March 6th, 2005
111017734985798644
In America, estranged
9:38 p.m. JST
I’m on my way to California now for the Game Developer’s Conference. This has be the most indifferent I’ve ever been about going back to the States. It goes beyond indifference, actually, it’s more like apathy or even slight displeasure. The circumstances of my visit are partly at fault, but I get the feeling I’m genuinely beginning to grow estranged to my homeland. I know what it’s like: the stores, the customer service, the most easily accessible food. Cars needed for transportation, things farther apart. A lot more empty space. I don’t want to believe that I’m becoming cynical or elitist, but I am acutely aware of the mild, throbbing inconvenience of it all. For the next week I probably won’t eat any rice, or fish, pickled vegetables, or tofu. I’ll sleep in an overly firm bed on an overly soft pillow, and see my hair grow heavy and lifeless from hard water and sample-size shampoo.
I won’t hear the reassuring tumble of train wheels or the chorused clacking of high heels and geta. There won’t be any men in their pajamas wandering idly down empty streets or ragged backpackers dragging half empty cans of cheap [alcoholic] chu-hi around at nine in the morning. I’ll be out of my element, in a way quite similar to when I first came to Japan– unfamiliar with the culture, current events, and popular language. Still, it’s a different kind of being removed from one’s comfort zone, in that I am fully aware of how alien my situation is.
A former girlfriend of mine once stung me with some sharpest criticism I’ve ever received by asking what I was really in love with. Did I love her, or did I just love the idea of her? Those few plaintive words put a seed of doubt in my convictions that has ever since wrapped itself parasitically around my heart. Do I love Japan? Or do I just love the idea of Japan? Are my allegiances and preferences based on genuine kinship and compatibility? Or is this just a current day extension of that youthful malaise of searching for identity? Why do we pierce our bodies, listen to bebop, and refrain from eating red meat? Are these things us for pragmatic reasons or do we just need to be different?
Yeah, that’ll show them. So what if I didn’t stay sixty miles from home and get a lease on a car? I’m broadening my mind.
I don’t want to believe that I harbor sentiments of superiority or cynicism. Because if there is even the slightest taint of conceit in my decisions, then all of my doctrines are a bigoted lie and I am no better than the disdainful image I attribute to my cultural nemeses.
I want to think I can live anywhere, and that all countries are good, full of beautiful people. Each place is just different. If humans can eat it, so can I. If they can love it, the potential lies within me as well. National borders mean nothing other than laws and paperwork. The differences between people are as numerous as the similarities, and it is wrong to ascribe subjective qualities to a race or class.
I am Caucasian. I have freckles and arm hair. Japanese people most often do not. This is an easily recognizable fact.
But since I said “Caucasian” and “Japanese”, and then drew a difference, it still carries a tinge of narrow-minded injustice. It feels wrong. Maybe it’s because I so often told myself that I would not judge people or categorize souls, I developed a paranoia. Just another small neurosis to add to the list of ticks I need to consciously disarm at every encounter. It seems that no matter how noble I believe my aspirations for inner harmony to be, the mental bird’s nest of insecurities and contradictions only grows thicker.
I don’t know what this means. I don’t want to have to think like this and dissect myself. I just want to be a good person and bring warmth and compassion to others, while increasing my wisdom and complacency. But it seems that with experience comes not only wisdom, but the mantle of precedence and confusion.
