English Menus are Triggering

After what I consider a good attempt to learn Japanese for close to six years, it is pretty embarrassing and painful to admit how terrible my Japanese really is. Unlike English, where my strong trait is talking and never listening, in Japanese I am SO much better at listening. When I hear people talk, the words easily and pleasantly flow through my ears. One of my big motivators for learning Japanese in the first place was how entrancing it is by how few yet simple sounds the language manages to produce. Simplicity and beauty in everything it does, I think, could be Japan’s motto. Of course it could just as easily be, if it’s broke don’t fix it. 

I have to cut myself some slack because I spent approximately 1.5 years in high school learning the Japanese alphabet and watching anime with my weeabo friends. In college, I spent all 2 years of it actually studying Japanese 4 days a week. I wrote essays, studied grammar, gave presentations when I was forced to. I felt that I was getting a deeper grasp of some of the complexities of the language and the grammar. But I never ever spoke. 

I’m not saying my shyness to speak to strangers is a Japanese language thing, because I can’t even order at a Taco Bell in America without accidentally introducing the drive-thru guy to my dog out of sheer awkwardness and panic (that’s another story for another time). My mom has been making my phone calls for me for years out of sheer frustration of  watching me sit there trying to plan a script of what to say while calling the store to see if they have a certain item in stock. I don’t like talking to people. Unless of course you’re part of my fave 5 (the 5 people I actually enjoy being around in the whole world), we’re not going to communicate a lot unless you do most of the talking. I don’t know why this is, but I have a sneaking suspicion that some of this has to do with me having stray cats as friends as a child. But I mean, didn’t everyone?

Last year, my three months in Japan improved my listening skills by a landslide. But I still avoided putting myself into situations where I knew that I would be faced with difficult Japanese. Now, about 3 days into my part 2 journey of Japan, I was forced to go to the local government building to get my affairs in order. No one spoke English. While pointing to my residency card and repeating “jyusho” (Japanese for address) over and over again was not the highlight of my life, I got through it. I also enrolled for health insurance without understanding a damn thing the woman told me. Yes, it would be nice to understand these things. I understand that I have dropped the ball in many ways, and I’m not studying 4 days a week like I used to. But I would like to take small steps this year towards depriving myself of the English hungry self who feels safe and unashamed speaking her mother tongue.

First off—English menus have to go. The first thing people do when I enter a restaurant is reach for that English menu. While I would like to politely decline, I have no idea how to do that in Japanese, so I take the menu, but I turn it over to discourage myself from looking. Then, I order in Japanese. Despite my avoidance for English and my constant attempt to try to use as much Japanese as possible, people still speak English to me even when I am using Japanese. I don’t think my conversational Japanese is that terrible, but rather, I feel like it is a Japanese custom to cater to “tourists” even though I am technically a resident of Japan.

Today I went to buy myself a plant. Plants are a good substitute for friends and my mom told me that plants thrive off of people talking to them. Sounded like a good deal to me. In Kami-Itabashi, where I live, there is quite a few quaint flower shops. I surveyed the main street of Kami-Itabashi looking for a nice plant shop. I chose one with an old man standing on the porch having a smoke. I knew this would be another situation where I wouldn’t be able to ask much. How do I say, “Hi, I’m looking for a plant to fill the void where friends should be in my life, do you have any that are good for that? Also, low maintenance and can survive when I will undoubtedly go days without watering it.”

He notices me staring at plants and screaming on the inside, so he approaches. He remarks about how hot it is, which is child’s Japanese, so I can understand and reply. He’s not wrong, it feels like humid hell outside. He tells me the Japanese names of some of the plants because he can clearly see the struggle deep inside. He then shows me some succulents. How did he know that I need a low maintenance friend? He must be a mind reader. He tells me they are a cactus, which they are not, but like every Japanese person I have talked to, he is trying to comfort me with English. While the efforts are appreciated, it possibly makes me feel more stupid to speak English with a Japanese person who cannot speak it then to speak Japanese and make mistakes. 

I finally decided on some plant. I have no idea what it is. I just didn’t want a succulent and I didn’t want a flower that I would inevitably kill. The plant only costs me around 100 yen (approx. one-dollar) and he asks me if I have a planting pot and tries to sell me some French soap. I decline both, but comment on the nice smell of the soap. That’s as far as my Japanese takes me. He kindly wraps my plant and tells me thank you before sending me off with a smile. While not much communication happens, as with many of my interactions with Japanese people, he is kind and his shop smells like fancy French soap. I don’t interpret any ill-will and his patience makes me feel at ease. Luckily, these are how most of my interactions feel. I am grateful for their patience. I know many Americans who think that yelling louder somehow makes it easier to understand English. News flash: that doesn’t help, you’re just an asshole.

My only exception for speaking English is meeting other foreigners in Japan. And I don’t just mean white people. There are a lot of Indian restaurants in Japan with staff that speak English, Japanese, and their own native tongue. I went to grab lunch at one of these places, and while we start the conversation in Japanese, the second they offered up English I grabbed onto that thread as if I were drowning. I don’t know what it is about having that safe-space with other foreigners, but I don’t feel ashamed speaking English with them. But strangely, we still follow the Japanese custom of bowing to other another after they hand me my take-out bento. We are kind of trapped in a cultural no man’s land where we don’t know what customs to follow or what language to speak. People are weird. 

In short, I want to keep turning down the English menu. I want to struggle at more flower shops with old men who smoke and sell me soap. I want to reassure myself that there is no validity to the fear I feel when I enter a new space because the outcome will be okay. I will get through it, and I will come out of that experience feeling a little bit better about my Japanese. Here’s the middle finger to fear due to language barriers, because this time I won’t deprive myself. I’m going to eat at all the restaurants, buy all the plants, and do all the adult things. So save the English menu Japan, I’m coming at you with terrible Japanese. 

Depressed Stye Eye

Somehow, within my first two weeks in Japan, I got a stye in my eye. I’ve never had a stye before, so this was naturally the best time for it to occur. I diagnosed myself with my favorite doctor, Web MD. After performing a warm compress as many home remedies had suggested, I pulled the warm towel away only to discover that I couldn’t see shit. I had two options: freak the fuck out or dance around the room in my Black Butler blankie while blasting Where Are U Now by Justin Bieber. Obviously, I chose the latter. My fear of doctors is really quite humorous actually, especially doctors in a foreign country that I probably won’t be able to communicate with. The first time I went to a gynecologist she had to take my blood pressure twice because I was freaking out so bad she thought I was a 21-year-old with hypertension. Needless to say, doctors’ visits are not my thing.

My second week in Tokyo has consisted of me going to random places just so I don’t have to wallow in my deep loneliness. Having an eye infection, going days without actually talking to people, and living in a roach infested apartment is not the coolest combo. Usually there is someone nearby to force me to go to the doctor, make me some soup when my eye is producing weird slime, and tell me to chill the fuck out when I’m freaking out over literally everything. But there is no one here for me. Typing that is hard. Saying that is hard. I’m depressed. 

I’m in Asakusa, an annoying tourist place, sitting on some steps in front of some river. The water in the river is murky and watching the ripples move across the surface of the water has successfully distracted me from my own poisonous thoughts for at least 30 minutes. The longer I stare blankly at the surface of the water, letting my tired eyes lose focus, the water looks like nothing but patterns. I’m making myself dizzy, but I can’t even force my eyes to focus. The weather is disgusting. 90 degrees with 60% humidity makes me want to go home. But I came here so I thought I ought to get something done. I had an overpriced and quite frankly bad coffee at some shop that I thought looked quaint but in retrospect probably had a few health code violations. I don’t know what it is about eating near people who are smoking, but it makes everything taste like cigarettes smell. You know what, I think I’ll pass on cigarette taste and lung cancer. Thanks, but no thanks. 

Recently I’ve been waking up when the sun comes pouring in through my window at about 6 in the morning. Sometimes as I’m awaking I briefly think that my life in Tokyo was a dream, and I swear to God that I am still expecting to wake up in my house back in Utah. As my vision comes into focus, this heavy feeling of loneliness presses down on my chest like a brick. I am not home. I am here, wherever here is. I know the pain is worth something. I know the self-doubt is worth something. I keep asking myself terrifying questions like, “Why did you come here?” and “Did you make a mistake?” followed by such great hits as, “What if you can’t do it?” I ask these questions as if someone will answer me back. I don’t know who I’m talking to and what I expect to happen. I’ve never been one for God or a higher power, but you know what, I can see why some people dig that. Staring up at a cloudy sky and asking for answers while waiting for nothing in return isn’t fun. While the commentary from the peanut gallery in my brain is super encouraging, I try not to think too deeply about all of it. Luckily, since the area near my tear glands is so swollen, I don’t think I can cry anymore even if I wanted to. *I did cry more.

“Well didn’t you want this more than anything, Alie?”, some of you critics might ask. “Get off your ass and stop being sad”, some others might say. Easier said than done. Until you have been in my shoes. Until you have left your everything behind, don’t push your advice onto me. I understand that it was my choice, but that doesn’t have to stop me from being sad. I know that I longingly looked out the window every day at my 9-5 in America and thought about how life would be so much better if I’d only never left Japan. That’s the problem. We can never see what we truly have until it is gone. I never really thought about how nice it was to wake up and not feel so completely and utterly alone. I never thought about how nice it was to have a cat to pet and a dog to walk. I never thought about how nice it was to come home to a freshly cooked meal and parents who love me until I didn’t have that anymore. Maybe we should all dabble in a decent amount of deprecation, because it might just allow us to appreciate what we have a little bit more. When I come back home, whenever that might be, I will no longer be looking out that window longing for “freedom”, but rather, I will be enjoying every moment that I have with the ones I love. 

But right now, I reserve the right to be the depressed girl with a stye in her eye. So, don’t tell me to cheer up. I’ll cheer up when I’m damn ready for it. Right now, I am in my limbo, waiting for my life to make sense again and I can’t explain to anyone else how that feels. To quote a great scholar of our times, Mr. Marilyn Manson (you bet your ass I’m listening to my 8^thgrade emo playlist right now), “When you want it, it goes away too fast. Times you hate it always seem to last.” Think about it, okay? But for now, I am going to go home and warm compress my eye and try to get the pieces of my life back together again. 

0.75 Cockroaches a Day

In my first week in Tokyo, I experienced an average of 0.75 cockroaches a day. Don't ask me why I had that much time on my hands to actually sit down and figure that roach statistic out. As the encounters with my disgusting trash-eating friends increased, so did my understanding for how I have to deal with the little(?) bastards.

No one else in your life can kill your cockroaches for you. Hell, they can survive a nuclear holocaust or something (along with Twinkies apparently). If I think of cockroaches as some of the biggest demons in my life, metaphorically and literally, I know that I am the only one who will be able to step up to bat when I see one scurry across the floor in the middle of the night.

My boyfriend nobly stood up to the task while wildly spraying the surrounding cabinet space around three of the week one cockroaches that we had found. Of course, despite the fact that he also suffers from a crippling fear of bugs, he isn't here very often. So while his efforts stem from a good heart, I am the one who has to live with them. And I will add that I was the one who ultimately had to sweep up their crispy bodies and throw them off the edge of the balcony. Can someone file a complaint against me for throwing dead cockroach bodies off the edge of the apartment building? That would be a great conversation to have with my parents as I am explaining to them why I had to come back to America. "Well, you see, I didn't want to touch their dead bodies, nor did I want to walk down the 5 flights of stairs to dispose of them properly in the trash..." Does my laziness know any bounds?

Regardless of whether or not I am going to get in trouble for ditching roach bodies in the bushes, which will be decided at a later point, this is not my first experience with the nasty critters in Japan. Despite the supposed upgrade in housing from my last basement level room that somehow always felt like a cold, sad, swamp-- the roaches are still here. I now live on a noisy yet sunny 5th floor apartment in a place that is much larger and supposedly nicer than my last housing arrangement. I am also partial to the belief that unless you are a billionaire, you will likely have a kind of run-down establishment in Tokyo. What Tokyo boasts in bright lights, all-you-can-drink bars, and maid cafes, it lacks in decent housing arrangements. I think the idea is that you are either supposed to be so busy at work or obligational drinking with your co-workers after work to even have time to come home to your roach infested abode. Unless, of course, you are the lonely American girl who spent a good twenty minutes of her night curled over in the middle of the kitchen floor sobbing for no apparent reason, then you will not have enough time to notice your roach stats on a weekly basis.

Strangely enough though, I have had a few Tokyo long-time locals tell me that in all their years they have never faced as many roaches as I have in just about 4 months total time. I swear I'm taking my trash out regularly and doing my dishes, so don't even look at me like that. In my last apartment I went as far as to plug every single drain or crevice that I thought they could crawl through, but at the end of the day a city full of millions of people has roaches and I am apparently the fucking cockroach whisperer.

The first time I saw a cockroach I thought I was going to die. I could feel my pulse race and my mind went into immediate fight or (most likely) flight mode. I watched that big ass bug crawling around on the wall in the hallway of my tiny apartment. The cockroach was the only thing between me and the exit. I took a deep, wavering breath, thinking it might be my last. I don't know honestly what I thought the outcome of this encounter would be, but I'm sure I've seen one too many scary movies, so I think I thought the roach might just murder me in cold blood right then and there. After spending way too many minutes contemplating how I could go back to America without having to run past the demon bug on the wall, I ran for it. I remember, just like in the scary movies, I could hear it scurrying after me as I fled the apartment. Yeah, you read that right, they don't run from you-- they run towards you. Once outside the apartment, I really wasn't sure of my plan. The only thought that was in my mind was, "I want to go home. Now." After enlisting the help of my fellow intern to dispose of my very first cockroach, I'm almost certain I went back into my room and cried. I don't know what it is about those bugs that seem to defeat me or come around when I feel defeated, but my innate fear for them inspires a big dose of, 'I want my mommy' syndrome.

Now, in my new apartment, the first damn thing I saw when I opened the door to what is supposed to be my year long accommodation, was a cockroach scurrying under a cupboard. Wherever I go, they follow. But the difference between this time and last time is that during our first tango, I grabbed my handy-dandy bottle of Gokiburi Jet and killed those bastards, two at one time. I barely even flinched. I get kind of power hungry as I watch them wither and die as if to say, "Yeah! I'm an adult and this is my house! I make the rules and I say you should get the fuck out!"

I now treat cockroach killing as a sort of power trip and I most definitely have listened to Marilyn Manson to get me pumped up for killing. But that innate fear is still there. However, if I may return to the beginning of this post, I mentioned that no one can kill your "roaches" but you. I see these disgusting garbage dwellers as a metaphor for my fear. What I once let drive me out of my own house I now stand and face on my own featuring a can of super poisonous scary Japanese death spray. And no one is coming out alive when I have my potentially cancerous to humans and definitely deadly to roaches spray. There are those, like my boyfriend, who can come along and lend you a hand when you are trying to "rid the infestation" but the only one who has to live with those "roaches" is you. I can't believe I'm actually getting motivated while talking about killing bugs, but you better believe it.

So while I pray every night before I sleep that a midnight bathroom run doesn't turn into me screaming and running for the bottle of death spray, I know that there are going to be hardships. No matter how hard we try to prepare for them, they will often run out in our path in the middle of the night and scare the shit out of us. Life is unpredictable. But it is up to us to have the strength to face the fears that crawl out of damp and dark spaces and try and make us feel even more weak when we are already curled up on the kitchen floor crying (everyone does that, right?). So I'm not going to let a bug make me feel weaker than I already do. And I will be the one to conquer my fears on my own, as it has to be done. While it's not wrong to lean on others for that support to face your fears, just remember that they won't be with you during that midnight pee run. So, for your own sake, you're going to have to learn to fight the hard fights alone (ft. death spray).

The Elusive Japanese Glade plugIn Scent

It is nothing but a pain in the pit of my stomach, yet it is so much more than that. It is a pain that reminds me of my mortality, my vulnerability, and my loneliness. There is a stark contrast between the chapters of my life, which seemed to have passed by in a colorful blur like the pages of a children’s book. We either spend our lives trying to obtain what we once lost, or striving to escape a particular part of ourselves. Maybe I came back to Tokyo to escape a part of myself, or perhaps to discover a new part of me, a stronger part of me. I’m not proud of the version of myself that drowns her problems with a couple of drinks, or the version of me who looks in the mirror and can only focus on holding back the tears. The people who love me, the people I can always count on, they’re the one’s who have showed me my own potential. Without them, I doubt I ever would be able to do the things I can do now. Whenever I feel like I’m too weak, too broken, and too alone, I turn to those people. How will I ever be able to accurately portray how much I love them and miss them?

 I will try not to be too dramatic. I will try not to say that there is a gaping hole in my heart. No, in a way it is worse than that. As if a gap in my consciousness has appeared. As if a part of my rationale has disappeared. That voice in the back of your head, that reassuring voice of logic, I feel like I left that behind in America with a few old pairs of shoes and a box filled with my beloved cat’s ashes. So how is it that people move out, move on, and somehow manage to leave room in their luggage for the rational part of their brain? My family and my friends are the rational part of my brain. They have always been there to hold the mirror up to my face and rightfully tell me when I was being a screwup. It’s harder than it sounds to hold that mirror with your hands. In fact, it’s downright terrifying. We will likely never enjoy what we see looking back at us.

 It’s so easy to analyze others and tell them what it is that needs fixing. It’s so easy to place blame instead of grasping that mirror. My over-analytical nature is a blessing and a curse. I sincerely believe it has been a key to my success, I also believe that it could very easily destroy me. In a way, writing it all down feels like the only way to drain the clot in my consciousness. My brain is overcrowded like a city full of screaming pedestrians and honking cars— and if I can get it all out, then maybe there may be a night of peace in that city where the noises never stop. So here’s my attempt.

 Like my crusty and cynical journalism professor told me more than once, my writing is too wordy. I should’ve told him my analogy about my crowded brain city. He surely would’ve scoffed and told me to bug off. Journalism, true journalism, leaves no space for the voice of the writer. I might as well be painting a blank canvas with white paint. I know, objectively, the world doesn’t need my wordy articles and overthought analogies. I could ramble on about how my entire life itself holds little merit, just like everyone else, but I will spare you all the pain of reading that. Instead, let me paint you a meaningful moment while using a palette of colors instead of white.

 It’s a park. I mean, it could be any park, and in a way it is. But there’s something in the air that brings a moment of solace to my mind filled with thoughts of anxiety. I like to think of it as a smell. Maybe it really is a smell, or maybe it’s something that only exists in my mind that I’ve tricked myself into believing. The smell comes with the wind and it when it hits me it’s not too sweet but it vaguely reminds me of fresh cherry blossoms. The smell is warm too, like when my mom used to wrap me up in my blankets like a burrito when I was small. It feels like a hug. It feels like the sunshine on my shoulders on a day with not a care in the world. The scent in the air of this park is love to me. It makes me feel like I’m not alone. As if somehow from beyond the grave my grandmum is embracing me with the way the color pink feels.

 So, yeah, the park is special to me. To everyone else, it’s actually just a space with trees. I wasn’t kidding when I said I was over-analytical. But you see, this smell doesn’t just exist in the wind that rustles the leaves on the ripe trees. It exists where I least expect it. And for some reason I can only find it in Japan. Too bad there wasn’t a Glade plugIn for, “Warm, Sweet, Sakura Smell that also Feels like a Hug”, or maybe I wouldn’t have moved my entire life across the world for the second time. It’s more of a feeling than anything else.

*I found the "I love you" scent (Yes, I know it's a "Glade Sensations", but really who cares), but no "Mysterious Happy Hug Japanese Park" smell can be found. Bigfoot is quaking honestly. HMU if you find the elusive smell, even in candle form. It would save me a lot of time, money, and stress next time I am craving that scent.

 I can’t express why I came back. Sure, some people in my life can quickly label my return as a fling abroad. To infer that is to say that I was chasing romance across the world like a romantic comedy movie. It’s not an aspect of my journey that I will try to deny. But the journey is so much more than that. The journey is a discovery. Of love, yes. But in more ways than one. The journey of love for myself, love for life, and love for the experience itself. I want to learn more about all kinds of love, as cheesy as it sounds. I swear it’s really not a ROM-COM.

 The most important discovery I want to make is that of loving myself. I want to learn a new kind of comfort on my own and I want to believe in myself. I want to accomplish that this year. I know you can’t put a time limit on learning to accept yourself and live independently. Hell, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to confidently say that I have mastered the craft. But if this is the first step, then that’s how it has to be. It just had to be that Japanese Glade plugIn smell that made Tokyo the place that I had to go to begin that first step. Sometimes the first step is the biggest and hardest step. I’ve always been good at just falling into the lake instead of dipping my toes in the water to test it out first. Sometimes the water is too cold and I instantly regret the decision that I have made. But the great part about being human is that the body adjusts quickly and what once felt like a freezing lake of loneliness adjusts to a temperature that you can bear, or even enjoy. It’s all about lasting long enough to adjust to the feeling. I am simply hoping that I last long enough to adjust.