Where we go.

I think the future is uncertain because we keep referencing the past to decide where to go.

Japan’s systems are constantly looking to old traditions and outdated thinking and trying to apply those things in a modern lens.

It’s odd. Japanese people themselves are frequently comfortable with foreigners, different customs, modifying the status quo or adapting to outside views. The media, government and corporations are not.

Those adaptations, such as women’s rights, gay rights or even something as mundane as tattoos aren’t immediately rejected by most everyday people. Those things are immediately rejected by the most comfortable in the most comfortable positions, however.

It’s easy to see and difficult to fix, however, the standardization of inequality. As a foreigner living I. Japan, I am aware of unfair wages, lack of benefits and lack of protections. Likewise, even Japanese women are aware of the inequality of being forced into being homemakers or having to work multiple part time jobs while not receiving childcare or benefits. The people at the top don’t see that, and as thus, do not care or wish for change.

I recently read about Thailand moving further towards legalization of marijuana. Regardless of cultural conservatism or moral focus, they are approaching a jump that many countries have already taken. That is, if it’s not hurting anyone and also makes a lot of money, why not?

Japan, however has very few voices toward that issue, not strictly due to the people themselves, but the government’s control over the identity of the country. There are many pushing for it, but they remain unheard because they lack the voice of media or acknowledgement of government.

This, however, is also vastly artificial since prior to post WW2 occupation, Japan used it medicinally, and it was even a component of class in ancient Japan. Wealthy people had access to alcohol and the lower classes had access to cannabis. The entire history is conveniently forgotten. So therefore the argument that is frequently brought up about how traditional values are the only ones that matter is mute. Those traditional values have been modified for modern convenience of the few.

It’s a confirmation bias that affects everyone. it has nothing to do with true history or true traditions. it’s been co-opted to define current systems as correct, not an introspection of past and present viewpoints.

Issues as simple as a woman keeping her maiden name, gay marriage, paternal leave from work, or even a raise in minimum wage are being refused any advancement within the system. They aren’t even being addressed as the defense of “traditional values” as immediately volleyed at them by both the government and the heavily government confirming media.

I love Japan. I love the people and the acknowledgment of history. However the lack of true understanding of that history and the lack of sympathy for those outside the strict ideal are hurting the country and its people to its core. They are crippling it automatically when people are asking for freedoms.

I will keep fighting to showcase these imbalances. Women deserve more, foreign workers who give their all deserve more, children and even the systems that are in place now deserve more, but the hungry will rarely be fed by the well-fed. I fight these problems because I love this country.

Ghost of Autumn

The air keeps holding on to the faint edges of summer. The spider lilies, their vibrant shade of lipstick color that signaled the rains and change of season have withered. Fragrant olive blossoms, with their pungent aroma have begun to sneak their way out. Fall is both coming and here.

It slowly begins pulling over us like a blanket being pulled up upon us, until it finally, coolly covers our entire body.
The daytime hasn’t yet realized the season, but the nights, with their crispness and aroma carries with it the scents of a home cooked meal after a long day and the leaves that have forgotten their home upon the trees.

Even on foreign soil, fall brings to mind the nostalgia of holidays with family that aren’t here. It reminds me of hot apple cider with pungent cinnamon. Faintly, I can smell the first snow somewhere that was erased by the cold fall rain that came before anyone even woke in the morning.

All these moments of nostalgia are coated with gratitude. As much as I miss the smell of decaying leaves and wood from where I was born, I have become to be more comfortable and loving of the signs of fall locally. Both are a part of me now, neither more worth than the next.

Progress is exhausting

I am on my 8th year in Japan. To give a bit of backstory, I always show up early, put in extra effort and haven’t even taken a single sick day in the entire time I’ve been here. I go out of my way to help my students and the staff that work in the offices with the teachers. I even try to minimize the amount of work other teachers have to deal with since I normally know how things work so I can get things prepped pretty easily.

With COVID 19 being a major concern this year, I’ve cleaned tables, checked student’s temperature as they show up and done as much as I could to make them more comfortable regardless of how stressful everything has been for 2020.

Recently, I’ve been looking at labor law and rules concerning employment. In the 8 years, cost of living has gone up considerably, sales tax itself has doubled, work requirements have expanded and there is an endless amount of other details that have just naturally popped up.

What concerns me is that in this time, prices for students have jumped as well, but salary remains flat. Despite more work and growing skills, the treatment from an employment perspective are the most disheartening.

As a foreign resident living in Japan, it’s easy to see the imbalances. Japanese employees get regular bonuses or raises to allow them to have families, buy houses, get cars and otherwise just live more easily. As a foreigner, I have seemingly no access to those benefits. Hence, that’s why I’ve been looking at requirements but there is little protection for the occupation I have and little for the industry in a part of.

This entire ordeal has grown my sense of empathy toward foreign workers. While people in my position know that advancement would allow me to enjoy life more and improve my quality of life (in addition to helping me feel my job is worthwhile). But it always seems that the least hungry will always have the easiest access to food. The starving will almost always have to bare hunger pangs.

It’s difficult to have faith in systems when those systems forget you or walk all over you. Thus I can comprehend the difficulty of foreign workers in the USA. It’s not so much about a lack of a fair system, it’s that we are told the system is fair while knowing full well that system is consuming all of us.

I hope it gets better, and I can actually stay above water.

I have seen it

Though the thoughts of initial desire and panicked infatuation have drifted away, I still see many of the signs of my love for it.

The feelings have changed over time and my relationship to this country has grown and faded in differing ways. It has aged like a wine. It matured and developed into an equally distant and uniquely irreplaceable part of me.

I fell in love with the people, the peace of the rice fields and the soft smell of smoke from a fire burning somewhere. I still hear the sounds of summer, the calming embrace of fall and the silence of a winter day. I still love the early morning before sunrise where the entire world is just beginning to stir to life.

Small details have replaced the imagination I had when first moving here or from trying to get here. I have become a part of it, despite a certain remoteness to much that is happening.

I find on the ground a lone coin or a child’s shoe and find some joy in it. Even the routine has become a comfort.

I can give parts of myself or more to help in small ways the sense of something that exists here. I am happy to, it is necessary to. It’s been said that kindness requires much less effort than anger, and I have grown to feel that more and more.

So while my connection to Japan has shifted from wildness to a calm path, I can still see it.