Introduction

My office is silent, except for the high whir of computer fans and a recorded koto, emanating from speakers in the ceiling which were installed during the bubble economy. I work in a building which was built in 1995, constructed with tax money in a time when it seemed a river which would never run dry. As a result, the building seems awkwardly out-of-place with its surroundings—a concrete mass of hyper-modern architecture, replete with an amphitheatre, Steinway piano, and, of course, these ceiling speakers.

This building, which serves as the “international center” of my town (20,000 and shrinking) has one of three stages in the entire country whose rear wall comprises one enormous window overlooking the sea. I don’t know who collects these statistics. We’ve got a golden stage screen which cost somewhere along the lines of $10,000 US, but alas not much chance to use it. We’ve also got a museum-cum-log cabin, showcasing our relationship with our sister city as well as a bunch of US pilgrim artifacts.

We’ve been ordered to carry home our trash with us. Staple boxes, misprinted pages, disposable chopsticks… Industrial waste removal costs something like $130 US per bag to the local government, but it’s free if they can offload it to neighborhoods. Technically illegal, it’s become permanent temporary policy. I wear two jackets in the winter while sitting at my desk due to heating costs, and our largest event of the year was cut years ago from “International Week” to “International Days.”

For eight months, I’ve been a Coordinator of International Relations here. That pretentious title means that I deal mostly with translation and interpretation for events and concerts. I’m also ostensibly responsible for fostering internationalization, which is the part of my job that I take both the least, and most, seriously; it has become quite clear that my contracting organization has no intention of allowing me that responsibility or any responsibilities which might lead to it directly or indirectly. However, outside of my day job, I work to defeat demons of the public conscience that arise from an intricate symphony of ignorance and misinformation. My medium is almost exclusively personal conversations, although I also teach a class once every two weeks. This medium aided by my ability to have a lot of personal conversations with a veritable cross-section of the populous; I have the mixed blessing of being personally acquainted with company presidents, illegal immigrants, police officers, and yakuza.

I live inside Japan, but largely outside of the public conscience. Indeed, as a foreigner, I will always largely be an outsider. This is one of the reasons that I am able to have conversations with such a diverse sample of Japan – people open up to me because:
a. They think that I’m on the fringes of society, too.
b. They don’t think I’ll be able to tell anybody.
c. Gaijin are cool.

Maybe we can talk more about that last one later. But for now, let it suffice to say that the fact that people open up to me easily (well, relatively) is one of a few tricks that I have that keep me adrift on Japanese society, instead of beached by it or drowned at the bottom. Other tricks include the ability to speak Japanese and a logical, skeptical, and analytical thought process brought to you by the word “why.”
I think the purpose of this blog will be to discuss Japanese culture and its perceptions, inside and outside of Japan.
I won’t pretend to know everything, nor assume to be always right. Just like my life, my knowledge is a work in progress. But as of now, these things I know are true.