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What it is
An overview: What this blog is, what it isn’t, and who I am.
A steadily growing body of observations, short stories, and long stories I’ve cranked out since coming to Japan (and in some cases long before), because I quite often don’t have anything better to do. I live in Japan, as a mostly stay-at-home dad. Time will tell if that’s really as interesting as some people keep telling me it is, but regardless, this also gives me a vehicle for a slowly growing pile of fiction.
What it isn’t
First, it isn’t a tour guide, although if someone is planning on coming to Japan in general and Hiroshima specifically, there’s a thing or two they might be able to glean from this, at least from the non-fiction parts.
Second, there are a lot of blogs about Japan. I mean, a lot. I don’t know what it is about this country that makes some westerners drool over it like it’s some kind of anime-driven, spirit-worshiping utopia, but there are YouTube videos of literally just people walking down the street in Hiroshima with hundreds of likes and comments about how incredible it is. I don’t know where else that phenomena exists. I’m fairly certain my walk to work through downtown Vancouver would met mostly with scorn.
So, no. This isn’t going to be full of wide-eyed wonder about the gentle integrity of Japanese culture, although certainly I hope to give praise when praise is due, as with the toilets that don’t only wash your ass, but blow dry it too.
Who I am
Because the thing is, I never planned on coming to Japan. Not really. Sure, I’d talked about it often enough with my wife over the years (who—disclosure—is Japanese). And sure, she took a job here, and I gave notice at my own job in Vancouver, which, to be fair, I hated. And yes, I did spend the next eight months mailing most of our belongings across the Pacific, keeping in touch with her and our infant son via Facebook Messenger, but even in those days it seemed, somehow, like I wasn’t really moving here. Not to live. That would be crazy. As a result, I was woefully unprepared.
For the first year I had this sort of nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I would be going back to Canada at any minute. The second year, and into the third, it became more of a dark, bitter acceptance that I did, in fact, live in Japan, and like a badger in an immaculately clean zoo, needed to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t getting out any time soon but kept pacing back and forth in front of the pristine glass anyway. During most of that time, I hoped to learn Japanese through pure osmosis, which was, sadly, only very limitedly successful.
And now, here we are. Into my fourth year here, and, like the badger who finally crawled off to sleep on the futon in the corner, I have not only accepted my fate, but, in fact, started to actually like it here. Not only can I finally acknowledge that I do indeed need to study Japanese to know what the hell is going on, but I can now finally approach every absurdity with the blank-faced jovial cynicism which is, in fact, expected of me.