On The Train 01: Looking Back

Four years ago in the rainy season I made my first trip to Japan as part of the Oregon Intercultural Association. I was young and had no formal education on Japan. No language, no culture, and no history. Everything I knew I knew from pop culture and the occasional book on Japanese samurai. I was naïve and as green as the Gifu countryside.

As I bounded downstairs today at my host home and came face-to-face with my reflection in a full length mirror, a perfect vision of my past self. Yesterday I shaved off my beard, a look that sprouted from my first trip to Japan, and for the first time in four years have no plans to grow it back. I had been lazy today and never put on my contacts, so when I was invited out to meet my host family for dinner in Kawagoe I threw on my glasses. I wore glasses then too, this pairs’ predecessor. The icing on the cake was the red Columbia rain jacket I grabbed to protect myself from the torrent of rain pouring outside. I bought this jacket for the maiden voyage, a guard against a rainy season that never really was. I found myself staring at me, four years ago.

“How much has changed?,” was the first thought to cross my mind. If I look no different now, what has changed and morphed in four years to bring me to this point? Am I the same person who landed in Narita then, or is my appearance now just a homage to the me that was?

I can certainly say I know far more now than I did then. I have experience an amazing array of things in Japan, and have built a firm foundation in my understanding of this riddle of a country. I will never claim to understand Japan, that is an impossible thing to say about any place in this world, but I feel now that I can at least grasp the enigma at times.

I do not, however, find any of the passion I had then for being in Japan to be different (although it is now second to a greater love in my life). I still hate natto, love sashimi, and crave anko at random times. My strange affinity for Japanese power poles and lines remains, as does my uncanny habit to spend all my free time in Tokyo in Akihabara. Bowen would say I no longer an a fan of anime and manga, but I still enjoy them thoroughly.

Even though I may show few outside differences in how I appear now compared to then, especially when I cosplay as my former self like today, I feel that things have changed for me. Maybe, however, that is Japan rubbing off on me. Four years ago, I walked the same streets in Saitama with the same shops and the same people. This place hasn’t seemed to change either. Or, as my friend Bowen pointed out to me in discussing the physical state of Akihabara, it has only changed to those who really know it well. Maybe that is the same for me, maybe those who knew me then and knew me now could see the differences projected outward.

Note: this is a first in a type of article I will be trying to write more of. The only restriction on these more personal and informal articles will be that I am only allowed to write them while on the train. Editing may be done later for improved appearance, but I will try to avoid making any content changes while not on a train.