JAPAN - My History With Japan in a Nutshell

Ever since my family and I moved from Japan to the United States back when I was four, it had been a dream of mine to one day return to Japan. Ultimately, fifteen years would pass before I finally made it back to Japan as a US delegate to the Japan America Student Conference (JASC). The conference was held at locales throughout the country (Kyoto, Sendai, Hiroshima, Tokyo, etc.), and for me, it was everything my fragmentary memories and dreams had told me it would be - beautiful, mysterious, somehow soft and comforting.

My experience of Japan through JASC was just enough to whet my appetite for more. During the spring semester of my junior year in college, I found my way back to Japan, this time as a student in Tokyo. I quickly found that taken in a larger dose, things were not quite as idyllic as I had fancied... and by the end of it, I left feeling defeated, disillusioned and certainly not fond of Tokyo.

But I hate losing. I thus decided to come back again following graduation, determined to prove to myself that I could make it.

I returned to Japan as a participant in the Japan Exchange Teaching (JET) Programme, planning to stay in Japan for one, perhaps two years at tops...then I would move on either towards India or Brazil.

The JET Programme is sold to many incoming participants as something close to an extended homestay experience where you also happen to show up in junior high or high school classes and in doing so, help to "internationalize" Japan's youth. The importance of this teaching aspect I wholly underestimated...which led to a rocky beginning indeed.

I was placed by the powers that be in the most isolated and country posting of the prefecture of Shiga (located in western Honshu, sandwiched between Kyoto, Fukui, Gifu and Mie) -- a small town called Tsuchiyama.

The first year proved to be very trying. Midway through, I was about ready to throw in the towel and concede defeat. However, for some reason that eludes me to this day, I was offered the chance to move to the prefectural capital and serve as the counselor and administrative advocate for all JET participants in Shiga.

Much to my surprise, after the first ten months in Tsuchiyama, I finally started to get the hang of things, and over the next two years as the Prefectural Advisor in the capital, I was able to consolidate my language, cultural, teaching and administrative skills to the point that I felt like I had mastered the "Japan-thing" enough to move on.

Then I met M. And we started dating. And things got serious enough that I did not want to leave her behind. So when my three years on the JET Programme ended, I returned to the US with M, agreeing that I would return again with her to Japan less than half a year later.

I returned, and once again, I was in the Japanese countryside, teaching. But this time around, I knew what I was doing and I had a woman I loved and who loved me. And the countryside teaching gig was only a "temporary measure" to allow me to remain close to M until I could figure out how to take the next step and still have her in the picture.

Two years passed, and I still hadn't figured out the next step. And my relationship with M had slowly spiraled down to its death as we gradually came to realize that the limits of compromise we were each willing to concede on fundamental differences were not enough to allow things to continue.

Looking back on things, I can't help but wonder if part of what caused that spiral had to do with me not being able to figure out how to move forward and stay with her at the same time. I was floating, unsure of what I wanted to do next.

And yet, the truth was, all along I knew exactly what it was that I wanted to do.