Sutras of a Winesoaked Buddha

Dispatches from the Rucksack Revolution

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

A Fine Balance

Rohinton Mistry wrote a fantastic book (it’s on Oprah’s book club incidentally) about revolutionary-era India called ‘A Fine Balance.’ On the cover of the book, a young girl is holding on to the steeple of some tall building with a somewhat worried look on her face. Throughout the story the protagonist is pretty much constantly dangling above a precipice of loneliness and despair. She’s trying desperately to hang on to whatever she can get her hands on.

It’s not like being shipped off to the Western Front or anything, but the first few months on JET you're definatly disoriented. You have pretty much no idea what is going on, how to teach, what that sign says, who is cool, or even what food is edible. The teachers around you are just trying to make sure your not a drug addicted ax murder let alone a teacher. Everyday is a mad goof of trying to find that fine balance in the neon jello that is Japanese culture without falling off the steeple.

Of course as things settle down they start to make more sense. You start to live here mentally instead of in some schizophrenic halfway point between Japan and home (Hawaii?). Before you know it the first year is over and the funeral procession of your non-recontracting friends begins. One by one you sherpa your friends luggage to the station, saying that you’ll meet up in London, Denver, or Melbourne. The balance of life that you found bit by bit as a first year finally tips over. You find yourself back where you started. It becomes all too clear that you’ve resigned yourself to an “I’m going to stay home and study” hermit attitude.

OK now I’m going switch into first person. After all this is a blog, and due to its bloggy nature it has to be narcissistic. Richard told me that people don’t like to hear that things are going well on blogs and that it just makes people sick. But that’s just because he’s British. So damn it, this is going to be positive! So if you wanna read me slag off Japan just scroll down, there’s plenty of that going on here, too.

Because I’m not really the otaku type, I’m 26, and I’m ready to be Drifter Senior grade, I decided I was going to be an academic hermit instead of a Japanese language hermit. I got started on some postgraduate work in international relations, which is becoming increasingly interstesting because my focus is on East Asian politics (Korean nukes) and South East Asian politics (Thai coups). A long nerdbook a week as got my academic neurological webs lit up for the first time since I graduated 4 long years ago.

I also started working out regularly for the first time since doing jujitsu with Jake last year. I don’t know if I’m actually getting stronger, or leaner, but the endorphins rushing around my brain make me feel stoned without the foggy side effects and the sketchy dealers. Actually the girl at Nakamura Sports is pretty sketchy. Anyways, I work out in the mornings before work. I haven’t gotten up early since the morning surf sessions ages ago, and it feels good to get up early and get things going. Instead of the drunkerd, I feel like a productive member of society. The real test of my tenacity will come with the first snows…

Socially I was ready to just say fuck it and stay home all the time. I’d made my friends already, I didn’t need anymore. I just needed a drinking buddy (Francie), a ride to the slopes in the winter (Richard), and stalwart Devin to hold down Tokyo for the occasional superbender. For the first few weeks into being a second year things looked pretty bleak for the go-outers. Toyama’s finest late night squad had been globally dissolved, replaced by stable couple’s and nondrinkers. Not to say that that is a bad thing, I just know I need the company of gonzo all-nighters who consistently opt for one more adventure before the crows of remorse circle above my doorstep.

…then we had Welcome Weekend. There was some definite second year bonding: Shoulders to cry on. Stories retold. Faces that no longer looked like the faces of the bright eyed and bushie tailed. We’d developed the thousand tatami stare, able to teethsuck and headtilt their way out of even the most outlandish Kyoto-sensei request. Juxtaposed with the unfamiliar new English speaking strangers (who might have been ax murders), I saw a lot of 2nd years in a new light. A better, cooler light.

That’s not to say that the new folks aren’t cool. Most of them I just don’t know yet. BC, Niko, and I had a nosleep mad tear through Tokyo and had some fairly fantastic adventures (on bridges, with a helmet). Way out in distant Tonami the mostly first year crew laid out a fine, albeit slightly krunky, party. So, I guess it’s like the Grateful Dead said, “once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.”

So this second year has not been a descent into delusional loneliness, but rather a new and fine balance of academic pursuits, health kicks, and a mixed social life. So with a firm and manly will we embrace a second year in the karma Toyama. What will happen!

3 Comments:

Blogger Richard said...

I think you're will power has definitely increased too. I can't count how many times you turned down drinks, sleeping with ladies and late nights this weekend, just because, as you say so often nowadays in that chirpy californian accent, 'the early bird catches the hairy bear's daughter!'

I don't know what you mean but bravo Maximus, bravo.

3:40 PM  
Blogger Geoff said...

If it's any consolation (encouragement?) I've given up drinking for the entirety of October.

And it feels wierd.

Good, but wierd.

11:37 PM  
Blogger Geoff said...

Great post by the way, one of your best (apart from the stream-of-conciousness one, that was awesome).

7:44 AM  

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