Little Updates about Little Things

Spring has at last settled into Aso; the plum and cherry blossoms, first heralds of the season, have come and gone, followed by the daffodils and the spring snowflakes, the camellias, the tulips, the azaleas, the wisteria, the irises, and at last the lily-of-the-valley, the native flower in the mountains where I teach. Japan seems to plant such seasonal flowers everywhere so no matter where you are in the country you can follow the year’s progress, and I’ve been watching eagerly as winter has faded into milder weather. The rainy season is right around the corner now as the sound of the uguisu is overshadowed by trilling frogs, and when I look outside I can finally say that everything has turned green. Across the caldera, rice paddies have been planted and filled with water. The fields look like square mirrors from above, reflecting perfect images of the mountains and the brilliant spring sky. The weather has prompted not only gardens but wildflowers to flourish: fields of rapeseed blanket the ground in yellow; clover and dandelion sprout innocently by roadways, and a variant of jack-in-the-pulpit, deep black-plum-colored and looking like the head of a snake, peeks out of the forests in striking, bold displays.

While this winter was unusually mild by local standards, I still think it took its toll on me. Other than being sick an unreasonable amount of times, constantly being in the cold and dark was a gloomy affair, and separation from family and friends proved difficult. Now that the landscape outside my window is a bit less depressing and the sun doesn’t set at 5 pm, things have been looking back up a bit. …It also helps that we had ten days off for Golden Week and I have a trip to look forward to in a few days.

But thank goodness for Golden Week, because it definitely helped me unwind and reevaluate. A post or two ago I mentioned that I didn’t feel like a very functional adult because I wasn’t doing too well at being one, but turns out when I’m not quite as dead tired I can operate reasonably well. Over break I was neither too lazy nor too busy, taking some time to clean, cook, and do some shopping, but also hang out with friends and see a few movies (after all, nobody can catch you with spoilers when you went to the first showing). I even made a little headway into some personal endeavors, like taking a baby step towards aspirations of becoming a barista. This was mostly accomplished by following various online latte recipes and praying they would turn out without any proper equipment. Most of them did, and the one that didn’t…well, let’s just say I now know that lemon juice turns hot lattes into an unappetizing mixture of weak coffee and curdled milk.

These are small things, yes, but happy things, which is just what I’ve needed after a long, dark winter. I’m hoping that the start of a new season will help reinvigorate me—inspire me to start traveling a little more and getting out a little more—and that I can rededicate myself to finding a work balance that doesn’t turn me into a zombie when I get home.

Something else I’ve been thinking about is my relationship with Japan…that is, how I interact with and perceive the place I live. I was reading an ex-pat friend’s blog the other day and they mentioned not really knowing what to blog about because…well, in the words of my coworkers, 「もうなれましたね」: “You’re already used to [living abroad], huh.” Honestly, I can understand where my friend was coming from. While I do still have blog plans and ideas (believe it or not), there are many things about Japan that I find myself overlooking and not talking about anymore. Most of the time, I even overlook the fact that I live in Japan! By that I mean living in Japan, while once a lofty, impressive-sounding goal for me, now feels quite normal and…well, less impressive. Only sometimes—usually when I’m driving, looking at all the signs I pass and realizing I still can’t read half of them—do I re-realize what kind of crazy journey I’m on, as if my brain has suddenly remembered, oh my gosh, I’m living in Japan!

In university I was required to take a class about study abroad, and one of the things I distinctly remember was my teacher talking about this phenomenon of taking life abroad for granted. It’s somewhat inevitable that, once repeated enough, any action or lifestyle will become normal, but it does seem a shame when I have the opportunity to experience so much here. I can give myself a little leeway considering the insane amount of experiencing and traveling I did when I lived here two years ago, but I don’t feel that justifies my being a lazy blob of an ex-pat. For my university teacher, not taking life abroad for granted meant stopping on his walk to school every day, looking over the city from a high point, and yelling, “I’M IN ECUADOR!” at the top of his lungs. He admitted it could be embarrassing if there was anyone else around. While I don’t plan to hike up the local volcano every morning and yell “I’M IN JAPAN!”, I think I can do more to appreciate my life here while it lasts, and I think that will be a goal of mine going forward. Because while it’s fine to adjust to some sense of normalcy and I’m glad that I can settle into a routine, I miss that sense of excitement that inspired me to come here in the first place.

I have no idea what that exploration looks like going forward, or if I’ll be able to rediscover my Japanese honeymoon phase, or if I’ll just keep going to Korea for vacation until that honeymoon phase wears off, too. But now that I have a job, a steady income, and free weekends, I feel like trying to do much of anything is better than what I did all winter: approximately nothing.

Both times I told people that I was moving abroad, responses were often amazed. In saying this I don’t mean to make myself out to be inspirational or exceptional—a few years ago I would have reacted the same way as everyone else. Living abroad? How brave! How cool! I can’t believe you’re doing that! Nowadays however, working within a program where every JET coworker you have is living abroad and a lot of them have done so for much longer than you, living abroad seems much less worthy of praise. It’s kind of like the Incredibles mentality of “When everyone is special, no one is,” and it can be difficult to remember that everyone in JET living abroad doesn’t diminish the accomplishment, it just means we’re all achieving the same things together. It’s re-realizing this accomplishment—maybe for some living abroad doesn’t seem like an accomplishment, but personally I find the cross-cultural exchange, the personal growth, and the all associated challenges to make the experience something we can be proud of—that can also help us feel like we aren’t doing too bad at life, we’re just doing the best we can.

There isn’t much more for me to say other than continue rambling, but I’m looking forward to what I hope to be a brighter few months than before. Life abroad is so much of an emotional roller coaster that it nearly drives me nuts, so I’m going to enjoy the up and up while I can.