Retrospective

My Other Life











Monday March 19th
Today was the day that I used up that last of my Japanese orange-menthol toothpaste. It was also the day that I missed my return flight back to Tokyo. As far as my life in Japan was concerned, it really was goodbye.

Upon returning home the first thing people tended to ask me was "So did you have a good time?" Now this is actually a rather difficult question to answer, the first reason being that one needs to answer it it no more than twenty seconds . Which is the average attention span of a mate down the pub. The second reason is that it is impossible to answer honestly. I mean what nine months of anyone's life is all good? So of course I said that I had a great time - which I did. Mostly. Though some of it was difficult.

If people were interested enough, they may then have followed on with a second question....

"How long are you back for?"
- Who knows? But I am not going back to Japan if that is what you mean. I quit my job.

"So what will you miss the most now you are home?"
- I don't know. 'Stonecutters' on a Thursday night - drinking parties at izakayas. Being able to get on a train and go to Shibuya or Shinjuku and just wandering about. Seeing new places. I mean there was still so much left for me to discover.

Actually, I will miss everything. My friends, the weird use of English on packaging, the efficiency of the trains, the local internet cafe, my students, neon, earthquakes, the crowds and the constant surpises that one comes across daily in a culture that never ceases to fascinate.

"What was the food like?"
- Like Japanese food. Being vegetarian, this limited my choice of things to eat in Japanese restaurants, but I got by. You can buy most things you want in the supermarket and in Tachikawa there was an excellent international food store (but it was very expensive). Tokyo is not as cosmopolitan as London, so apart from McDonalds and Subway, western food can be fairly tricky to seek out.


"What was the weirdest thing you ate?"
- Natto. It is made from fermented soya beans. This is a picture of me eating some deep fried natto in seaweed. It smells like old feet. The Japanese eat it for breakfast. I was tempted to try fugu (a.k.a blow fish or puffer fish) most of my students had tried it and assured me that it is not at all dangerous. The poison is just in the liver. Nevertheless, I know for a fact that a few people die every year after eating fugu that has not been prepared properly.















"What was your best experience?"

- That is tough, but probably watching the sunrise from the top of Mount Fuji. I had so many fantastic experiences though that I will never forget. Oh, and freakspotting.

"What was your worst experience?"
- Getting a taxi back home from a club in Shibuya at 4am. It was my first weekend in Tokyo and I hadn't quite got my head around the distances between places. It cost me £90.







"Did you meet lots of nice people?"
- Yes.

"Did you do karaoke?"
- I am afraid to say that yes, I did indeed do karaoke - at my welcome party and my leaving party. I seem to recall singing 'Barbie Girl'. Ouch.

"So is your Japanese really good?"
- No. To be honest, it is almost non-existent. I got away with the bare minimum. Although I can read and write Katakana. Slowly.







"What was your apartment like?"
- It was a cross between a high security fridge and a shoebox.




"How did you feel as a foreigner out there?"
- Conspicuous but tolerated and on a good day very welcomed.





"How was the teaching?"
- Great. Just over a year ago I would not have thought I could teach. I truly believed that I would not be able to stand infront of a class of people and teach them but once I got over the initial nerves in the first week or two, I loved it. I was also incredibly lucky to have such wonderful students, they were all such nice people. Teaching the kids was the biggest challenge. I only had a couple of hours training before I was presented with a class of five four year olds who were running around throwing things at me. Anyway, I eventually won them over.


"Was Tokyo really expensive?"
- I would say that most things were either the same or slightly less expensive than in England. which was a surprise because I heard that Tokyo was the second most expensive city in the world, next to Oslo. However, you can pay up to £15 for one single peach.

"What's big in Japan?"
Baseball, Converse trainers, clothes for pets, cell phones, Twenty Four (the TV series), keitai tags, sleeping on trains, suicide, Mega Macs, anime comics, superstition, power drinks, cram school, a sense of duty, overtime, dying your hair ginger, saying 'yes' when you mean 'no'....




....public drunkeness, Cup Noodles, green tea flavour Haagen Dazs, vending machines, karaoke, bento boxes, bowing, iced-coffee, cycling, Luis Vuitton, Hello Kitty, white gloves, 100 yen stores, Mickey Mouse and dressing up like Elvis on a Sunday afternon.





Beyond that, my life in Japan will remain an unknown to most people back home. Just as my life back home was an unknown to everyone I met in Japan. The only thing these two lives had in common - was me.

Sayonara

I walked home in the pouring rain; the echo of karaoke songs still reverberating in my head and my shoes filled with water. It was 5.15 am. I had said goodbye to my drunken friends and students as they sheltered in the doorway of a McDonalds that was preparing to open for breakfast. They were waiting for the first train. It was still dark.

My apartment was a mess. A half packed suitcase sat at the end of the room. The hallway was filled with bags of rubbish and the floor was strewn with clothes and farewell gifts. Why is it that you always have more stuff than you think you do and things always take longer than you anticipate I wondered? I took a hot shower and put a dry T-shirt on and sat on my bed. This was it. In 48 hours I would be on a plane bound for the Motherland. In the meantime I had to extricate myself from this existence - which was proving to be a strange process.

The week had been one of parties, presents and goodbyes. I feared that arriving home would be one long emotional hangover. Would I experience reverse-culture shock? Or would seeing all my friends and family again compensate for all that I was giving up here? Oddly, as far as the present moment was concerned, I was aware only of a certain 'numbness of being'. Not sadness, not fear or regret, not excitement, just nothingness. I felt calm. I was thinking only about doing what had to be done.

I had no concrete plans for when I got home, just some ideas. I wanted to go to Las Vegas in April for the World Series of Poker and perhaps enrol on a journalism course and pursue a career in that field. I had given it a lot of thought since I graduated and now felt certain that would be right for me.

Many people wondered why I was giving up a decent job, friends and a life in Tokyo. I think the main one was that I had got what I wanted out of the experience. I wanted to go somewhere different and experience living in a new culture. I also promised myself that I wouldn't return until I had made a decision about what kind of career I wanted to pursue. There was also a part of me that wasn't as happy as I knew I could be, so I felt it was time for a change.

The sun was shining the next day and by lunchtime I was sitting in an empty flat. A guy from the airport came to collect my suitcase. It was heavy. He could hardly lift it. A short while later I had an amusing exchange with the gas man who came to settle up my account and switch my supply off. Despite (or perhaps because of) the language barrier I was actually given some money back. Just when I thought I might be vacating in profit, the doorbell went again. I could see a uniform in the video monitor. It was the electricity man. He presented me with a sheet of paper to sign with my hanko stamp, and a bill for 7,500 yen.

I sat looking out the window for a while or flicking through the channels on the TV. This was my last day in Japan. At five, Jason, Erika and Koki came round. We took a couple of things to the school and Jason helped carry my guitar. We took the train two stops to Tachikawa. We spent the evening at Za Watami izakaya. The last supper.

It was the second morning I'd been walking the streets at 5.30 am. The difference this time was that it wasn't raining and this time I wasn't going home. At least not my home in Tokyo. A tiny hunch-back was sweeping the pavement in the dark and cold. The streets were quiet except for the distant clatter of the trains. I had stayed the night - what there was of it - at J's. Stations are always depressing at this time. The two of us stood shivering in the glare of the electric light. A grubby looking woman was sleeping standing up against a wall.

A steady trickle of commuters started passing through the ticket barriers. Another day in Tokyo was just begining. Life just continued for all of them. Another day at the office. Another day walking through Shibuya. It was all about to vanish from my reality. My eyes would no longer see these things. I would no longer smell that smell of ramen in the air or hear the now familiar mélange of Japanese voices.

I saw Erika running towards us. She had come to say a last goodbye. We all walked down to the platform and after a few minutes, a couple of hugs and farewells, the Narita Express pulled in. Jason ran along beside it waving me off as I disappeared from view. The rest of my journey was a solitary one that took me half way across the world.

I drifted into the airport in a daze, pushing a trolley. I was too early to check in so I had a coffee and people watched. I love airports. I love watching the screens with all their flickering times and destinations. The constant migration of peoples to places. I reminded myself that to move forward you have to leave things behind. It is a gamble. And a gamble is what I took when I decided to move to Tokyo. Lucky for me it paid off. I just couldn't believe it was over. I sipped my coffee. I remembered something I read in a book by Paul Auster. "The places you have been become part of who you are." So, in a sense, you never really lose anything

With that reassuring notion in mind, I finished my coffee and headed for the departures board. I like the sound it makes when the letters change. After spotting which desk I was to check-in at I collected my suitcase from the far end of the hall. I was beginning to worry about the weight of it. Plus the zip was a bit broken. I went through my bags double-checking I didn't have any blades, liquids or drugs on my person. (I got caught with a Swiss Army knife coming through customs on my way back from Amsterdam. I denied all knowledge of it vehemently of course - because I had forgotton all about it - which led to a search which proved me wrong. Oops.)

Check-in proved to be a nightmare. My fears were not unfounded. I heaved the case onto the scales and held my breath as the red numbers flickered back and forth and then finally rested on 37.5 kg. Oh my god. My baggage allowance was 20 kg. I had my guitar too in a hard case to check-in as well. I would have no choice but to pay excess baggage. The problem was I was over the excess baggage allowance too - 35 kg. I asked how much it would cost for the extra fifteen kilos. I was trying to think what I could dig out and throw in a bin. She told me it would be £50. Fine! I thought. No problem. Phew! Er, no. Sorry wait a minute, she had made a mistake. That would be £500. Oh dear.

There was a queue of people behind me (as there usually is at check-in desks in airports). I wasn't going to pay 500 quid. The woman suggested I post some things back so I lugged the 37.5kg suitcase off the scales as best I could, and, with the other arm, carried my guitar. On my left shoulder I had a very heavy bag and my handbag. I don't know how I managed to get to the exit gate but I did. Unfortunately, I didn't get much further because I got stuck in the turnstile. I stood there for a moment or two looking sheepish with my guitar held out in front of me and my suitcase wedged behind me. Thankfully, a couple of helpful Japanese men rushed to my aid. I felt a bit stupid though, not to mention stressed with my 'crisis'.

I located the post office and purchased the biggest box they had. I then proceeded to dump as much of the contents of my suitcase as it would accommodate into it. They weighed it. It was about 18kg if I remember rightly. I made the decision to send it back to England by ship, as opposed to plane, because although it would take two months, it was a quarter of the price.

Back at check-in, it was time for the dreaded 'weigh-in'. With the guitar as well the final count was 27.2kg. In spite of my (feeble, I have to admit) protests they charged me a further £150 for a measley few extra kilos. I was livid. I felt like asking how much they charge people who are overweight. Not only had I missed out on my bonus which would have covered my flight, I had to pay out all this to get my belongings home. Still, travel rarely goes smoothly. I tried to be philosophical and hope that this was my dose of bad luck which would mean the plane wouldn't crash somewhere over Siberia.

And miraculously it didn't. Five films, a stop-over at Schipol and a few security checks later I was back in London. Everything was comfortingly familiar. I could smell coffee and read all the signs, and there were westerners everywhere. In fact I was rather disappointed that I wasn't overcome with 'reverse-culture shock'. It all felt very easy. I was greeted by my dear parents who I must say, I was very pleased to see. I just couldn't believe I was back home again. I don't think I will ever get over how time really does go by and things always seem to.... just end.

Life imitating art

From Bladerunner to Lost in Translation

Given the fact that Lost in Translation has to be one of my favourite movies and that it inspired me to move to Japan, it was imperative for me to visit the Park Hyatt hotel where it was filmed. Unfortunately, I couldn't quite stretch to a stay there, but I returned on a number of occasions with friends and family for some relaxing times.

There were four of us in the gleaming lift that ascended to the forty-something floor of the Park Hyatt hotel. It glided smoothly upwards. The interior was bathed in soft light. The doors opened with the delicate bing noise I remembered from the film. We stepped out into the airy atrium lobby with marble floors and glass pyramid roof. Beyond the palms and low tables, we could see Tokyo stretching out far below in the city haze.

We turned right and walked past the Girandole restaurant, pausing to admire the view and then through the library to the next set of elevators. The place was the epitome of refined taste and elegance; black marble, sumptuous carpets, exquisite lighting. Everything was designed to perfection. The second lift took us to the 52nd floor. I caught my reflection in one of the mirrors. I wished I was dressed in beautiful clothes. Something inside me ferociously wanted the wealth that could buy me this world of luxury. Once you taste it there is no going back.

The doors of the lift slid open to reveal the most stunning views, from the highest of the trio of skyscrapers. A wave of vertigo rushed through me as I looked down on flyovers and rooftops. I could see the luminous lights of Shinkjuku and beyond, the vast metropolis melding into the distant smog of the horizon.

An immaculately dressed Japanese waiter in a long white apron showed us to a table by the window. I ordered a champagne cocktail from the menu, while one of the guys suffered the embarassment of having to change into a pair of black trousers in the loos. Not that the dress code is particularly strict - they just don't like ragamuffins in cropped trousers turning up. Everything was exactly as it was in the film. I think even the waiters were the same. The only thing that was missing was the flame-haired jazz singer and Bob and Charlotte sitting at the bar.

Bob - "So what do you do?"
Charlotte - "Um, I not sure yet actually.
I just graduated last spring."
Bob - "What did you study?"
Charlotte - "Philosophy."
Bob - "Yeah, there's a good buck in that racket." (laughs)
Charlotte - "Well so far it's pro-bono."

I was sitting with three English guys. I had met one of them at an interview I did in London a few months ago. The other two were film students from Sussex University. My friend and ex-lecturer had put them in touch with me. They were on their way to LA to help him shoot a movie. I wished I was going with them. Instead I was stuck here in Tokyo. If only I knew that in six months time I would be back in England. Garth would have finished the film short and I'd be invited to the premiere in Los Angeles.


It was 6:30 pm. In the darkness, the city glowed with jewel-like lights. I half expected to see Bladerunner-esque plumes of fire shooting up from the towers. Erika and I had taken the train to Shinjuku to meet Miyoko at the Park Hyatt to celebrate her birthday. It had been my idea. An excuse really to splash out on LITs and Manhattans in my favourite bar. The train as usual, was packed but I immediately spotted a fellow westerner. He was a few feet away, wedged between a group of salary men near the door.

We took a cab to the hotel and were ushered in by white-gloved Japanese girls in dark skirt suits. From 7pm you have to pay a cover charge but we decided it would be worth it. The New York Bar hosts top jazz acts every night. Tonight it was to be a duo. A pianist and a saxophonist, whose name I was later to discover was James Butler. We perused the drinks menu, printed on high quality white card. What was it to be? I heard Bill Murray's voice in my head saying "For relaxing times, make it Suntory time."
I ordered a Bellini.

At around ten, the jazz had come to an end and so had my fifth cocktail, so we asked for the bill. At least the nuts were free. We took the first lift back down and walked through the library. At the end of the corridor we stopped to admire the view. From behind us I heard the distant bing of the elevator doors opening and then voices. I turned away from the window to see two men walking through the hall in our direction. They were the musicians. I smiled and said "great set, we really enjoyed it." The saxophonist stopped and came over. "Hey thanks, glad you enjoyed it. You know I saw you earlier. Do you remember?
I was standing next to you on the train from Tachikawa."

I returned to the Park Hyatt on two further occasions. Once was with my parents who had arrived in Japan that very same day. It was quite an introduction to Tokyo I think. The other time was with some friends from back home. It was January 2nd. In the morning we went to see the Emperor at the Imperial Palace. Later that afternoon we went to the hotel. It seems to have become a popular tourist spot now since the film - it was one of the sites on the Caterham boys' list of 'must see' places but I am not even sure that they saw it.

It is what I call 'the glamour effect'. Art begins by imitating life and in doing so, tends to glamorise it. After that, we try to reconstruct that glamour within our own life. Consequently, life attempts to imitate art. It is as if in doing so, we are creating and observing all the complex layers that make up the fabric of our reality. Movies looking at life. People watching movies. People recreating movies. The phenomenology of cinema. Someone should make a film about it.