I suppose first I should give a little more background as to my situation, or why I consider myself "isolated" First of all, I should say that the biggest factor is the bus system here in Japan. My town is not connected to the famed and fabled train system in Japan, and as such, the only way to access my little piece of Tengoku is to take the bus. There are several downsides to this. First of all, the price is nearly double what it would cost to go an equivalent distance by train. I can go from Otaru to Sapporo by train for 600 yen (About 6 dollars), yet it costs me 980 yen to get from Otaru to Furubira by bus (Whaaaat?). Secondly, the bus ends deathly early. Whereas in more populated areas the train might run as late as 11 o clock, the bus stops making runs at 8:15 or so. What does this mean to me, the consumer? Well, say for example I was to leave work and head to the closest town (Yoichi) on the bus. The bus would pick me up at 5:15 and I would be in Yoichi at 5:45 or so. Now, the last bus leaves at 8, and it takes about 15 minutes walk to or from my friend Mikaly's apartment, so that leaves me a window of about an hour and 30 minutes to hang about and do whatever. That isn't really even enough time to go to a restaurant. So it's somewhat futile to try to go anywhere on the bus from Sunday to Thursday. Therefore, I'm pretty much stuck in my town anytime I have to go to school the next day.
The next factor is the people of Furubira. Now don't get me wrong, they are absolutely wonderful people, generous and kind. However there are several factors that keep me from getting to "best buds" status with any of them. The biggest and most obvious factor is of course, the language barrier. Even with the residents of the town who are incredibly proficient at the language, there can still be difficulties in the subtleties of speech. This could come about as a result of my dialect (Maritimes), or as a result of my constant use of puns and sarcasm. See, as anyone who has known me for a while will know, I absolutely LOVE puns. I probably spit one or two out in almost every conversation I have. Even when I worked as a cashier in retail, I would use them with my customers (often to their dismay). They're part of who I am. So I guess if you don't understand my puns, you don't really understand me.
Another factor is that I can't really "hang out" with anyone in my town. My ideal of the perfect friendship is what I had with my roommate in my second year of University. We could be in the same room, doing different things, but still be having conversations and generally having a good time. We had (and have) our inside jokes, our interests were similar, but we did our own thing. We didn't have to feign interest in things we weren't interested in in order to have a good relationship. Very little effort was required to remain best friends. Now don't get me wrong, I have my friends here in town, there are some truly awesome people here, but I can't see them coming over any time soon for a night of junk food and video games. I enjoy my time with them, but maybe friendship in Japan is a different concept.
I guess the last factor is one that I've built up myself. See, in Canada, if I didn't create a little space for myself I would never get alone time, and as an only-child, that's something I really value. It's only when you spend time alone that you can remember who you really are. When one is alone one can re-center on their ideals, their morals, and their life philosophy without fear of influence from outside sources. It's really quite nice. My mistake was keeping this paradigm of thought when I moved to Japan. See, in Japan, I don't really need to make this space as it is readily available through the week. So the first month or so I did my own thing, while at the same time the ALTs around me were building strong relationships. By the time I realized this, I was already an outsider. Maybe this can be remedied but for now I'm just "that guy who lives in a small town" I'm kind of the odd man out in my area. The Kutchan/Niseko crowd has a group, and the Shiribeshi region (Which I am part of) has their own group as well (Which I am not part of).
How I perceive the groups in my region.
It really is my fault though. I prioritized travel (Which I could have done later) over building new and lasting relationships. I have a lot of really good acquaintances, but very nobody I would consider my "best friend"
To be fair, looking back, I wouldn't have been friends with myself if I had met me the first couple months anyway. The change in locales changed my attitude for the worse. Where before I considered myself a pretty funny guy who tried to put others first, after moving to Japan I became a clingy kind of person who often bragged about how nice my house was. I became kind of a tool during the first couple welcome parties as well. I've been working on this steadily and I think every day I become a little more true to who I was in Canada. Honestly, if you are an aspiring JET and you're reading this blog, listen to what they say in orientation. Culture shock can change the very fabric of your personality if you let it.
So, it's because of these things that I have built up my own little world. There are times when I really enjoy my solitude, and there are times when I feel "forever alone"(don't worry, that's partially a joke).
Haha
I am partially prepared for this; however; as I did grow up in a rural area which had only 3 or four people my age. Plus the Internet has helped with this problem a lot. I talk with people from Canada almost every other day on facebook, and I keep up with what people have been doing around me. It really makes me wonder what the first ALTs in Furubira did to help with their loneliness.
Anyways, as the title suggests, my isolation has indeed been bittersweet, so I guess I'll use the next couple paragraphs to summarize the pros and cons of living in a small town.
Pros: -There is a lot of time to do what you want to do, whether that is a creative project, keeping up with the news, forming an illegal beetle fighting ring, reading, or playing video games, you have the time to do it.
-It's also very easy to keep my house very organized and clean. This is where I have a lot of respect for Anna, who lives in Sapporo. She runs her apartment like a free hotel, taking in others as they request (which is likely every weekend) and yet she keeps her place spotless. My place is nice too but that's easy as I'm the only person who would mess it up.
-I also get the true Japanese experience. Whereas in cities the ALTs spend a lot of time with each other, speaking English and what not, I spend a lot of time with native Japanese speakers. This allows me to better my Japanese while at the same time learning about Japanese society.
Cons: -I tend to go a little crazy sometimes (I talk to myself ALOT, to the point where I will have full dialogues). This happened in Canada too though, so I'm not worried.
-Culture shock feels multiplied as I have nobody to share my worries with.
-I have nobody to just hang out with and play video games/ eat junk food.
So that`s my situation in a nutshell. If you're one of the ALTs who lives near me, please understand I meant no offence by any of the things I said in this post, I just needed to express how I feel.
In any case, keep it real!
TL;DR: I really want a tomato and mayonnaise sandwich (Throw some pepper in there too and we would really be talking!).
Though I can't suggest people who would hang out, eat junk food, and play video games, I still think there are some cool/crazy people to hang out with in the 'Bira, Richard. If you're looking for good conversation, a little beer, and a lot of good food, there is, of course, Asano Sensei, but there are also the Taguchis (Young couple, awesome English, cute little baby girl; I think you met them at your welcome party). Those people are happy to have you over to their house to eat and hang out.
ReplyDeleteIf you're looking for more drinking/man time/possibly some DELICIOUS yakitori or yakiniku, you should consider Nishida Sensei or, better yet, Kudo Sensei, the young math teacher from the elementary. I know for a fact that, though his English may be a little sparse, Kudo sensei LOVES yakiniku and drinking beer. In fact, I once organized a "young peoples' night out" with Kudo sensei, Nishida sensei, Suzuki sensei, as well as Abe Sensei and Yamakawa (?) Sensei, the grade three and grade four teachers at the elementary. We all went to Agi Tengu together for yakiniku and had a great ol time.
Long story short, it may not be that there is no one to hang out with so much as it is that in Japan you may have to revise your ideas of what hanging out entails. You can ABSOLUTELY have people over for parties at your house, but I don't think they'll be as into playing video games as they are into drinking, eating, and chatting.
As for the whole meeting other ALTs thing, don't worry that it's too late. You may have to make a little more effort now that you didn't get in with everyone right away, but you can absolutely still make buds. I made some fantastic friends who I'd never really known before at Mid-Year conference at the beginning of December. Heck, I didn't start hanging out with my now-girlfriend in any meaningful sort of way until February of my first year.
So if you're really concerned and would like to do something about not knowing that many people, I would suggest trying to prioritize connecting with Peter and Mikaly on weekends, and perhaps meeting folks through them. You could also meet some really awesome folks through a Hokkaido NaNoWriMo write in as Jessica Benscotter organized one last year.
If you dedicate your weekends to meeting and hanging out with folks out of town, you should be able to find plenty of time for yourself during the week in-town, which means you don't have to worry about the busses or worry about losing track of yourself.
Damn. Bit of a blather. Sorry about that. Long story short, it's not too late so long as you're eager to make a change :)
1. Sounds like you're not making much of an effort to learn Japanese, and just expecting people to know English. Usually when you're in someone else's country you're expected to speak (or at least put effort into learning) their language.
ReplyDelete2. The time thing is the same for a lot of people. I'm usually at work until 5~6 every day, so I don't really get to go out of Niki during the week. I'll sometimes see Mikaly, but it'll probably be for like an hour or two at most since he has his own stuff in Yoichi to do. Most people only have time to see others on weekends.
3. I rarely see other JETs aside from Mikaly, Michael, Eva and Jamie, and even those it'll be mayeb like once or twice a month. Most times I'm staying home and just hanging out at home, or doing things that are going on in my town. As for the "Kutchan Clan," I know that Jamie and Eva have never even hung out with the other JETs in that area once, nor have I aside from that one time at the Shiribeshi welcome party thing. I'm pretty much the closest person to them that they see regularly, and even that's like maybe once or twice a month at best.
4. This might sound harsh, but it sounds like you're refusing to try to make friends in your town and integrate into the community there and just making excuses. I know that your predecessor was extremely involved in his own town and even had the time to come to a lot of stuff in Niki so that even a lot of people here know him and talk about him still, so maybe you should reevaluate your situation and try to change the way you're seeing/going about things. I sure the hell feel detached from every aspect of my town (from my school to the community) compared to my pred who was like super involved with everything and loved by everyone yet still had friends outside of town as well, but at the same time I'm trying to involve myself more in my own way and so far most people have been rather cooperative with that.
Just a thought from your fellow JET.
I appreciate the time you put into that post Peter but I just wanted to clairify a couple things. First of all the problem I have here with making friends in my town has very little to do with language (Also I have been making an effort to better my Japanese, as I have to speak it almost every day). It's more a difference in culture. I don't feel like I can interact with the people here the same way I did in Canada. Secondly, I have been actually been integrating myself into my community, albeit slowly. I'm not really the type to put myself out quickly, and to a large degree (as I think you stated yourself).Thirdly, I think you misread this as being entirely negative. I actually enjoy my alone time pretty most of the time, It's just that I pine to be able to walk out my door and into a friend's house when I'm feeling lonely as I did in Canada. Finally, that diagram I drew was just how I visualized the groups around me at the time of writing. The fact that I didn't know who was hanging out with who should really be an even bigger testatment to how out of the loop I was at the time. I have since been corrected from various sources.
ReplyDeleteSince the time of writing I've taken a great many measures to better my situation here. I stay after school for clubs, I have dinners with a person in my town once a week and I try to get out to Sapporo or Yoichi whenever possible. When I wrote this I was feeling some pretty bad culture shock, and I felt pretty alone, but now I feel fine. I appreciate your concern and I apologize if the post offended you in any way.
I appreciate the advice from you as well Nick, I'll take it to heart.
ReplyDelete