In Search of Tribe in Japan
It’s the Why, not the What, that Holds Us Together
People have lots of different reasons for moving to Japan. So far, the most common ones I’ve encountered are manga, anime, gaming, J-pop, jobs, and Japanese women, the latter of which no one will openly admit to.
One of my colleagues had been teaching English in China for a couple of years and decided to come to Japan because the Chinese government admonishes freedom of speech and censors the internet, among other things. He wanted to stay in Asia, just not under an oppressive regime. Understandable.
I met a black American guy who is from the Atlanta, Georgia area — I am, too; small world — who traveled here when his band was on tour five years ago and has never left. He had a couple traumatic experiences with cops in the US (shocker) and has decided never to step foot on American soil again, not even to visit. When he wants to see his mom, he flies her here.
For him, Japan is a respite from racism. (The Japanese reserve their bigotry for other Asians — Filipinos, Chinese, Koreans, etc. That’s a blog post for another time.)
Public shaming in the form of standing ovations is the reward for leaving work at five.
A handful of Australians I’ve met do marketing and lawyering for Nissan and Toyota and transferred to Japan for a year or three on work assignments. One of them is specifically here for Toyota’s event sponsorship at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo next summer. She’s having a good time and is excited about the opportunity, but she’s not in love with Japan.
The work culture at her office involves compulsory posture evaluations using virtual reality goggles. Public shaming in the form of standing ovations is the reward for leaving work at five. She spends a lot of time finding ways to combat homesickness through familiar retail establishments like Starbucks.
A 20-something French woman who studied in Japan for a couple months in high school and speaks fluent Japanese moved here right after university because she loves the culture. She’s a colleague of my one pre-Japan close friend, Jonathan, who I’ve known since college.
Jonathan moved here in January of last year and says his main reason for coming to Japan was “Trump’s America” and that it’s the “closest I can get to living on an alien planet.” He’s a sci-fi enthusiast.
Knowing him, I would venture to say that Japan’s cultural refinement and craftsmanship are also strong selling points. He prefers the finer things. In either case, he’s come to the right place. Jonathan is currently in the process of applying for permanent residency.
It’s the best of both worlds: big city pace and small city grace.
Japan isn’t all sophistication and elegance, but it is a lot of it. Tokyo is one of the largest cities in the world, but, unlike New York and other big cities in the US, you’ll be hard pressed to find a single rat in the subway, more than a few pieces of trash on the ground on any given block, or a room too polluted with street noise to sleep.
It’s orderly here. The trains and buses run on time. The intersections include diagonal crosswalks for efficiency. The convenience stores have gourmet yet affordable food, iced lattes worth drinking, and clean bathrooms.
It’s the best of both worlds: big city pace and small city grace.
I love getting to know this place. That said, part of finding my groove is finding my people, which is still a work in progress. I’m slowly but surely chipping away at the language barrier, but there are other factors.
The flames move down to the firewood and the next thing you know, you’ve got a bonfire.
I move a lot and I’m generally quick to develop some kind of social circle. I liken it to the process to starting a campfire. You begin by lighting the tinder, which looks like hanging out with coworkers or the handful of folks you already know in town.
Eventually, the fire makes its way down to the kindling and you’re invited to gatherings. If you show up to social functions in the same community enough, people start to remember you. Small talk turns into lunch and/or hiking dates; you start to have longer, more engrossing conversations.
Sooner or later, this morphs into actual friendship. The flames move down to the firewood and the next thing you know, you’ve got a bonfire. Your social network is formed and, with enough care and attention, the warm blaze glows continuously as the once individual pieces of wood form one cooperative unit.
I had never visited Japan before relocating here and I didn’t have any control over where my company placed me. Every time I mentioned that I was moving, someone would say, “You have got to go to Kyoto!” The unanimous enthusiasm in combination with my hunger for all things spiritual — shrines, temples, tea ceremony — drew me to that part of the country. So, I requested to be placed there.
When I finally received my official placement in Yokohama, which is three hours northeast of Kyoto by bullet train, I was not disappointed. As it turns out, Yokohama is only about twenty-two miles from Tokyo where my aforementioned college buddy, Jonathan lives.
In addition to the fun, warmth, and familiarity of a broken-in friendship, having him nearby has opened up a world of social opportunity I wouldn’t have had access to otherwise.
“Buckle up, because debauchery is about to ensue and you will leave the bar wondering why the sun is already out.”
Jonathan works for an advertising firm in Tokyo, which means that his colleagues are international multilingual folks who live in fancy apartments.
I’m a teacher. My colleagues are teachers. We live in the burbs, which is fine, but it’s great to have occasional access to a high-rise looking over the city or a place to crash in Daikanyama, the posh little Brooklyn of Tokyo.
The first weekend I finally had the time and energy to make the hour-long trip from Yokohama to Tokyo to see Jonathan (the initial weeks of getting settled in to a new country and a new job took it right out of me) he had some friends over for a little dinner party. After dinner, we decided to venture into town for drinking and dancing.
In between bars, we made a pit stop at a 7-Eleven where we bumped into a horde of French people who Jonathan’s friends all knew. As our little dinner party crew merged with the stampede, Jonathan turned to me, handed me a can of Asahi (there are no open container laws here) and said, “Buckle up, because debauchery is about to ensue and you will leave the bar wondering why the sun is already out.” This was not a novel occurrence, apparently.
Sure enough, just as Jonathan warned, 5am rolled around and I had no awareness or explanation of the passing of time. We danced, we laughed, we got into heated arguments for the fun of it. I could not have been more in my element.
Being a minority and a foreigner can make finding immediate superficial similarities in someone else a tiny delight.
At some point in the evening I saw a white woman walking on the sidewalk in our general direction. In my less-than-sober state I yelled, “American?!” She stopped and smiled and shook her head.
“British?!” I asked.
No, again.
“European in general?!”
Nope.
“WHAT ARE YOU?!” I demanded.
“Australian!” she said.
“Ohhhh! Well, I’m Rebecca!” I said.
“I’m Georgia!” she said.
“I’M FROM GEORGIA!!” I yelled.
“No way! It’s actually a really common name in Australia,” she said.
Who knew?
I’m definitely not here to only hang out with people who look like me and speak my language — quite the opposite. Nevertheless, being a minority and a foreigner can make finding immediate superficial similarities in someone else a tiny delight.
Georgia joined our herd to the next dancing location. We exchanged info and she texted me later in the week to see if I wanted to go out with her friends the following weekend.
Being in Tokyo felt like busting out of social straight jacket.
When the next weekend rolled around, she introduced me to a whole crew of Australians. The proverbial campfire was ablaze and I had only started actually socializing two weeks previously. I had people to call and places to go. My social calendar was filling up. It was an extrovert’s dream . . . in theory.
I was so excited to find people to dance with. I moved here from Portland, Maine, which is not exactly flush with dance bars and house parties. And, anyway, my partner and friends at the time were more into spending a Saturday night having a potluck and doing kirtan, if anything at all.
Being in Tokyo felt like busting out of social straight jacket. I just wanted to move my body and have some high energy fun in a city that stretched for aeons. A long standing need was being met and it felt really good.
I’m always negotiating two very disparate parts of myself.
When Jonathan asked me to cat sit while he went scuba diving in the Philippines on the very week I happened to have Obon vacation, he might as well have said, “You’ve just won an all-inclusive seven-night Tokyo getaway brought to you by AirBnb!” Also, I love his cat. She’s a really good cat.
That week at Chateau de Jonathan, I had some lunch dates and social engagements lined up with new friends. It was great at first, but as the days went on, I began to feel the energy drain from my body.
Part of the exhaustion was due to the sinister heat of Tokyo in August. At times, it felt like the sun was making a people pot roast, like it was actually planning to eat us all for dinner.
More than that, though, I was roasting on the social campfire I had built. I just wasn’t enjoying the conversations I was having. I did not miss the absence of dance parties. Good riddance. But that’s the thing. I’m always negotiating two very disparate parts of myself. I’ve never had an easy time combining my social needs with my spiritual needs.
I hate small talk. I live for deep, meaningful conversations about the human condition, personal growth, mysticism, politics, and artistic expression. I also live for dance parties. The people I like to go dancing with are not necessarily the people I want to have a long lunch with. The people who I go to satsang with don’t necessarily want to go dancing at a bar, let alone stay out past 9pm.
The only person I know who meets me in every corner of my existence from sanctuaries to karaoke bars, from sacred dialogue to fart jokes, is my best friend, Kelli. But she’s in Georgia. She’s on the phone. She’s not here.
When it passed, I burst into tears. I don’t know why; I was moved.
So far, all the reasons I’ve found that people come to Japan are not my reasons. I’m not here for manga, anime, gaming, J-pop, a job, or Japanese women. I’m not here to escape an oppressive regime, although that’s feeling less and less far off. I’m not looking for a futuristic sci-fi fantasy.
I’m here for the temples, for tea ceremony, for zazen. I’m here because something ancient called to me, something I don’t know a lot about yet, something I’m here to discover.
Before Jonathan left for the Philippines, we caught an Obon festival parade in Ebisu on the walk to dinner. The people wore traditional robes and hats. They beat drums and danced a sacred dance in unison. When it passed, I burst into tears. I don’t know why; I was moved.
That’s the pied piper. That’s who/what I need to follow — that twinge in my heart, that ache.
Taiko drums, yes. But also Lizzo, Robyn, Cardi B.
There are shiny objects and there are shrines. If I forget why I’m here, I float off track. The exhaustion is an alert strip on the highway telling me I’m drifting asleep, I’m veering off course. The tears are the road signs, my GPS.
I do need to dance. That’s a real part of me that spans the sacred and the profane. Taiko drums, yes. But also Lizzo, Robyn, Cardi B. I need to be on a loud, dirty dance floor at least once a month for the sake of my spirit and I need people to be there with me.
I also need to be in ceremony.
I’m learning that common activity interests, while good tinder, are not the firewood of tribe. Shared purpose is actually what forms and holds the energy body of a community together and keeps the fire going. The why is the glue, not the what.
So, I stopped calling the people I had met and they stopped calling me. I poured water and dirt on my social campfire before it engulfed me in flames.
I joined a Meetup group for hiking to get out of the summer city heat and to meet people who have some sort of relationship with the earth. I jumped in a river. I cooled down. I started over.
I remind myself that I’ve only been here for three months. My visa is for three years. There’s time.
