It’s mid-March! I’m back with some much-delayed reflections on February and seasonal commiserations on taxes and spring allergies. So much and yet nothing has really happened. Life in this city goes on with or without you, and life has really been going since I’ve returned.
A short recap: I spent all of February abroad, with the first half of my trip solo and the second half with family. (Approximately 3 weeks in Japan and 1 week in Taiwan.) I easily hit 20k+ steps a day, wrote almost nothing down, and ate more 7/11 meals than I’ll ever care to tally up. I was exploring by day and working by night (and helping manage family travel logistics) so my brain was working overtime, all the time. I feel like my brain has just finally recalibrated back to a normal cognitive load.
I’m grateful for the time away and the home to return to. But mostly I’m really happy to have a non-insane sleeping schedule again: it’s strange to fall asleep as the US enters peak work day hours and wake up to everything that transpired during slumber. (Side note: the 24-hour news cycle is extra ineffective when your notification stack starts to look like a spam inbox.)
Otherwise, it was easy enough to adjust. Mental comparisons help me ground myself quickly in a new city: my NYC Metrocard was replaced by a Suica card in Tokyo, later replaced by the EasyCard in Taipei. As I wait amongst stylish couples for the train to Shimokitazawa, a Tokyo hub for vintage shopping, I feel like I’m on the L-train platform headed to Bushwick. Walking down Harajuku’s Cat Street reminds me of LA’s Abbot Kinney. Taipei’s colorful housing and tropical foliage is distantly reminiscent of my last trip to Mexico City. Every place has its own take on the same thing (another variation on a theme…), and making those comparisons helps me appreciate what feels different: the winding quiet corners of Omotesando, or how people properly line up to enter a subway car.
Adjusting to a new environment is one thing, facing a new language is another. I found it easy enough to be an English-only speaker, thanks to bilingual signs and Google Translate. Honestly, it was so easy that it didn’t feel too different from a weekend in New York because people generally leave you alone. Dare I say it was almost too easy to be there on my own? (The loneliness crisis feels alarmingly real these days.)
Tokyo, my first and longest stop, was the perfect destination if you’re craving the kind of anonymity only big cities can offer. In retrospect, I imagine it would be a melancholy landing place if you were feeling a little anonymous already. My face helps me with enough anonymity to blend in, but it’s never enough to overcome the distinct internal awareness that I do not belong.
To the friends I met up with, I asked how it felt like to be an outsider, as they had all moved to Japan in the last few years. The answers varied, but they all agreed on a clear distinction between being a “local” (from here) and “foreigner” that goes beyond speaking the language. I felt this rejection my very first weekend, when I tried to enter a small cocktail bar and despite the empty room, was immediately rejected because they were “fully booked for the night” (not an uncommon thing for tourists to experience). Foreigner: not always welcome.
When store associates approach me, my anonymous façade is ruined when I instinctually say “sorry!” – a signal that I do not understand a word of Japanese. They bow, apologize, and switch immediately to English. In Kobe, I accidentally underpaid for my train fare and couldn’t get through the exit gate. When I asked a station worker for help, he pulled out a handheld translator device, spoke into it, and then played it back out his response in English for me. Foreigner: accommodated to, when possible or necessary.
This demarcation between locals vs. foreigners isn’t unique to Japan, of course. Every place has its rules for outsiders: do only born-and-raised New Yorkers get to say they’re New Yorkers, or do you actually count as a true New Yorker after living here 10 years?
Still – there were also times where being not from here felt like a good thing. I came across a new store in Kuramae where the owner, an ex-Hay designer, was happily asking me questions about design and New York as I browsed the eclectic collection of homewares. My final record bar visit in Tokyo was owned by a sweet couple, excited to hear about my first time in the city. “You’re our very first New York visitor!” Foreigner: welcome, as long as people are intrigued by your otherness.
As a visitor who cares about being nonintrusive, it’s pretty simple (and respectful) to pick up small phrases. Soon, I became so used to saying arigato gozaimasu (thank you) that once I arrived in Taipei, I thanked someone in Japanese instead of the Chinese I’ve technically known my whole life. I’m much less fluent speaking Chinese compared to when I was a child; I can only communicate the simplest sentiments to my relatives. And when conversation slips in and out of Taiwanese with ease, I lose them completely. But this kind of displacement feels familiar. In some ways, I felt more confident in my complete lack of comprehension in Japan because I wasn’t stuck in this in-between of understanding glimpses of conversation.
The only place I completely forgot about my otherness was on the art islands (Naoshima and Teshima). These islands are home to a number of indoor and outdoor art installations, all placed in careful consideration of the surrounding nature and space. In one guidebook, Naoshima’s transformation into an art destination is described as a response to modern temporariness. What does it mean to build something permanent in a world of constant transience?
Friends have since asked if it was lonely to be traveling here on my own, if there were any moments where I wished I had someone to share the experience with. But I actually made it a point to visit these islands on my own. (Maybe I wouldn’t recommend it to extreme extroverts…I spoke very little in person these few days, aside from my Airbnb host and some transactional exchanges.) I did repeatedly cross paths with the same fellow visitors on island paths and ferries, and sometimes thought about asking where they were visiting from. But it would be an obligatory question; I didn’t really care. It was mutually and silently acknowledged that we were all there for the same reason. Locals and foreigners alike willing to trek well out of their way to admire some art on some islands.
Art is often described as a universal language. Interpreted differently by form, artist, culture, language, person. And I will always love how art doesn’t need (or try) to resonate with everyone: something meaningful to one person could mean absolutely nothing to the next. Here on the islands, I find myself confronted by the question of what can be conveyed without words. When I enter a room built specifically to house 4 larger-than-life Monets, I have nothing to say to anyone, anyway.
My favorite visit by far was the Teshima Art Museum. Ignore whatever imagery museum might have first conjured up in your mind: it’s one large concrete structure with two large oval cutouts to the sky. The official description says it “resembles a water droplet at the moment of landing”, and it’s situated in a restored rice terrace high above the surrounding sea. I could’ve spent hours in there, watching droplets (formed from that morning’s humidity) pool and travel and disappear and reappear on the ground in a way I’ve never seen water move before.
Even as I wrap up my thoughts on this trip, I’m left with the feeling that it’s impossible to do a travel experience justice on paper, no matter how ordinary or profound. Similar to how every language has words that can’t be translated 1:1 in other languages, a day-by-day itinerary is only an attempt at replicating someone’s trip. I suppose that’s part of a writer’s endless journey, the honest attempt to capture your internal and external world in a way that makes sense to someone else. So I leave you with a nod to the art of adaptation: accepting that some things might, should, and probably will get lost in translation.
On repeat
I listened to very little new music in Feb, so I’m catching up on releases this month and sooo excited for upcoming album drops (Remi Wolf, Dua Lipa, Maggie Rogers) just in time for spring.
Last read The Guest by Emma Cline (quick beach read to get back into the habit). Currently reading The Family Firm by Emily Oster for our work book club, but have a few paperbacks on my shelf I’m ready to dive into soon.
Last watched Oppenheimer (perfect long-haul plane watch, only fell asleep once), Dune 2, the 2024 Oscar Animated Shorts (Pachyderme, oof!).
If you have 24 hours in Tokyo, might I recommend Parklet for a coffee and pastry, a walk through Yoyogi Park’s dog run, an hour at Jiyucho to write a letter to your future self, T-SITE for a huge selection of art and design books, CARBOOTS and the Daikanyama area for smaller boutique shopping, Gekko-so for bespoke art supplies or Itoya for all things stationary, APFR for a new home scent, record bar 33 1/3rpm if you want to request songs and you don’t mind secondhand smoke, and teamLab’s latest exhibition to redefine what you know about immersive digital art.