“Once there was a way to get back homeward…”

Amit and I bounce back and forth between two different worlds here in Tokyo virtually unrelatable to one another.  Here they are as best as I can describe them. 

The Homelife:  You think when you sign up on an international network of people who let travelers crash on their open couches that you would inevitably end up with a lonely post-grad teaching english abroad or a strung out hippie expat still in deep a life long love affair with communal space.  You don’t think of a Hawaiian Air Force officer, his Japanese wife and two kids living on a giant Air Base who knows the strip club scene of Tokyo like the back of his hand and ends up passing out after a night out with his buddies on the living room floor.  Amit and I are currently stationed on Yokota Air Base in Fussa, about an hour and a half from downtown by train.  They drive us to and from the train station when we go in and out of town.  It takes us so long to get where we are going that it feels that in between rides we are straddling two different universes.  Makai, our “homestay father” (haha) took us out the other night to a bar without a single Japanese person in it, with his buddies, a gang of Hawaiian dudes that love to drink heavily, fart, and then grab each other and wave it into each other’s faces.  Makai’s party trick, which we did not get to see thank god, is pulling out his fake plexiglass testicle given to him after he was misdiagnosed with testicular cancer and banging it on tables, smashing it with beer glasses, and stabbing it with high heels for free drinks.  Though he is by no means what I expected, he is still a whole lot of fun and wouldn’t trade him for any Japanese national.  His wife is the sweetest, most hospitable woman I’ve ever met, who cooks for us, buys us cake, and translates Japanese game shows for us on tv.  She is also terminally ill with breast cancer.  Makai told us the other night though you’d never know.  We aren’t really sure what to make of it.  We hear him talk about all these military guys out here with their Filipino and Japanese wives who are also “hostesses” at bars, and can’t quite make out the significance of their relationships, but are trying not to make any unsubstantiated judgments.  We spend a lot of time playing with Kaimana and Kiara, their children, while watching American tv and eating either udon noodles and kelp or quaker oatmeal squares and banana nut crunch.

The citylife:  The average day consists of Amit and I going to a different ward of Tokyo, walking around, deciding everything that people who come here are supposed to want to do is too expensive, buying beers from the convenience store and than searching for a place to drink them where we don’t have to buy anything. One conversation after another about the first world absence of public space. This is the first time since New Zealand that I have travelled to an affluent society.  I am someplace where my whiteness is not a novelty, nor an annoyance.  I am unusual, and loud, but I am not targeted for solicitation, or targeted for larceny, at least as far as I can tell.  Amit and I are trying to interpret how we are being perceived without the use of language in a society that is noted for its reservation and stoicism.  I do not feel any of the usual symptoms of guilt or shame in my privilege because chances are everyone around me has a lot more money than I do and a lot less debt.  I cannot complain about feeling like I’m consuming other peoples culture because the truth is I can’t really afford to consume it.  We see things we want and we soothingly pat each other on the backs, promising one another that it will be cheaper in China.  I had a little bit of an “I’m not doing anything good for anybody” meltdown on the train last night, but I’m feeling a little better today.  I wanted to see everything you could see in Tokyo in one week, and during the meltdown I realized it wasn’t possible and that took a lot of pressure off.  When we are not on the train we walk the streets for hours, freezing our asses off, but not really sure what we would do if we stopped.  We saw a temple at night in Asakusa.  We stayed out all night at a club in Roppongi.  We found out we were not at all trendy enough for Shibuya or really all of Japan. We’ve tried like hell to find vegetarian Japanese food in Shinjuku and failed, and ate curry instead.  We have approached people with questions, where with the little English they have, they try so sincerely and so kindly to answer our questions that we get trapped in a downward spiral of misunderstanding so confusing that we are now scared of talking to people.  We can’t find the Japanese poor.  We are happy to be together though it bugs me when he whistles and he hates my black skirt.  We are clearly together all the time. =)

In both worlds I find familiarity and novelty, and really fucking nice people trying their hardest to make things easy and fun for me.  I’m in a country where on every corner you can find an arcade with an ENTIRE floor of those machines with the claws that pick up stuffed animals and drop them in the slot only they contain busty figurines, coffee mugs and cans of soup.  I have no idea what I’m doing.

Andie