Numazu

It’s been just over two years since Sherry and I left Japan and moved back to the States. And now we’re back, for a visit. We’re bypassing Tokyo, though, along with Kyoto, Osaka and all the other big name cities we Westerners have heard of. Although we did briefly see Nagoya our first night because we got on the wrong shinkansen and took a small two-hour, 150 mile detour. But once we got that all straightened out we headed directly to our old home, the city of Numazu – a modest, medium-sized city nestled at the base of Mt. Fuji and situated on the shore of the Suruga Bay. A city known for producing more dried horse mackerel than any other region in Japan.

It ain’t nothin’ fancy, but Numazu was our home for a year. And really the only other home Sherry and I have ever had outside of Austin. We love it, and though it’s been over two years, I have thought of Numazu every single day since we left on December 22^nd, 2008. I mean it. Every. Single. Day. And so, I expected that returning would be a bizarre, surreal, dreamlike experience. Like returning to your childhood elementary school and remembering the halls being wider and the urinals being taller. But the strangest thing about being back is that it’s not strange at all. It’s like we never left. It’s like the job I’ve held, and the apartment we moved into and every new friend we’ve made over the past two years in the States were simply a product of an overactive REM sleep brought on by a night of Suntory whisky overindulgence. It’s happened before.

Sigh.

Natsukashii, Numazu. I’m glad you’re you. It’s a good thing when old friends are just as charming and affable as you remember them.

Open Letter to Foreigners

Dear other foreigners living or traveling in Japan, I can’t help but notice a saddening trend that I feel compelled to address. Why is it that when we bump into each other on the train, in the grocery store or wait idly at opposing crosswalks you visibly and uncomfortably avert your eyes and refuse to respond to my presence? Explain yourself. I suppose I kinda get it. I mean honestly, I didn’t come to Japan to make more white friends either. But c’mon. Where’s the camaraderie? Is it too much to ask that we simply make eye contact, however fleeting? Maybe we even exchange a head nod, yeah? Can’t we telepathically acknowledge each others’ existence and say, Wasn’t it hard to leave our lives behind and come to this crazy upside down land, but damnit aren’t we already better people for it? Shouldn’t we welcome the brief reprieve from living inside our heads in a congested country where we can’t verbally express ourselves, and embrace the opportunity to cling to one another and excitedly ask, “Remember Chili’s? Remember Dane Cook? Remember the Alamo?” Shit. We’re all goofy looking white people with a lost twinkle in our eye. Let’s be secret friends. Affectionately, that other white guy P.S. This letter does not apply to Morgan, the affable American who bid me good morning at Mister Donut, nor does it apply to the somewhat creepy (in a good and humorous way) Canadian fellow who initiated conversation on the train. Thank you, gents. You make me feel at home.

Word of the day, as eked out by my grocer

February 21, 2008: Salary