Why have I been here for twelve years?
Why do I live in an apartment that has only one chair?
There are lots of “whys” to be answered about me. As many as the newcomer has about Japan.
Why don’t they have express lanes at supermarkets?
Why aren’t ATMs open 24 hours?
Why do girls go tromping around in 8-inch platform sandals?
And most of all, why on earth did some TV producer here decide to exhume the Abba song “Chiquitita” as the theme for a drama series? Danged tune always makes me feel like I’m in an Italian restaurant....
OK, OK, back up. Why I’m in Japan. Well, the reason I came isn’t really the same as the reason why I’m still here...
I first came in 1986 as a college student on a study tour. That was when I met Chieko. She was one reason I came back.
But why did I care about Japan at all? Something about it had been calling to me for five years, ever since I began a pen-pal correspondence with a Japanese teenage boy when I was in high school. Something about the culture, the language, the whole bit, just appealed to me somehow. This is one “why” I’ve never completely answered, and may never really be able to answer.
After several months of out tossing letters and tapes back and forth across the Pacific, I began studying the language on my own. I read whatever I could find about Japan. It was the early ‘80s, and Japan was still thought of as a country whose success America could learn from. This brought about a special Japan issue of Time, which I read cover to cover.
In college I found I had the opportunity to study the koto, a long, wooden, Japanese instrument something like a zither. I jumped at the chance.
Then came the 1986 study tour. It was everything I’d hoped for and more. To see Kabuki, in its color and drama and, well, simply in all its Japaneseness, was a thrill. I loved the twang of the shamisen, the foreign voices, the minor keys used (I’ve always liked minor keys...is that why I like Japan??). I loved the clean, efficient subway system, the neon lights and tall buildings of Shinjuku (a name I knew from the Tubes song “Sushi Girl”), the smell of woven grass tatami mats and paper-and-wood sliding doors. Japan felt almost like home to me as soon as I arrived. Well, if not exactly home, then like a living, bustling Disneyland, with a new, exciting revelation around every corner.
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