Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Japan

Japan . . . that enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a Big Mac pocket.

For those of you who've never been there, I can only say that in your wildest dreams, Japan is not going to appear. Nowhere have I been more correct than when I once wrote, in an account about my five years there, that stepping off that plane that first night was like stepping onto the surface of Mars.

And I've lived in a LOT of places. India, Africa, New York, England . . . but no one can predict Japan. Not even the Japanese can explain Japan.

*Sigh* and I am now inexorably tied to Japan for the rest of my days . . . I will never be able to muse about "my time in Japan . . ." as if it were a diminishing past. It is permanently in my future. The rest of my family all live in California. But technically, there's nothing that says I'll HAVE to return there one day. But I will have to return to Japan. And that's not such a nice thing, to be obliged to have to go somewhere you don't particularly like.

What's not to like about Japan, you say. What's to like about it, I say. These days, about an hour after I've stepped off the plane in Osaka, I'm ready to get right back on. Trouble is, it's so FUCKING FAR AWAY. I never really appreciated just how far it was when I actually enjoyed being there, when plane travel was still fun, when the thought of just being there didn't fill me with dread.

But it's really, really far. It's geographically far, but it's mentally far, too.

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