To Tokyo

Or: I am moving to Japan

Unsplash

I am moving to Japan before the year is out.

Part of me is still surprised I can say this¹. Living in Japan has been my dream for a long time, ever since I was a naive student memorizing my first kanji like 木 (tree) and 口 (mouth). Since then I've learned a lot about the country, its people, and its culture. Some naïveté was shed but the dream hasn't changed. Earlier this year, I realized it's something I need to do—if nothing else, so I won't have to wonder what if for the rest of my life.

I don't just write to entertain myself and others, I also write to visualize where I want to go in life. When I wrote On the Way to the Convenience Store, I was just beginning to think about how I might make that dream come true. The megacity in that piece is Tokyo.

Back in 2021, I even wrote 東京へ (To Tokyo) in place of the dedication into my self-published novel which essentially served the same purpose.

Still, I didn't expect to realize it so fast—only months after taking the first steps. I was immensely lucky. Naturally, I'm looking forward to what Japan will do to me as a writer. Let me know if you'd like to read stories inspired by what I see and experience! This stack is and will always be a place for fiction but I might add the occasional touch of Japanese literature (like Yuki Tejima from booknerdtokyo) and traditional culture (like Leanne Ogasawara from Dreaming in Japanese). And after all, Japan and Tokyo are 'cool' places to write about, possible reasons for which might be worthy of their own little essay.

The people I know who made it to Japan did an exchange year as students and just stayed. Whenever I felt like I'd never follow them, that my best chance had passed, I would reread Donald Keene's Chronicles in which he talks about how he came to live and work in Japan as a scholar of literature and history. I would tell myself that when he first moved to Japan, he was already 31.

When I move to Japan, I will be 31! This is pure coincidence although I did hold that number in the back of my head for a while. Admittedly, it's silly to want to achieve something by a certain age but now that I have (however accidentally), I can't deny how good it feels.

On Keene's first night in Kyoto, he and his friends walked along the river in Ponto-chō, the historic quarter.

It was so beautiful I could hardly believe my eyes. All the buildings on both sides of this narrow lane were in Japanese style. There were lanterns at each door, and along the lane walked apprentice geishas wearing kimonos whose gold thread glittered in the dark. Ponto-chō seemed like the other face of Sekigahara, the feminine side of Japanese culture. That night it was magical.

Tokyo is more modern than Kyoto and arguably the largest city in the world but the feeling remains. I dare say every place in Japan will always keep some essential Japaneseness, whether it's ancient wooden shrines or skyscrapers to the horizon. Yet another aspect I hope to explore soon!

If I'm rambling, then only because it's hard to articulate what this means to me, someone who has studied Japan for over 10 years but only ever spent 10 days within its borders. When I think about it, most of what comes to mind is the words and lenses of other authors. There's Ian Hideo Levy whose experiences as a foreigner in Japan inspired his novel A Room Where The Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard, ironically written and first published in Japanese. The son of a diplomat, he lived in Tokyo as a teenager and felt confident he could 'become Japanese' through complete immersion. Later, he calls this a 'crazy schizophrenic drive' and an illusion but also says he doesn't regret falling into it as it eventually led to him writing in Japanese.

Then there's A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, a science fiction novel that nevertheless beautifully describes the feeling of wishing to belong to a culture not one's own, of loving and hating a foreign culture you've studied so much it almost feels like your own but which will never stop pointing out your differences to you.

Expansion History, and you came to the description of the triple sunrises you can see when you're hanging in Lsel Station's Lagrange point, and you thought, At last, there are words for how I feel, and they aren't even in my language.

Yes, Mahit says. Yes, she does. That ache: longing and a violent sort of self-hatred, that only made the longing sharper.

We felt that way.

One thing I love about Japan is that you've never learned all there is to know about it. Maybe I'll find some words of my own to describe it as I continue exploring this love (also hate but mostly love) relationship in the future.

1. And will probably continue to be until I stand on Japanese ground. Fingers crossed!