lioness in japan

I’m beginning to tire of making new friends. But having said that I’m appalled that Tokyo is quickly losing its charm for me. I still think it’s a beautiful and fascinating city but the day-to-day somehow feels hard. There were mornings when I couldn’t get out of bed till 11am and my mind would go in circles. My mood swings are awful. There are days where I love it that I’m soaking up the Japanese language like a sponge but there are those when I just can’t seem to get through the glass wall. My face feels pressed against the pane of foreignness.

When I was working I don’t think I dwelled too much on silly, inconsequential things. Being a woman, of course I’m prone to that, but I’m talking about really stupid stuff that I would normally brush off and move on.

But before I bare all, I’d like to talk about The W Curve. A friend from Hong Kong told me over MSN recently about this theory regarding culture shock. He assured me, “You’ll feel very depressed for the first six months but after that you’ll be fine.” How so? You’ll become more familiar with the city, its restaurants and you’ll make new friends. I suppose, in a nutshell, you won’t feel like a stranger. What’s interesting about this curve is, it’s not just a simple U, where there’s first a dip and then an upswing, when you try to get to know a new culture.

The W curve has this initial U but it sinks again. Apparently, once you settle into a somewhat comfortable level in terms of physical space, friends, regular hangouts and familiarity of your new home, you start to rebel against the cultural values of your adopted country. Why are things done this way and not the way it is back home? You compare, struggle, debate, boycott whatever it is you’re mad at, but in the end you make peace with your new country and accept life the way it is. The curve goes up.

It’s amazing how some things can be so invisible to your mind’s eye but yet makes such a difference to make you comfortable. For example, a new friend from Singapore told me she eats Singapore-style food at home as often as possible. Bah kut teh is her way of surviving. She told me she spends a fair bit of time alone and is selective of who she associates with. Hers is a quality over quantity kind of attitude.

I agree with her on this and made this one of the new ways to live when I came to Japan. Unfortunately, with making new friends, it’s also a numbers game. The more people you try, the more likely you’d find a good match. But that comes along with its pit falls, too. I’ve met a couple of people whom I thought I clicked with but they sprang some curve balls at me.

One example is this guy from school who admitted to me he used to suffer from psychosis because of being on the wrong side of a love triangle. I was really fine with him telling me this. I mean, who’s to say who’s crazy in this world yeah? But what got me was he withdrew from making any friendly contact several days after. I think he felt over-exposed but it is pity that things are not quite the same now. We don’t hang out during breaks anymore.

What left me out cold in this big city today was a lunch with the first person I met in Tokyo — an English girl who’s here with her husband. She kindly brought me women’s magazines from Singapore as she just flew there for a long weekend. Somehow, she wouldn’t let me dig deeper over our pseudo Indonesian lunch: “How have you been these couple of months?” “No, what’s more important is, can you speak fluent Japanese by now?” She evaded all personal questions and we tittered about fluff. I can’t fathom why this lunch bugged me so much. “Move on!” says my brain. “Who cares?! Make other connections.”

Ah well.

I wish I had a proper job so I won’t suffer from such mind-wanderings. I’m tiring of myself, really. There are days when I really had to pull myself to go to the hash runs. I’ve told my story so many times that I secretly wish I could mix it up. I’m tempted to say, “I’m in Tokyo to learn how to make sushi”, “I want to be the next Karate Kid”, “I’m learning to be a geisha”, “I think Japanese men are sexy”, “I want to open my own chain of vending machines”, “I want to be a Japanese schoolgirl”, “I want to take back the craft of Aikido and make it big back home with my own school.”

Where am I on the W curve? I really hope I’m just at the first dip. I wish I were more enamoured by Tokyo. Perhaps it’s just a bleah day.

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1. We’re moving
2. A lesson in Singlish
3. Meeting new people

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