Slipstream Harbour

This is an old essay I had written on Slipstream Harbour way back in the 
mid-nineties. The first in a series of four

When I first decided to come to Japan I was adamant about following my plan to be here only for four years. I figured that would be the maximum amount of time I could be away and still come back young enough to be able to embark on the career I wanted; the Canadian Foreign Service. It was always (and in many ways is still) my dream to be a member of the Diplomatic Corps for Canada.

I figured that four years would be enough time to get Japanese under my belt. I figured that I would be able to learn to read, write and speak effectively within that time. With that I would go home, study for the Foreign Service exam and get my life underway. While I was here I wanted to do the whole International culture thing, as well as try to fortify my base of knowledge on Japanese Politics that I built in my studies and the short time I spent (miserably) in Grad school. I was ready. I was going to do it. Boy, was I psyched. Boy, was I wrong.

No, I think what happened is a combination of things: I got comfortable living here; I found out (I'm good at finding out things that are already well known) that Japanese is an incredibly difficult language to learn if you don't really, really, REALLY apply yourself; and of course, I met Junko.

I don't want to turn this into a confidential about how I met girl, got girl, lost girl, got girl back, married girl, and then divorced girl, so I'll save that for another time. Instead I want to just give you an idea that living and working in Japan usually never meets an individual's expectations and often ruins the best laid plans. Maybe I've been able to give you a bit of a taste of that already.

Confused that you didn't find what you thought you would? Disappointed that this isn't what you wanted? Good then, you're now one step further than I was in being prepared for understanding what life is like in a culture not your own.

Were you perhaps expecting me to give some deep insightful advice on how to conceptualize Japan based on my solid life experience here? Did you think that on these pages you would find some new ways to say the same old stuff about "The Japanese" this and "The Japanese" that? Well, you won't find it here. I'm too busy trying to keep moving myself to find time to preach to others about about how I think they should live their lives.

Of course, living here is not all confusion and disappointment. There's a tremendous amount that is wonderful about it. As I'm fond of saying to anyone who asks me if I like living in Japan, "of course I do; If I didn't, I'd leave." It's just that it's not what any book or essay or analyst or commentator could ever prepare you for. You'll never know until you get here. Hell, I've been here all these years, and I still don't know.

Maybe tho' I can help you understand what it was and is like for me to live here. In these little essays maybe you can find something entertaining and interesting, and maybe I'll find some way to turn it all into a book and turn a profit off all of this. Then that way it won't all be a pointless exercise in me telling my life story.