My allotted time in Japan is forty-eight weeks, give or take a day. Effective yesterday, I have sixteen of them left. It is flying by.
Little by little, one molecule at a time, I am just starting to think about returning, which means bracing myself for reentry shock. That’s paradoxical, because the parts that will be shocking are the parts I don’t expect, which means it’s impossible to brace for it. So, my strategy, which is probably a waste of time, is to catalog all the adjustments I know I’ll have to make, because I figure if I pay attention to them, they can’t shock me.
With that in mind, here are some of the things that will change upon my return:
It will probably take me a few months to speed up my speaking rate, stop hyper-enunciating, and start using slang again.
It likely will startle me the first few times I overhear someone else’s conversation and it captures my full attention. Here, because my listening comprehension is so poor, other people chatting might as well be birdsong.
It will feel very odd, both on Sunday and at Bushnell chapel, to sing worship songs in only one language and listen to a sermon without interpretation.
More of the people I see each day will be acting cool, showing how relaxed they are and how nothing impresses them. Fewer will be trying their absolute hardest at absolutely everything they do. And fewer shop employees will overflow with joy and gratitude at the sight of a customer.
I might actually look like a Californian the first few times it rains, since Japan has won me over to using an umbrella. I’m sure I’ll cave to peer pressure and go back to my raincoat, but I really have become attached to my little, collapsible, push-button, pocket-sized, Japanese 傘.
No more grocery-shopping by guesswork. I will actually be able to read labels.
I will go back to not carrying cash and instead paying for everything by card. Here it’s been the other way around.
I’ll have to train myself to tip again.
I will eat a lot less nattō and a lot more freezer burritos.
Houses, the space between houses, and especially the sidewalks, all will look gigantic to me. Pickup trucks will remind me of the Mammoth Car from Speed Racer.
I may well get flattened by a distracted driver, since my defensive pedestrian instincts are shot all to hell. Japanese drivers carefully pick their way through neighborhoods, watching for anyone on foot, unlike anywhere in the USA.
I will have to get used to the sound of skateboarders again. On exactly one occasion in the past eight months I’ve heard skateboarders, and it took me back to how inescapable the noise is in Eugene. For whatever reason, there seem to be none here, or at least not at places I go to.
There are no visible homeless people here. There are one or two in Eugene.
Getting caught in a mass shooting will once again be something that could plausibly happen to me.
I am really going to miss the trains. If at any point you see me looking sad, the smart bet is that I’m probably remembering how much I loved the trains.
I will have a tumble dryer for my laundry. They exist here, but people are big on hanging everything. My washing machine has a dry cycle, but it does more harm than good, so I’ve been hanging most things.
I will throw my iPhone in a drawer and return to my phone-free life. That change I am genuinely looking forward to.
