We live in a world full of conflicting forces. Gravity consistently pulling us down while we constantly try with unceasing effort to stand. We are driven in a hundred different directions every minute, each one a requirement, not an option. How can we possibly plan for anything in life or a future if the wind changes without the smallest warning? Where is the meteorologist to predict the storms in my way so I can pack my umbrella or at least clothes my windows?
People spend their entire lives trying to control things. Themselves, their future, their relationships, jobs, finances, situations. I planned my move to Japan for over 2 years before it actually happened. I spent hours reading blogs, browsing pinterest, searching for jobs and apartments and opinions that in the end, made little difference at all.
One of my first skype interviews eventually became the job to which I am now employed, they had an apartment ready for me, and the blogs taught me almost nothing compared to what I have learned in the 2 short months Ive lived in this beautiful place. I expected this adventure to be a learning experience and it is. Being submerged in a culture that you have very little understanding of, a language you cannot speak nor read, and a community you barely realized existed before you were thrust into it teaches a person many things, some of which are more difficult to list than others.
I`ve learned some basic phrases in Japanese and I'm getting better at understanding what people say to me, even if I don't quite know how to respond. Ive learned how to pay bills that I cannot read, buy cleaning supplies, bath products, and food without reading any labels, and how to cook rice on an induction heater without burning it to the bottom of my saucepan. Ive gotten very good at switching the languages on various electronics and finally having a full time, adult job with a salary that well exceeds my needs in a country that is remarkably inexpensive is quickly teaching me how to build a budget and control my otherwise volatile spending habits.
There are many questions people in your home country ask you when you inform them that you are moving across the world by yourself simply for a change of pace. `You`re going all the way over there all alone?` `Do you even speak Japanese?` `Are you into Asian guys?` All valid questions and few with any comforting answers. Generally, the purpose of a new adventure like this is to shock your system and bringing along too much of your previous life would defeat that so yes, I came here alone, no, I don't speak Japanese, and I didn't come here in search of some Rom Com, montage filled romance so whether or not I'm a rice queen is irrelevant.
But as confidently as these answers come every time the questions are posed, moving across the world completely alone with nothing but a few suitcases and a one way ticket is scarey as shit. What comes as a complete and fully heartwarming surprise upon arrival is the community that your solitude pushes you into. The family of gaijin (foreigners) that exists and supports itself here is truly an incredibly thing and one to be studied by anthropologists, if they know whats good for them. Going to a bar and trying to meet people in most places is daunting and frightening and usually fruitless. You never know if you will have anything to talk about with anyone, if you'll meet anyone that you have something remotely in common with, or if you're blessed by the gods, maybe meet someone you could learn to understand you. In a place where 90% of the people I speak with cant even understand the language I speak, it is an indescribably comforting thing to know that I can walk into a gaijin bar and know that every person there has a similar job to mine, is in a similar culturally confused state, and is enough of a kindred spirit to have jumped on a plane, solo, and come to the same place I did, looking for the same general idea of adventure.
What is further surprising, though it shouldn't be because we are all teachers by profession, is how much each one of these gaijin will teach you about yourself and the people and experiences around you.
This weekend I attended a sake festival here in Okayama with a few friends who have been very welcoming and helpful in socializing me a bit. It was a large, 4 hour event with sake, wine, and beer from all over Japan which obviously promoted friendliness and camaraderie. The festival was crowded with a large number of foreigners and every one of them at least said hello to 95% of the others. A bond forms between people when you are thrown into the same earth shattering and rebuilding situation that we are all in and people generally embrace that. What these sensei have taught me are valuable and altering lessons that I will never let go of. The experience teaches us to stop planning and just go with what life gives us. Who cares about your plans for the Monday holiday when you spend Sunday night surrounded by some of the most interesting, brave, and free-spirited people in the world?
Stop planning for your life and your future. You cant. Of course, be prepared for the unexpected because that's all you can really expect. Have a savings account, aspirations, dreams. But act on what you feel. Enjoy the life your living because if you don't, there`s nothing worth planning for. Ive spent a fair amount of brain power since I got here thinking about what to do when I leave. Where I might want to go, what jobs I might want to pursue and who I might do those things with. But the lesson of the first bit of this experience has finally sunk in. You go places and do things in life and meanwhile, you fall in love. You fall in love with places, people, communities, and experiences. Chase those feelings. Follow your happiness and stop worrying about what comes next.
And when you walk home at 6 am after a night filled with wine, ramen, and karaoke, stop. Sit on a curb and relish that moment. The person who sits next to you probably understands you better than anyone in the world right then and that is beautiful. So is the sunrise over a train station in Japan while you sit in silence and listen to world stir on a new and beautiful day.
