Before I came to Japan, I told myself that this was a bit of practice for dying. Continue reading
Weird things happen when you half-ass a language in its native culture.
This week, another guest post from former Japanese expat Alanna Schubach.
Shortly after moving to Japan I began having a dream that would recur for the duration of my time there. There were minor variations, but the story was always the same: in the dream, I would suddenly remember that I had a cat.
Imagine moving to a neighborhood and finding that suddenly, your friends and family are ashamed of you. Employers turn you down when you tell them your address, your fiancee tells you her family is threatening to disown her if she marries you.
It sounds like a literary allegory for racism, but for 2-3 million people known as burakujyumin in Japan, it’s a historic precedent. Burakumin were once part of a broader despised caste, but now refers increasingly to sections of cities where that caste once lived, and the jobs that caste once had.
“Architecture appears for the first time when the sunlight hits a wall. The sunlight did not know what it was before it hit a wall.”
― Louis Kahn
Freud claimed God was only the lingering memory of our parents, looming over us as wailing babies. The hand that fed us then was taken in and forged into the faith that some kindly hand could carry us through all future hungers.
Sometimes I worry that all I’ve done is complain.
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This Japanese Life. 