American Gaijin
-
Shades of Grey
Not of the “fifty” variety, sorry. Maybe that will be an appropriate topic in the far distant future, but not today. Over the past few days, my country has been in the throes of a great deal of civil unrest. It was precipitated by a very unfortunate event in Minneapolis. I don’t really want to…
-
Motteke! Sailor Fuku
I don’t think I can describe how bad 2020 has been in so many ways, both personally and on a macro level. But I don’t have to, because most of you have experienced it. First a virus from China showed up and pretty much shut the world down for a few months, and now idiots…
-
Matsuri
My formative years were troubled. I have many horrible memories, of which I refuse to go into here – they’re personal, and it’s not appropriate. But the memories were not all bad. Every year we had a religious festival – we called it the Festival of Tabernacles, or the “feast” for short. It was in…
-
Anime
I honestly don’t have a whole lot of experience, or interest, in anime or anime-inspired things. I have seen some anime, and I was impressed with it technically. By which I mean, there is often a lot of care put into how the higher quality animes are animated. I remember watching “Akira” and being really impressed…
-
Tokyo
I’ve never been to Japan. It’s possible I may never go to Japan. Nonetheless, YouTube has many interesting videos about many interesting places. Recently I saw some videos about driving through Tokyo. Now American cities, generally, are not very impressive. Most cities – even large ones – have a small downtown core, and sprawl out…
-
Always the Same
I am sitting here, in my apartment, which is neither expensive nor not, in a suburb of Austin, Texas. I can hear traffic roaring by on the tollway outside, muted by the double-paned windows that the builders thoughtfully put in, when they realized that the noise would be otherwise intolerable. Traffic is slowly picking up…
-
Home
I am going to push through on a post here, and I’m not sure exactly what form it will take when it comes out. I honestly don’t want to write it, and I’m not sure why. Maybe it sounds stupid, or maybe it even feels stupid. I have lived only in America for what feels…
-
The petals of our tears
Namida no hanabiratachi ga harahara The blooming of the sakura trees in Japan is a joyful, yet bittersweet moment, as they, in a very real way mark the passage of time. The passage of time is both a time for new beginnings, and bittersweet goodbyes. Sometimes goodbyes are temporary, sometimes they are permanent, and sometimes they…
-
空気
I’m going to try a different approach to posting today. Let me know if you like it. I have never been to Japan, but many things come to mind when I think of it. I imagine the crisp air of fujisan. The roar of trains, such as the shinkansen, as they come whooshing by. The fragrant…
-
Questions
Like in many places in the world, I’m not really able to go anywhere except for necessities. This has given me a lot of time to think. One of the things I’ve been thinking about is: Why am I so frustrated with Japanese right now? I have settled on an answer: because I do not…