Wednesday, July 27, 2005
awaiting my new home...
Today it is 4:57am and I am sitting in the fourth floor of the Keio Plaza Hotel. It is the day that I travel to my job in Ubuyama, Kumamoto Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan. I am a little nervous because it is the first day that I have to successfully communicate in Japanese and it is also the first day that I will live to learn in isolation. It will also be the first time that I have been completely split off from European/North American culture and people. But this means it is also a great opportunity in many ways. But I am glad to be done with the orientation here in Tokyo, which was not always informative or useful. The strange college-like community that was formed here in the two and a half days that we 1300 some international youth were here will be atomized, never to be formed again. In three hours I will meet with the rest of the JETs assigned to my prefecture in order that we can go to the airport and all fly down to Kumamoto City. There my boss, and hopefully future friend, Nakamura-san will meet me in the smoldering 100F heat. Soon thereafter I will let you know how this mysterious voyage winds its way through the countryside.
Monday, July 25, 2005
on the airplane...
As I type this into my computer I am on the plane to Tokyo. The past five weeks I have been touring the continental United States. I saw many people that I love. I met strangers and saw old friends. I visited Bellingham, Clifton (Colorado, near Grand Junction), Berkeley, Palo Alto, Vancouver, New York, East Hampton, Ukiah, but not in that order. Oh yes, and Eugene. How could I forget? I even stopped in Grants Pass for a taco.
Now I am embarking on something that feels more than a little random. To teach English in Japan was never my imagined future, well until recently it was not. But it was never my idealized imagined future. I fell into it for various reasons. And this is in spite of the long application process—I really do feel that I simply fell into this. So let it be a fruitful act of providence.
And here I go, the classic way as well: 500 miles per hour 37,000 feet in the air above Alaska (I guess…).
Anyhow. I could write a lot about the U.S. and its various vagaries. NYC would have felt even more bizarre than Las Vegas if it were not for the power of its hype. I seemed to be constantly aware that I was in NYC because of its fame and cultural dominance. It was a dominating place. I do not see how it cannot take a hefty chunk out of one’s individual freedom of/production of reality because it seems to impose so much of its own. I sometimes felt weaker, dumber, less interesting while in the city, and yet I fit in fine and did not feel badly judged by anyone there. But then again this is the way I envision all major cities except Prague where I did not feel dominated; I felt like a proper outsider/observer/wanderer. Perhaps if I was alone in NYC I could feel that way, but something tells me that it is one of the hardest cities in the world for that kind of existence (and maybe that is some sort of compliment to the city). I am primarily a country boy (but that does not mean I won’t be enticed to live in the city someday—especially Vancouver (which is a whole other kind of city anyway)).
And then comes Japan, the destination of my JFK-Narita 14+ hour voyage.
Now I am embarking on something that feels more than a little random. To teach English in Japan was never my imagined future, well until recently it was not. But it was never my idealized imagined future. I fell into it for various reasons. And this is in spite of the long application process—I really do feel that I simply fell into this. So let it be a fruitful act of providence.
And here I go, the classic way as well: 500 miles per hour 37,000 feet in the air above Alaska (I guess…).
Anyhow. I could write a lot about the U.S. and its various vagaries. NYC would have felt even more bizarre than Las Vegas if it were not for the power of its hype. I seemed to be constantly aware that I was in NYC because of its fame and cultural dominance. It was a dominating place. I do not see how it cannot take a hefty chunk out of one’s individual freedom of/production of reality because it seems to impose so much of its own. I sometimes felt weaker, dumber, less interesting while in the city, and yet I fit in fine and did not feel badly judged by anyone there. But then again this is the way I envision all major cities except Prague where I did not feel dominated; I felt like a proper outsider/observer/wanderer. Perhaps if I was alone in NYC I could feel that way, but something tells me that it is one of the hardest cities in the world for that kind of existence (and maybe that is some sort of compliment to the city). I am primarily a country boy (but that does not mean I won’t be enticed to live in the city someday—especially Vancouver (which is a whole other kind of city anyway)).
And then comes Japan, the destination of my JFK-Narita 14+ hour voyage.
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