Further Thoughts

(An addendum to the previous post)

Perhaps the best advice I ever got about life in Japan was from a speech by a fellow JET participant given the night before we flew out of Detroit. “Don’t think of this as a year abroad,” he said. “Think about it as just another year of life. For example this year in Japan is probably the year I’m going to finally learn to cook for myself. But I think that would probably happen anyway.”

Now, despite the fact that 5 years down the road I still haven’t learned to cook for myself, I think the general idea of this is very sound. The past 5 years as I've journeyed from 23 to 28 I think I've done a lot of the same things, and learned a lot of the same things, that would have happened whether I was in Japan or not.

I spent my days at work, and my nights meeting friends in bars and at dinner parties, just like I would have done back home. I dated girls, screwed up at things a lot, and eventually found a girl I really like, just like I probably would have done back home. I learned things about myself by observing how I reacted in new social situations, and what kind of activities and interests I tended to gravitate to once I was free of assigned reading, just like I’m sure the rest of you have done.

When I was in college my entire social circle was within one or two years of my own age (with the exception of Old Man Anderson). After graduating and coming to Japan I started working and becoming colleagues with some people of my parents generation. And I learned that the age gap wasn't as big a deal as I thought it was, and that older people are people too, and often interact with each other the same way me and my Calvin friends used to.

By the same token, I learned that the “adult world” is a lot more childish than I would ever have imagined. I remember one incident in particular when there was a very childish flame war going back and forth on the Oita JETs e-mail listserve, and I thought to myself: “All these people are in there mid 20s or 30s. Somehow I always figured the grown-up world would be a lot more grown-up like than this.” That was the moment or realization for me. I’m sure a lot of you have had similar moments.

Despite the fact that I feel ready to return to the US, I do have a lot of worries. Reverse Culture shock is one of them, and I've noted that concern occasionally in this blog. I've been told that knowing it’s coming is half the battle, so hopefully I've prepared myself a little bit.

After spending so long as an ALT, a very cushy job, I’m a little bit worried my work ethic has been ruined, and I’m going to be in for a rude awakening when I get a job back in the United States. On the other hand, I don’t want my tombstone to read, “Here lies Joel Swagman. He coasted through life with as little effort as he could get away with.” Hopefully things will work out.

I remember how ambivalent I was leaving home for the first time 5 years ago. The whole drive to Detroit I couldn't think about anything but all the friends I was leaving behind. And then as soon as I got to the hotel, and I met the other JETs and realized how friendly most of them were, I immediately felt at ease. And the next few years were absolutely fantastic. Although I’m now nervous about a transition once again, I hope this is the start of another great chapter in my life.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
Books and movie serials concerning the diabolical doctor Fu Manchu were very popular in the first half of the 20th century. Afterwards the character became controversial as an example of racism found frequently in Western representations of the Chinese at that time. The character is often associated with the Yellow Peril.

Link of the Day
Admittedly I’m jumping on the bandwagon rather late, but is youtube.com amazing or what? There’s just so much cool stuff available on-line.

The last couple posts I've linked to political videos, and there are a lot more political videos that deserve to be watched and hopefully I’ll get around to linking to some of those later. First though a break for nostalgia.

Some saint has uploaded all 39 episodes of “The Mysterious Cities of Gold.” Remember this? (The first episode here, and the rest here). I always wondered how the series finally ended. We left on a family vacation the day of the last episode, so I never got to see it.

Does anyone else remember “Flight of the Dragons”? Some kind soul put it on youtube.com I only saw this movie once, but its amazing how well I remembered it. It was the ABC Sunday night movie back in the 80s. They moved the usual showing time up an hour so kids could see it before going to bed.

Here’s an episode of Superfriends: Lex Luther Escapes. No introduction necessary.

And here are two episodes of “Spiderman and Friends”. Nostalgia is a funny thing. To the best of my memory I never even saw a single episode of this show, but I feel very nostalgic for it just because I remember commercials for it, and friends talking about it. Watching it you can really smell the 80s.

I’m sure there’s a ton more cool stuff hidden away on the internet, but as always I guess if you’re really interested in it you don’t need me to give you the link, you can search and find yourself. (Let me know if you find anything cool).