIM card it would strictly be temporary.
my phone plan lets me use lte data abroad but its speed is minimal. it isn't really suitable for youtube or websites that load many images like discord or 4chan. i miss being able to talk to my friends so readily. part because of the mentioned connection and also the 13 hour timezone jump.
my days meld together. a regiment would undeniably help, but i feel to narrow ends. the only thing to regiment is how long do i want to code or read the news. i still don't really have a suitable way to draw my comic on my laptop.
my father gets home at variable times with no regularity. once he gets back hes usually very hungry and insists on dinner. we eat out almost everyday. with rare exception this has been very affordable. meals can go for 600 yen and even 450 if you're thrifty. i think the main killer is my dad loves to after dinner or sometimes while were out doing house work goto a konbini and get chips and or ice cream. this kills in both nutrition and money.
i have been pretty conscious about my weight here, i feel exceptionally embarrassed being in stores. my fat American lard ass taking up most of the aisle. while this is an exaggeration by my self pitying and self hating mind, i am however undeniably taking up more space than those around me.
after dinner i usually just listen
to 144p YouTube videos afforded to me by my data plan whose rate had been halved. this is in part because my downstairs neighbor loves
to play music starting at 2200 until 0500. talking
voices drowns it out well enough and it can't be understated i love
hating.
i haven't been sleeping much but i do usually sleep in and out starting a 0400 - 0500.
## Unrelated journal entry
Piles of cards on the floor.
My worn gift copy of Cormac Mcarthy's Blood meridian laying face down the floor having not been opened since my last break up.
My hospital blanket atop my black mattress where I spend my days face down in a state absent of yearning but content with reliving the regrets. Knowing that this ritual itself is to generate a new memory of regret with every moment that I can distinguish being a new intrusion into my memory.
Exploding and folding into myself. The density pulling itself in more and more. Until eventually witnessing the compression becomes impossible trapping all light into the den of contemplation. All of this held behind my sliding Japanese door.
Sometimes I'll open my eyes, pulling the fabric from over my eyes account all of the objects within my vision, close my eyes and try to recount them into my mind then check my work. I have only correctly done this once a year ago. I recounted the many artifacts littered on my desk perfectly to my unamusement.
# Instead of a "terrible gaijin burden" be a "gaijin gift"!
I have a weird relationship with someone. We're not quite dating, but we're not quite friends. I like to think that we're kind of each other's HR rep. During my time in my apartment I would often spew all of my negative emotions into this person like an emotional trash can.
After meeting some threshold where they could not take any more without passing some judgement. They wrote to me "I suppose the best remedy is to be a gaijin gift". I responded with some light hearted deflection for 2 minutes. But after not hearing back I retreated to my balcony.
I couldn't think of anything else.
At this point I had finally gotten to the top of hill. I could see off into the distant future, and I could properly look below at my actions up that point. I was a cruel. Foremost I was cruel to this person who important to me. But I was also cruel to Japan. I had built a comfort blanket of reason to dismiss the world around me. I despised the honor culture and the cryptic language which I only faintly grasped. But those feelings I would regularly call to myself to cheaply explain my discomfort of my time spent here.
I wouldn't say that I experienced the hero's journey. I haven't really integrated my conflict into myself, it was simply in plain view. I like to think as I write this that I have improved on myself even just a little. But I also try to not dwell on weirdly dramatic views of myself.
When I first settled into my apartment I placed my toy of Max from "Where the Wild Things are" toy on the window sill. I don't have any memory of receiving the toy, for as long as I remember it simply was just mine. While the novelty of "The grass is always greener on the other side" has faded and as I slowly sink into routine back in North Carolina, I think it is a bit poetic that only during my stay in Japan could I yearn to be in what loves me most: MY bedroom.
## Please help yourself.
At the end of every night before my dad would try to go to bed he and I would share a phone call with my mom. Back home, my dad started a side hustle of breeding and selling salamanders, in his absence caring for the salamanders became the sole responsibility of my mom. It was quite tough on her. I felt quite guilty for leaving her there all by herself. ...
## 8 years previous.
In the summer of 2016 I turned 15 years old. YouTube had turned 11 years old that February. I didn't like traveling with my dad. I am not quite sure why. Something about having no one to confide maybe left a bit crazy. I distinctly remember corresponding with my mom through email in Shikuku whining that I did not like being glued to my dad. I didn't like being around my dad. I respected my dad very much so, he was an actualized person making actual change, unlike me. I don't think the expectation was thrusted upon me to be like my dad, but it found itself in my lap regardless. It was a lot to live up to. Frankly even when writing this I must confess that I am nothing compared to him, I am a dirt bag.
We first arrived that summer in Tokyo, but we quickly made our way to Kyoto where would stay our first week. I wondered the arcades (the roofed passages) of Kyoto a lot in that time. There was this big gambling venue called ENTERTAINMENT OMEGA. At this one location, above the pachinko parlor was a video game arcade where I played my favorite fighting game: Street Figther III: Third Strike. I didn't like that arcade. It was very loud but somehow only populated by no more than 7 people. I played Alone, I played pink gi Sean against the CPU. I really liked that. I would play there more than once, but I only really remember the first time in detail.
I didn't have anything to do for that week. My dad was held up on campus. So I played and played, but I didn't have a lot of money so after spending my quarters I just walked the floor, observed, and noted the different arcade machines that I had never seen before. When I was growing up in eastern North Carolina my town had an arcade. I think that was a pretty unique experience growing up for my generation. I liked that arcade, I played a lot of Marvel vs Capcom 2. It had a pretty healthy selection of 11ish machines. One time my mom's friend told me that there was a Star Wars arcade machine that was just installed there. I was 4 years old and Episode III had come out just that year and my brain was rotted to the core. I eagerly asked my parents to take to me the arcade when I arrived It was a Star Trek arcade machine.
Playing at a Japanese arcade comes with a comforting sense of anonymity I feel. Obviously our faces are plain as day, but to each other we do not dare to stare. It helps being preoccupied by the erratic flashing of our screen, but even spectators remain fixed on the games and not its' pilots. I think this is part shame and part recess. When we go to the arcade we are explicitly away from something. Less so when we play a game on our computer at our desk. At the arcade we're actively seeking refuge. ...
## Days before the end.
I was born with a license to kill ... myself. Could I really live if I couldn't decide the conditions of my end. I would simply be a hostage of you.
The Ichijoji train stop. I sat with my dad as he was trying to figure out his new JP cellphone. I read Tim Roger's review of Final Fantasy III three times on this bench.
