Rebound

These last couple weeks have been an extremely intense soul search, where I’ve been constantly assessing my actions and choices to remain in Japan. Second guessing yourself creates a limbo like bog that you can’t escape. It paralyzes your ability to make the choices that would stabilize you because they would commit you to the environment you might want to escape. Knowing that I can go home at any time has been poison for acceptance and dealing with the problem. There is a time to run and there is a time to fight, but knowing which is which is extremely difficult to decide.

I decided to stay at least until Christmas to give myself some time to be sure, and now it seems that things are getting much better. I have a handful of really great friends to thank for that, namely my dear friend Fernando. You meet people traveling that talk a lot and plan a lot, but you never get your hopes up because they usually turn out to be full of it— I must say, that goes for most people. Fernando has been the greatest gift that I have gotten out of this experience so far because he is such a happy and generous person. He is the kind of person that offers to help you move and get a car to borrow that day without any solicitation. He is the kind of person you call when you wallet is stolen to help you talk to the cops. He is the kind of person that will come to the store with you to help you buy medicine if you are sick.

So last night I had the adventure that I’ve been needing: the one that lets me know that I’m doing the right thing. This was the adventure that reminded me that things are going to happen all the time if I give myself time. It started at the Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Art, where there had an exhibition on Rembrant’s etchings. They were fantastically intricate and exciting. Though many had a religious theme or depicted a troubling view of man’s nature, they were beautifully crafted and very exciting to see. I needed some time alone to listen to music and be inspired by great art!


Later that night, I went to another party in Tsurumai Park: a local park with beautiful statues and gazebos where the gaijin like to gather for drinking parties. That’s one thing I love Japan, and most every country in the world: they do not mind people gathering in public to drink. I remember going to Paris and seeing kids gather at Sacre Couer to drink wine and play music while looking at the skyline of the city. I was so jealous that we were not legally allowed to gather and drink in a positive environment like that instead of a crowded, loud bar that usually doesn’t yield any good conversations or real moments. So finally I live somewhere where we can drink in public and play soccer or relax in a gazebo without having to worry about police. I hung out there for a few hours, talking with my friends and playing a little soccer until I decided to try to go to Sakae to meet Fernando.

He had called me about a rave about an hour from Nagoya and I was so excited about the possibility of going on an adventure with him and his brother. Well, I was thrown into a fountain because I didn’t think my friend Aaron would actually do it, so I met Feru and Ricardo at my place with their lovely girlfriend Sawako. We left Nagoya at 1:30 in the morning, dancing like crazy inside and outside the car, and didn’t arrive at the rave until 2:30 or so. In order for us all to communicate, we go between three languages because Ricardo refuses to speak English, I can’t speak Japanese and Sawako doesn’t speak Japanese, so Feru and Ricardo speak Spanish and Japanese, Sawako and I speak our perspective languages, but Spanish to each other. It was such a trip. We parked the car and brought our Asahi and Grapefruit Chu-Hais, climbed a small levee and saw the party on the banks by the river. There were a few DJs that rotated in and out and a hot dog stand that sold Zima, which so typically random of the Japanese. The music was great and the people were crazy and we all danced until the sunrise and the moon shared the sky. It was a beautiful morning, clear and warmer than it has been here the last few weeks. I feel like the weather here is a great analogy for Japan as a whole: you can never tell what it’s going to be like or prepare properly, unless you are Japanese. It is either unbearably miserable or it is gorgeously clear. On those days, everything falls into place. You can air your futon and dry your clothes with no problem on those days. On the other days, you curse the logic and the silliness of the culture and your clothes mildew.





As the morning grew brighter and the scene got old, we piled into Ricardo’s car and went to the “convenie” to pick up tasty snacks and drinks and make our way to the beach. We drove for about an hour through industrial Japan, with its factories, smoke stacks and crowded apartments airing their laundry. We arrived to the beach and I actually laughed out loud at the Japanese “surfers” trying to surf on the smallest waves I’ve ever seen. They weren’t even breaking. They were so small that I wouldn’t have even been able to body surf them and these guys are out there trying to surf.



We sat on the concrete peer and watched Sawako soak herself in the waves and then fell asleep for an hour. When we woke up, Ricardo’s battery had died from leaving the car on so we had to get a jump to go home. By this time it was like noon, so we headed back to Nagoya. Before dropping Sawako off, we went and had Taiwanese food together at a restaurant near the house of Feru’s tia. I had a delicious ramen and tofu with hot chilli oil. It was really nice to feel part of a crew again, to feel so content with the friends around me that I forgot for a moment how much I miss my friends back home. It felt good to laugh and dance and ride around in a car on such a beautiful day. Leaving today, I felt better than I have felt in weeks, and I know its because I had so much fun and because I got to see the ocean.