Blogchat

Oh by the way i am going to start using blogchat again. So if you visit this site and the diamond is green, lcick on it and we can chat!

Time for reflection

The last few weeks have been a real rollercoaster of a ride and im now just trying to slow down and put things into perspective and giving myself time to reflect： why am I here? what do I want to get out of Japan? I almost feel I have come full circle and that I have just begun my stay here again. I think this is because with regards to my relationship I thought I was beginning to understand their mindset and then all of a sudden I got egg thrown in my face in a very callous way. A very bizarre incident this week further underlined this for me and i feel as if I understand Japanese people far less then I did at the beginning! All i know is that I dont want to get into another relationship with a Japanese woman because they are just too different for me to relate to them. They are completely unused to honesty in a relationship and are too accustomed to secrets, lies and insincerity, its just too messy for me to deal with.

On the up side i really feel my japanese is improving and can sustain an albeit very broken conversation!

Have now been to Kagoshima which was fun. The people seemed different there, perhaps a bit more outgoing and burly. The sight of the volcano overlooking the bay is a stunning one. I need to get some walking boots and have a go at climbing it. Have just been spending a couple of days with Gavin who came to visit, it was great to see a friendly face from home. Much drinking was accomplished! A couple of weeks ago I was singing kareoke in my no longer secret bar with a very plump jolly man who invited me to his own place in town. I had trouble finding it but the other day I realised that it was in fact above the main gaijin bar! Much shochu was drunk and Gavin and I ended up singing "We are the World, We are the children" by stevie wonder with the rest of the bar people. It felt extremely random but somewhat amusing! Have also discovered the delights (and pains) of body shots.

I have has something of an epiphany this week with regards to asian peoples looks. Now that I have become more used to their faces figures and shapes I realise some things I found attractive I dont find attractive anymore. Eg Lucy Liu who I always considered beautiful but I now consider to be not all that, even quite scary looking (a feeling apparently shared by the majority of chinese men.) Turning the coin flip side on its head I can now understand why asian people see gaijin as beautiful even when theyre considered as unattractive.

I had a lot more to say but my head is a bit constipated a la japonaise so I think Ill sign out and be off....

Will my bad luck ever end!

Today I K.od my bicycle. It would cost 7000 yen to fix so i bought a better second hand one for 5000 yen.

I have had several anxious emails from people asking if im alright. Im quite ok, this isnt like other bad situations in the past and my world hasnt come tumbling down or anything like that. I have been badly hurt by someone but i am dealing it in my own way. I have learnt a lot about japanese culture and particularly relationships in a short period of time. I have found some of the ideas about realtionships over hear very hard to accept and to be honest I am still completely shocked about the way things have unravelled for me over the last week or so. All I can say is that i have thrown the idea of cultural/moral relativism in the dustbin. In the past such as in France I really tried to accomodate and accept ideas which I found foreign or strange, particularly with regards to my algerian neighours and their attitudes. Having lived in Japan I now realise that some things about cultures are just a load of bulshit. Period. Japan is extreme in that sense because there is so much to applaud the society for having done and achieved and yet their is so much crap underneath.

If the events that had happened over here in the last month occurred in the west things would be very different!

Highs and Lows

The last few weeks have been rather rocky for me. I have experienced a "proper" second typhoon which seemed to have brought with it a lot of turbelence in my life. I have been chucked out of a bar because of my ethnicity, an interesting situation which made me realise the true impact of what its like to be the victim of racism. I have been floored in a nightclub (I have never even been in a fight before.) which was highly embarrasing and I have split up with my Japanese girlfriend.

But thats living abroad for you! The peaks are high and the troughs are low. Theres always that yo yo feeling. When things are great, theyre great; when theyre crap theyre crap. Its all part in parcel of the experience. Its never quite the rose tinted world that you imagine yourself to live in but then its a lot more interesting than living in some kind of perfect world.

Life rolls on...

Isogashii

Its been a more turbulent this week. quite literally. After getting drunk during a typhoon I have had to spend some time this week on some serious R and R. Have just bought an IPod and have spent the last 6 hours furiously downloading songs whilst listening to the latest offerings of J pop.

#982 Men and Women.

Its not Afganistan or the Sudan. But lets face it for one of the most developed countries, gender equality is disarmingly unbalanced. The woman has to stick up with a hell a lot of crap compared to western women. I have noticed that many of them lack confidence because they feel they are not valued, they do everything for their husband and get nothing in return. The Japanese husband meanwhile is the ultimate troglodyte, his emotions so buried beneath him and with so many faces that he probably doesnt even know his true self. Marriage therefore can be a bit of a farce over here. People often stay married to save face and they dont really ask why they are married. Cheating is rife.

#232 Self Awareness

In order to be self aware you have to have some kind of external perspective on yourself. That is why things like travelling, counselling etc facilitate self awareness. A lot of Japanese people have little experience of such things. They carry on with their daily lives in their Japanese bubble and they dont really ask serious introspective questions. As a gaijin I find my self to be relatively enlightened. Coming to provincial Japan in some aspects feels a bit like time travelling to Britain in the 1950s: The society is very "closed" and monocultural. Japan needs to catch up with the rest of the developing world and encourage a more open society.