To the many geeks from all over the world, travelling to Japan equals to pioneering a wild island full of mystery and coolness. The excitement of their lives, like a quest for magical artefacts, coming of age experience… To me, although I was to spend a year of my life in there, it seemed more like a business trip. Kajo do what Kajo gots to do. Kajo is in the university, learning a language that’s promising great returns in the future for its rarity – not at all for its unique cultural swag.
People ask me every now and again, “Why did you learn Japanese?” with a gasp of reverence, as if they see someone who’s exceptionally culturally aware. The reverence that means, “See? That person didn’t go for the easier option of learning a European language. What an advanced, profound, exotic mentality it must be!” Relax, mate. I originally did it to make money in the future. Rare skills equals money. Do you get the picture?
It’s funny, because I really don’t do that many things in this life for money. Money can even be a demotivator for me, because the way I see it: if you can even put a price on it – it cannot be all that precious. Spoilt as I am, I would never compare any other fortune with the fortune of getting things for free, and giving them for free alike. Call me superspiritual, it is true. But see, my education has a price on it. So it must produce returns, and that is all there is to the reasoning of my language choice.
But of course, being in Japan was completely different from imagining being in Japan. Because if your imagination is poor, it will put you off travelling. But reality will blow it, so dear friend, do submit to reality. Touch reality before you even start fantasising. Although Japan now is not a geographical spot to me, it is more of a place in my heart. It’s the name of my fantasy world, because as far as I’m concerned, my luck in Japan - the people I met, the events that occurred, the wisdom I got, the inspiration there was - was supernatural, and it won’t happen ever again. Not on that same island if I were to return, and neither anywhere else. But we are talking about quite a change of perspective. I was bored with Japan beforehand. I was a new person entirely at the end of that year.
The same change happened in my view of America, after I travelled to Japan. The US used to be the one country I’d definitely had no interest of travelling previously. The way I saw it, it would be such a corny thing to do – “I just want to go to that place on TV!”. Yeah, you see it on TV, you hear it on the radio, its flag is on your t-shirt, your music is all about East Coast and West Coast acting like the two Poles of the Globe – matter of fact, most of your favourite things have American origins. You look in the news – and there’s another beef for the “national security” that America has with some other country. You probably have an impression that America owns the world, based on the media that flows to you. So, honestly, why would you actually want to go there? Wouldn’t it be more natural to want to get away from America? Cause really, it’s only technically speaking that you haven’t been there, in reality you probably know more of the US than you do of your own motherland. I know that’s what was on my mind. So just like with Japan, I had been bored of it in advance.
But you know what? That changed during that year as well. It was in Japan that I met the actual American populus, and so it happened that I absolutely loved them. Amazing folks, the ones I’ve met there. They were people so imposing in their sheer presence, you can sometimes feel like there were more Americans in Japan than there were Japanese, even though Japanese are the purest native population in the world. See, normal statistics doesn’t work when it comes to attitude. 98% of the population may be pure Japanese, but the 98% of self-awareness belongs to the Americans. Indeed, that was nothing unexpected, in fact you even imagine a stereotypical American to stick their flag into the Honshu ground and say proudly, “Go, Uncle Sam! Our country is the greatest superpower, our national security is above the law, and where’s my double burger, Japan?!” But no, the people I met baffled me in the fact that they couldn’t be more different from the stereotype. They loved sushi more than I loved it, they admired Japan more than I did, and they were dissing their own country better than I ever could.
“Americans? We’re the nation of the fat and the ignorant!” Wait, did you just say it out loud? I marvelled. And then the confusion came. “But you seem alright, in fact, you’re a really profound person, surely that means America can’t be that bad?” - “Nah,” they would answer you, “How I turned out this way is a long story… but in no way am I a normal red-blooded American. Thank goodness!” And then they tell you a bunch of horror stories about what's happening in the society that makes you think, hey! That’s not even healthy self-criticism...
So I have to admit – this really produced great enthusiasm in me. When someone is unjustly praising their country, it makes you want nothing to do with it. But when they scold it, you really can’t help but wonder – what’s this monster, America? And how bad is the American bad? Not like they starve… more like the opposite, they can only dream of starvation. You want to go there just to poke at the hype, because you are intrigued about all the horrors you heard about, and maybe feel all this gratefulness for the place where you live. So, you know, basically for the same reasons people of the West go to the poor countries, except you want go to what?… the richest country in the world?... with the same attitude. T
I love the paradoxes of life.
People ask me every now and again, “Why did you learn Japanese?” with a gasp of reverence, as if they see someone who’s exceptionally culturally aware. The reverence that means, “See? That person didn’t go for the easier option of learning a European language. What an advanced, profound, exotic mentality it must be!” Relax, mate. I originally did it to make money in the future. Rare skills equals money. Do you get the picture?
It’s funny, because I really don’t do that many things in this life for money. Money can even be a demotivator for me, because the way I see it: if you can even put a price on it – it cannot be all that precious. Spoilt as I am, I would never compare any other fortune with the fortune of getting things for free, and giving them for free alike. Call me superspiritual, it is true. But see, my education has a price on it. So it must produce returns, and that is all there is to the reasoning of my language choice.
But of course, being in Japan was completely different from imagining being in Japan. Because if your imagination is poor, it will put you off travelling. But reality will blow it, so dear friend, do submit to reality. Touch reality before you even start fantasising. Although Japan now is not a geographical spot to me, it is more of a place in my heart. It’s the name of my fantasy world, because as far as I’m concerned, my luck in Japan - the people I met, the events that occurred, the wisdom I got, the inspiration there was - was supernatural, and it won’t happen ever again. Not on that same island if I were to return, and neither anywhere else. But we are talking about quite a change of perspective. I was bored with Japan beforehand. I was a new person entirely at the end of that year.
The same change happened in my view of America, after I travelled to Japan. The US used to be the one country I’d definitely had no interest of travelling previously. The way I saw it, it would be such a corny thing to do – “I just want to go to that place on TV!”. Yeah, you see it on TV, you hear it on the radio, its flag is on your t-shirt, your music is all about East Coast and West Coast acting like the two Poles of the Globe – matter of fact, most of your favourite things have American origins. You look in the news – and there’s another beef for the “national security” that America has with some other country. You probably have an impression that America owns the world, based on the media that flows to you. So, honestly, why would you actually want to go there? Wouldn’t it be more natural to want to get away from America? Cause really, it’s only technically speaking that you haven’t been there, in reality you probably know more of the US than you do of your own motherland. I know that’s what was on my mind. So just like with Japan, I had been bored of it in advance.
But you know what? That changed during that year as well. It was in Japan that I met the actual American populus, and so it happened that I absolutely loved them. Amazing folks, the ones I’ve met there. They were people so imposing in their sheer presence, you can sometimes feel like there were more Americans in Japan than there were Japanese, even though Japanese are the purest native population in the world. See, normal statistics doesn’t work when it comes to attitude. 98% of the population may be pure Japanese, but the 98% of self-awareness belongs to the Americans. Indeed, that was nothing unexpected, in fact you even imagine a stereotypical American to stick their flag into the Honshu ground and say proudly, “Go, Uncle Sam! Our country is the greatest superpower, our national security is above the law, and where’s my double burger, Japan?!” But no, the people I met baffled me in the fact that they couldn’t be more different from the stereotype. They loved sushi more than I loved it, they admired Japan more than I did, and they were dissing their own country better than I ever could.
“Americans? We’re the nation of the fat and the ignorant!” Wait, did you just say it out loud? I marvelled. And then the confusion came. “But you seem alright, in fact, you’re a really profound person, surely that means America can’t be that bad?” - “Nah,” they would answer you, “How I turned out this way is a long story… but in no way am I a normal red-blooded American. Thank goodness!” And then they tell you a bunch of horror stories about what's happening in the society that makes you think, hey! That’s not even healthy self-criticism...
So I have to admit – this really produced great enthusiasm in me. When someone is unjustly praising their country, it makes you want nothing to do with it. But when they scold it, you really can’t help but wonder – what’s this monster, America? And how bad is the American bad? Not like they starve… more like the opposite, they can only dream of starvation. You want to go there just to poke at the hype, because you are intrigued about all the horrors you heard about, and maybe feel all this gratefulness for the place where you live. So, you know, basically for the same reasons people of the West go to the poor countries, except you want go to what?… the richest country in the world?... with the same attitude. T
I love the paradoxes of life.