Japan reaches out and engulfs you. Embraces and repels in equal measure. It’s defined by the hyper-kinetic (neon signage flashing to the darkness, the tinkling cacophony of pachinko, black vans, speakers screaming dopplerised election slogans) and the serene (the back path around a forgotten Kyoto temple in the spring rain, crisp winter mornings and the ice on the car park, deserted back streets). It’s defined by the people, at times warm and welcoming, a others distant and xenophobic. It assaults the senses. It is a land of infinite contrasts.

Anyone who has lived in Japan will tell you it changes you. It pushes at the edges. Works its way into the cracks. You talk to expats here and they’ll usually agree on one thing: you need to get out every six months or so. It’s one of those things you just have to do to retain your sanity. A given. No one tells you this before you arrive. The realization forms slowly.

It begins over the long summer spent staring at the wall in the office, a hazy outline of a problem. A problem that begins to resolve itself throughout the freezing winter afternoons, your hands shaking as you try to unclip frozen plastic clothes pegs without snapping them. As you huddle in the one room of your ancient apartment you can keep above zero. Finally, it solidifies as your alarm bleats into the darkness, warning you it’s time for the 5am dash to start the bath heating, before you sneak back to bed for a few more minutes of warmth.

That problem was for later though, at the beginning, from the second my feet hit the ground at Narita, my life in Japan was full.

.

Once we’d dispensed with the rushed training, drawn-out seminars and official bowing and scraping of our Tokyo orientation, we headed west to Kansai, and home. Over the first few months the social group, predominantly Australian, gently unfolded and expanded. A regular crew formed. Although new to JET, not all were new to Japan, and school exchange programs, skiing holidays and university courses meant that a fair percentage had travelled to Japan.

Kansai though, that was new, a mystery to be explored. So we did. Through the all nighters in Osaka, early morning stumbles through the back streets of Kobe, train rides into the unknown, and afternoon hikes over the mountains, we bonded.

It was interesting watching people those first months. As relationships formed and blossomed. It’s amazing how quickly a large group of twenty-somethings can organise itself into cliques and couples that will stand for years. I watched this coupling as an outsider. I was taken.

..

Chui’s first visit was in early October. Leaves browning across the hills. The first chill winds of winter. It was an intense and stressful two weeks. Difficult. Rewarding. It’s up there as some of the best time I’ve spent in Japan. My non-existent Japanese was pushed to the limit on every day we spent travelling. Ambitious plans were scaled back in favour of more realistic ones.

Of all the crazy things we did, places we travelled to, people we met, the thing I remember most about that trip was a short conversation we had on the train, the last night she was in Japan.

…

We’d been to Himeji to see the castle, and decided to catch a movie before we headed home. By the time we boarded the train for the ninety-minute journey, it was late, and the men with white gloves had begun to empty the bins, and pull the shutters down in front of the ticket machines.

As the train rattles eastward, along the coast, it passes the huge Akashi suspension bridge that links Awaji island to the mainland, a whale skeleton of concrete and steel, back bared to the clouds. I stare out the window at the bridge and listen to her breathe beside me, thinking she is asleep, suffering from her regular case of transportation narcolepsy.

Suddenly, she sits up.

“Why do you never get upset at the airport?” she asks, “It’s like you don’t feel anything. We do this a lot, this airport thing, and every time you’re the same.” This throws me completely. I’ve never thought about this before. Can’t think of a good answer. Can’t apply reasoning on the go.

I let my mouth run and, before I know it, I’m spouting platitudes about not worrying because I know it won’t be long before we next see each other, and all the while sitting there thinking, “why don’t I feel anything? I care about her so much. Why don’t I feel anything?”

She gives me a measured look, then turns and pushes her head into my shoulder. Her breathing drops back into a regular pattern, and I am alone with the bridge, and the clouds.

…

The next morning we almost miss the plane. We sprint across the huge open space between the train station and the departure hall, bag clicking across the tiles, other passengers turning to look at the spectacle. Ten minutes until the gates close. We make a break for customs and just have time for an awkward half-hug before she is shuffled through the priority line and out of sight.

I stand there, amidst the sobbing families and thronging tourists for twenty minutes. Why don’t I feel anything?

The train ride home takes forever.

Posted in Mwah on Thursday October 20, 2005.

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