lioness in japan

…Only for five days this time. The kangaroo has some pressing business in Beijing. He lamented his mando has deteriorated since coming to Japan.

I think I’m getting better at this. The last time he was away for a week, I lined up many activities and stocked up the fridge with comfort food. I didn’t even need to eat all that much ice-cream in the end because I was so tired at the end of the day that I crashed into bed shortly after my night shower. I’m also more familiar with the triggers that pull my mood down.

Staying in the shoebox for more than four or five hours to do work just does emotional acrobatics to my brain. I get so claustrophobic and frustrated. Time crawls, too. I have a tendency to fidget about (cut my nails, fix myself a Milo, sneak in a news article or blog entry etc.) and not get anything productive done.

Too much caffeine gets me all wired and depressed. I restrict myself to one coffee in the morning and an after-lunch tea. I used to chug down tea and coffee all day long — by evening I’d be jumping out of my skin. Too much sugar shoots up your serotonin levels but plummet once the happy chemicals are flat.

Also, I try to set up a dinner date or two, so I won’t feel so cut off from the real world. I wonder whom I will hang out with this week?

Now I’m off to Starbucks, my living room, where there’s a kitchen oozing the aroma of coffee all day long.

The kangaroo told me he may have to move countries in three months’ time. In some ways I’m rejoicing it, but again, it makes me crave for certainty and stability.

Life is hard in Japan because of our circumstances. I feel restricted and perhaps I’m feeling this way because I just had a “I’m sick of Japan” day. I told him I wasn’t keen on sushi for dinner and would rather have Indian. In fact, I feel like dragging him to the Singaporean restaurant in Roppongi to have familiar flavours in my mouth.

I dislike myself in these moments, too, when I’m supposed to be adventurous and excited about the new and unpredictable. Maybe it’s because the thought of starting over is a challenge I’d like to put off for a while, but yet, living in different environments is my dream come true.

There are days where I am filled with wonder, but today, I keep thinking about why I’m so different from everyone else. I suppose leaving behind less than desirable friendships back home makes me want to search for more satisfying relationships elsewhere. But what I found is, I am still a whole lot more different than anyone whom I’ve met here — and I’m not just talking about the locals but the expats, too. Is my search for a new place really a fumble for people and things that are similar to me at the end of the day?

That’s incredibly short-sighted and ignorant of me. It’s part and parcel of relocation — differences in everything. I’ll probably feel great about Tokyo tomorrow and refuse to leave. Ha.

I’m proud to say that Derek and I are getting out more. We just watched our first movie in Tokyo — Marie Antoinette — at Roppongi Hills’ Toho Theater.

Before that, we headed to a kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi joint, Pintokona in the basement of Roppongi Hills. The offerings were fresh and delicious.

When we were done, the waitress came over with this huge remote control to scan the types of plates we had. She slipped a plastic card into our hands and ushered us to the cashier. High-tech, eh?

I wanted to take a picture of this gadget but the waitress thought we wanted to take a picture of us.

This is my first time drinking matcha type of green tea. Usually I see tea bags in a box on the counter at kaiten sushi places, but here, you scoop the green tea powder and flush it with hot water. What materializes is a dark green beverage. It tastes rather heavy and the caffeine sure packs a punch. I didn’t fall asleep after this satisfying meal. On average we tucked into six to seven plates each and the bill came up to over 3000 yen.

Before I head off to study for my mid-term exam, I’ll just update you guys a bit:

The wedding trip was short but very sweet. I’m glad the kangaroo flew me over. It makes such a difference to see each other for a few days within a long stretch of separation. Don’t think this will be a frequent habit as it’s expensive (!) but I won’t dwell on that further. The celebrations were festive but tame. No clubbing all night because there were kids and elderly folk around.

Since my return to Tokyo the promise of work has been buzzing more. Have a few things going on but still very early days so won’t shout about it but I certainly feel excited and optimistic about the future. I was rather set on finding a full-time job but I’ve decided to ride with the flow of change — freelance. It sounds better than “in-between” jobs. I thought about it hard and I think this is the route I would’ve eventually have taken even if I didn’t leave Singapore. It’s tough to kick off, but I know if I nab corporate-related jobs, that’s where my financial rewards will be, plus I’ll be extremely mobile. There are no health benefits but more savings will be in order for those rainy days.

I won’t jinx this statement by saying this too early but Tokyo is beginning to feel like home. Singapore is a long way away in my mind. No Chinese New Year return for me either. I would like to experience what it’s like to be away from usual rituals and habits.

Anyway, I’ll be flying to Hokkaido with the kangaroo and another couple for some skiing after the test tomorrow — fantastic way to relax after a week of hardcore Japanese. Niseko is our destination where it’s also fondly coined as Aussie Town. Noice.

The real glass ceiling is in the home, declares Linda Hirschman, a retired professor and controversy-ridden feminist. In her book, Get To Work, she says that while the workplace has evolved to put women on par with men, we have not budged much in changing the role of women at home, even though different waves of feminism have come and gone.

What is the ultimate source of power in our market economy? Money. So forget those arts and social science degrees. You think studying philosophy (or literature, in my case) will help you plot world domination? Think again. I don’t think she says liberal arts courses are worthless but women must be more practical in what you will do with such an education. You could become a professor and earn big bucks when you publish several books, but how many liberal arts degree holders are doing that?

Amidst her aggressive and erudite debate, she manages to squeeze in hilarious gems. For example, on her point on making housework a priority in your life, she argues, if your man asks, “Where’s the milk?”, it’s not just an innocent question. It really means, “Hey you are in charge of the milk. Where is it?” Should women concern themselves with trivialities like absent milk? Have we really moved on from hunter and gatherer instincts?

Her solution? Marry down or marry a man who truly believes in gender equality. The latter is more challenging so she suggests getting hitched to someone who is financially dependent on you, like a construction worker or a struggling artist. If you are the breadwinner, you’ll be making the decisions in your relationship, and therefore not subjucating yourself as a woman who thinks she’s the primary caretaker of the household and offspring.

How about kids? Just stick to having one, she urges. More than that and you’ll be forced to leave your job, according to the statistics she found. Women tend to give up their careers when the second or third child is born. This juggling act is just not feasible if you’re working days and nights where the home is a place only for sleep. Where would you find time to teach your kid her ABCs and when to poo?

On the subject of poo, apparently, rich housewives who wait with bated breath on the successful poop, have degraded themselves to the lowest caste in society. Cleaners of human waste have long been considered to be the lowest rung in the world of “careers”. Are housewives then considered “untouchable”?

No wonder her strong words created a gush of emotional rebuttals. I don’t agree with her wildly impractical ideas but I agree opting out is really another euphemism for giving up. Housework is an evil force for idle minds, that I agree. I’m an advocate of working till you get stuffed into a coffin.

In the meantime, the kangaroo will have to contend with a filthy shoebox, soured milk, absent Diet Coke, empty whiskey bottles and a drought of Dairy Milk chocolate, because I will be busy morphing into an independent woman.

Just want to share Linda Hirshman’s original essay Homeward Bound.

I’ve been slow on updating this blog. Sorry for that. I’m actually pretty caught up in the whirlwind of change.

As I’m trying to invest more time into networking, I’m also seeing a bit of Tokyo. I realise the more I do that, the more I come to like this city. I cannot adequately describe this but there’s just everything and more for whatever you’re looking for. From video game cosplay parlours to serene shrines, there’s so much to see.

In my first three months, I didn’t know anyone who would want to do the same and I was always waiting for Mr. D to return so we could do something fun together. Unfortunately, due to his busy work schedule, he’s not always able to discover Tokyo with me. When people asked me, “What have you been doing? What have you seen? How’s Tokyo? What’s a great restaurant?” I would be at a complete loss.

But things are changing. Three weekends ago, I strolled through the small lanes of Omotesando after a chic lunch at a Parisian designer café — i forget the name now (waruyi sakka = terrible writer!). Then a gorgeous view of Tokyo from the top of Roppongi Hills, followed by a delicious Singapore Sling at the The Oak Door, a lovely bar in the Park Hyatt Hotel. Yeah, it tastes fresher and fruitier than the Raffles Hotel one which is made from a sickly sweet pre-mix.

[An aside: I just left my table in Starbucks to go to the loo and my laptop and bag are still here. I just love how Tokyo is such a safe and honest place. Lone women leave their designer handbags on their seats without a single worry.]

Last weekend, I watched a sumo show, lined up two hours in the chilly cold to eat fresh sushi in the famous Tsukiji fish market, and hoovered Hainanese Chicken Rice at a chic Singapore restaurant in Ebisu. Mid-week I met a bunch of friendly peeps at a jazz café, Bar Daze in Harajuku, organized by a Meetup.com group. When I first landed in Japan last year, I joined an expat social network group, Meetup.com, but always found excuses not to go.

The truth is, I was afraid of walking into a roomful of strangers. I know, being a journalist and all, I should be used to this because I talked to people I didn’t know all the bloody time. But work is different — I had a mission, and with missions, there was always a strategy. There is no set plan to making friends. You just click or you don’t, or it could gain momentum or lose steam. It’s intangible and it’s sheer luck.

Secretly I felt it was a little loserish and was plagued with insecurities like, “what will I talk about?”, “what if they won’t talk to me because I’m just a student/in-between-jobs journalist?”, “would it be a bunch of people who already knew each other?”, “would I be able to break into the group?” etc. At that point, my enthusiasm was waning for the hash group because I didn’t think I was making any good connections. Basically I was struggling to keep up with a big group of very good runners and sometimes I didn’t enjoy the blokey songs and beer drinking. But from my earlier post, I finally broke the ice, so persistence and patience pay, as always.

This Saturday, I’m meeting a Japanese girl, Miwa, who was introduced to me by one of Mr. D’s friends. We’re lunching at a Parisian café a little way out of Shibuya. The evening will be taken up by a Meetup.com DJ session where 30-40 people are predicted to attend. That’s in a shouchu bar in Shibuya.

Sunday will start with a Thai lunch with new friends, Sakura and an Aussie classmate, WK, in Asakusa. After which, we’re heading to a museum in Ueno to catch an Eygptian mummy exhibition. In the evening, I may head over to Roppongi for some British standup comedy with another new friend made in Bar Daze. Whooo, that’s quite a bit of activity but I’m thoroughly grateful for this.

Before I leave to hit the books, here’s a picture of me and a couple of sumo dudes.

I won’t ramble on about sumo culture but the history and rituals that go with this revered sport are just fascinating. Each fight lasts barely five minutes and there’s a lot of action. Strangely, it’s a tension between the civilized (no kicking, hair pulling, punching – everything is not allowed except for pushing using body weight) and the primitive (sumo wrestlers only wear a tiny loin cloth which allows the audience to see more than they ought to). Good fun, anyway.

I’m sitting at a Starbucks near home, with jazz music tinkling in the background, where I’m sipping on my first-ever Matcha Frappacino (a green tea and milk ice blended drink). It’s a tad too sweet for me, but it’s got great flavour.

With renewed vigour to battle the blues when Mr. D is not around, I decided I would not stay at home except to sleep, shower, eat and watch a bit of TV before bed. It won’t solve all my frustrations but perhaps I would be more productive and less lonely.

On free afternoons and nights, I’m going to sit at a Starbucks to read, write, edit and do my Japanese homework. The shoebox gets claustrophobic and depressing after a while. I suspect it has a major role in contributing to my stubbornly unmotivated state. For the first two weeks back here, I’ve just been sleeping in the afternoons, drugged by the winter cold and dehydration, so nothing gets done. The solution? Get my ass outta the shoebox.

I toyed with this idea before but never made the extra step out of the house. Excuses like “it’s too cold”, “a waste of money”, “it won’t make a difference to my headspace”, “it won’t be as comfortable as home” would pop into my lethargic brain. No more of this bullshit. I’m liking the buzz in Starbucks. It’s also the only café chain that forbids smoking indoors. The other local coffee shops smell awful with smokers puffing away.

Here I am on a Friday night and I don’t have anyone to meet. Instead of slothing around in self-pity, I’m feeling more alert than ever. The coffee aroma and chitty chatty conversation float around me in a dreamy daze. I look forward to my weekend that is nicely packed with activities exploring Tokyo with the new friends I made. I figured I should be a good girl and get my work out of the way and perhaps try to lock down some creative writing.

Another change: I’ll make sure I jog or swim every other day or everyday even to keep the serotonin levels up. The sun sets early at 430pm. I used to drag myself to the Imperial Palace gardens as late as 8pm because I kept procrastinating. Yesterday, I shot out of the shoebox at 430pm so I could catch the changing skylight. You know that sense of elevation in your heart when you see something beautiful? Well, I got that when I saw the Imperial Palace gardens at dusk. Perhaps a dose of Mother Nature at work everyday is the remedy for tired souls.

I’m feeling a little sick today. The flu bug nabbed me even after my arsenal of health supplements. Due to the onset of winter, my classmates have all been falling ill in batches. Catherine, the German girl who sits next to me, was sneezing and sniffing, and I must’ve caught it from her. The kangaroo has been ill, too.

This morning, I could barely crawl out of bed to make it to class. Being the kiasu student that I am, I wanted to take down all the hints from the sensei on what will come out for the final exam.

But after battling through fits of sleepiness and body aches in class, I’m finally home….and sleepless. I shovelled in some pasta for dinner and lay down snug in two duvets. The kangaroo is out with his colleague celebrating nen bou ku — a ritual when you say farewell to the past year over dinner and drinks. Friends, relatives and companies all indulge in this at this time of the year. In Tokyo, the restaurants are all booked out and the last trains are packed to the max.

Anyway, before I take a hot shower and embark on some studious cramming, I just wanted to write about my little discovery today. I buzzed an ex-colleague of mine (two jobs ago) who relocated to Stuttgart, Germany earlier this year. Just curious to see how she is and flex some of my broken Deutsch, we actually had a great chinwag.

In April she got married to a German guy whom she met six years ago who was in Singapore for a six-month internship. They kept in touch but things only got serious three or four years ago. After a marathon stretch of long distance love, they decided to close the gap.

Like me, she’s taking German lessons. She’s finding it tough looking for a job in Stuttgart because of the language barrier. “Are you ever homesick?” she asked. She’s looking forward to going home for a couple of weeks come March. She doesn’t know any Singaporeans but has two Malaysian friends. “Just make do lah,” she quipped upon revealing these newfound friends have kids and are quite “aunty”. She wistfully commented she wished she had friends to go out to dinner and have a drink or two. We compared notes on finding Asian food, how it is like making friends from scratch and we joked that we have to be housewives because we don’t even qualify to work in the nearby 7 Eleven.

This is just a small encounter but it warmed my heart on this cold, rainy evening by myself. There are women like me who seem, on the outset, to have “given it all up” for a boy in our lives. But it’s not such a big self-sacrificial gesture that is doomed in domestic boredom.

My friend in Hong Kong, whose girlfriend is moving there to be with him after five years of being in different countries, asked me once: “Did your friends and family give you a hard time about moving and quitting your job?” I replied: “Yes, most of them did.” He was like: “Don’t care about what they say. You’ve got so many years to be tied down to a proper job.” And went on to tell me about the “shit” his girlfriend went through when she took a six-month hiatus to be with him on his US stint. I doubt both of them sweated over this much at all because they had a blast travelling all over North America.

I just want to come out and say that those of us who did move countries probably made the most independent decision they could have for themselves and their relationships. I’ve encountered several people who look upon my situation in horror, doubt or worry — but it’s not! We’re discovering a new country and challenges outside our comfort zone, plus being with our favouritest person. Life may seem uncertain without a job, but aren’t they like boomerangs — they may be gone now, but they’ll come around again.

I got thinking about the Singaporean identity the other day and would like to jot this down.

A friend in New York said, “I feel so happy when I meet someone who can use ‘lah’ properly.” And so we carried on our conversation on MSN punctuated with ‘lor’ and ‘hiyah’. I must admit it felt comforting to me.

I’ll bring up my bah kut the friend again. She doesn’t come across auntie in any way but she needs her Singapore-style nosh at least once a week. It was only after a year that she was inflicted with this enormous desire to get her mitts on Singapore food. From flying in half a suitcase annually to asking friends to tompang (carry for her) on their way to Tokyo, there’s truly a way if there’s a will.

This is “normal”, okay. I recently met a Singaporean lady who bought SGD100 worth of Prima laksa boxes. That’s 25 boxes or 4 bowls a month — woohoo. She enjoys Prima very much but if she had only one choice it would be their laksa. There’s really nothing quite like laksa. For example, hokkien mee and char kway teow are permutations of fried noodles all over the world but with different stock and ingredients of course, so laksa’s curry (but it’s not curry!) gravy is just something you don’t come close to in Japan.

To acquit herself of ugly Singaporeaness, she claimed a friend’s mother-in-law tried to smuggle in 12 Shanghainese chickens to bou tong (make soup). Ordinary chickens will not do. She got nabbed at customs with her leaky defrosting suitcase. Now that’s pure madness.

And then there’s the rudeness. Is it a national trait or is there just a mix of personalities in every country but we always focus on the bad? I tried to strike up a conversation with a Singaporean friend in school but he held his hand up and continued whispering in Japanese to himself. Well, you could at least take three seconds to tell me you’re busy studying, I snapped inwardly. As I slunk away, I was thinking, “Are we WORSE abroad?”

Nobody really knows what Singapore is like unless they’ve lived there for a bit. Do we think nobody knows where the fuck I come from so I can behave any way I please? Do we take refuge in feeling liberated from societal decencies? Perhaps. But I think it applies to everyone who has relocated from one country to another. You can shed the old skin for a new one.

A new friend, C., said she tried to go for a National Day or Chinese New Year dinner in her first year here. With another Singaporean buddy, they took a five-minute peek and rushed off to the next izakaya to soothe their horror with many birus. Okay, I’m exaggerating. But you know what she said when I asked why didn’t they give it a chance? “They seemed really loud and embarrassing.”

Or how about stubborn complacency? I can’t understand how another Singaporean I know here who doesn’t do anything but study Japanese. She doesn’t know a single person outside of the school. So homesick she’s become that she may cut short her original two-year plan to just one year. She also told me she hates Singaporeans so she doesn’t want to go back. She is a very clever girl but there’s a certain obtuseness in her thinking that used to get me very frustrated with some people at home.

The Japanese Austrian girl I met last Friday said: “I only realised my identity is European and not Japanese when I came to Tokyo.” We went on to discuss how you actually feel more tied to your national identity when you’re away from your home country. Perhaps that’s why I feel a bit lost? I don’t know. I haven’t dwelled much on building my new home with touches of my first home.

Since I came here, I haven’t been keeping up with news and trends from home nor have I tried to look for Singapore-style food. I’ve been told there are two Hainanese chicken rice restaurants in Tokyo. Owned by a French chef who worked in Raffles Hotel for 10 years, this small “chain” is taking Tokyo by storm. You can’t get a table unless you book more than a week in advance — for a weekday night. Even this had to be foisted on me to check out.

I don’t really have a conclusion, except leave the bad and bring the good with you. But what I’m more curious about fellow Singaporeans abroad is:

What do you do to make your home more like “Singapore”?

…With a kangaroo on a Saturday night brings great domestic bliss to my heart. Mr. D. is back from India and life is sparkly again. I know life should be great with or without him and he’s my lucky bonus, but I won’t go into that and just sink into this cosy affair now. We slept all day; I cooked brunch while Mr. D. hopped out into the rain to get us steaming lattes from Starbucks. After three final episodes of The Shield, we napped again. We just had dinner at 10pm — but I’m hungry again and it’s almost midnight. Thought I would blog a bit before I run out to the convenie (convenient stores) to grab some chocolate and onigiris. I just want to relish not doing anything today.

We had an awesome time yesterday evening with dinner at Amataro in Shibuya. A casual izakaya, this restaurant served up delish Jap staples like grilled shishamo (pregnant fish), agi-tori (not sure if this is correct, but these were chunks of deep fried chicken), fresh raw tuna with creamy pieces of avocado — all washed down with endless mugs of fruit-flavoured chu hi (a fizzy liqueur that tastes like gin and tonic) and sho-chu (a liquor distilled from sweet potatoes, barley, buckwheat and sugar). There was such a big group we needed two tables.

I wasn’t able to speak to everyone but chatted with Mike, Derek’s business associate and friend, Corinne, a Singaporean who has been working in Tokyo for three years and Rene, a Japanese-Austrian German teacher. It felt fabulous talking to adults. I was beginning to feel my world was regressing because the peeps at school are mostly uni students. They are friendly and all but I’ve been through what they are doing now, plus their thinking and attitudes are those who are coming of age. The things they talk about are vastly different from Friday night’s dinner.

For the first time in a long while, I felt normal. We exchanged notes about living in Japan, girly stuff and just laughing about whatever that comes to mind. I felt relaxed and that’s something I want to feel more often.

After dinner we headed over to a chi-chi launch of Trump Room, a sister bar of Red Bar. The only things in common these two places had was the tiny space and all the walls and ceilings were jam packed with chandeliers and gothic looking mirrors. The décor was amazing but the atmosphere was odd. Mike said it’d be a fashiony, arty crowd. I guess it was but they had sausages cooking on a grill, which made me think, “It smells like breakfast at midnight!” The music was cool and funky but the speakers were being overworked so you could detect the fuzzy static in the music. The bar was only stocked with vodka, jagermeister and wine. Bummer. There was also a flea market corner where there were miniature German products. It was so weird to see bottles of mini Jagermeisters, tubes of mustard and other knickknacks with German words on them.

By the time 2am rolled around, we thought it was time to head to our main destination — J-pop Café. Also in the Shibuya area, this kooky place is actually a café in the day that plays J-pop music and modern Japanese fare. At night, it’s a cool space that hosts all kinds of music events. Last night, Scott’s friend was the VJ (not the MTV type but apparently these video jockeys come up with the visuals that go with the music) for that particular club night. We were in a small room with a conical ceiling. Leaves decorated the shiny silver mesh and industrial pipes. The lighting had a pink and purple tinge, plus dizzy disco lights that sprayed the room with psychedelic colours all night long. Strangely the room never filled to the max but it was really fantastic music. It was trancey with a cheeky twist but switched to thumpy techno on occasion. There were moments when I felt so exhilarated I just danced my heart out. Can I say I just love clubbing here.

Cheers to more great days like this and less moping around.