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Applying for Japanese Citizenship

Step One of the Japanese citizenship process is apparently sitting on a blue plastic bench in a frigid concrete government building staring at the number in your hand. Mine was 12. This was a semi big deal, not the number but the whole procedure, since it meant renouncing U.S. citizenship and basically scotching my chances of ever living or working again in the greatest country on earth. But since I’d been in Japan this long and it was looking like I’d eventually die here, I figured Hell, might as well go all the way. I mean, people get face tattoos, undergo plastic surgery, get married, have kids…maybe I needed to put an end to this hedonistic Peter Pan existence and start screwing up my life too. Can’t just keep on having fun forever, right?

Continue reading “Applying for Japanese Citizenship”
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Intermittent Fasting in Japan

Japanese Ramen

Nine months ago, an American friend in Tokyo introduced me to intermittent fasting, which might’ve changed my life forever. And while that’s good and all, it had the unfortunate side-effect of killing brunch. I was like, Damn, that’s the third-best meal of the day.

And intermittent fasting in Japan is kind of strange anyway, because when you tell Japanese folks about it, they’re like, “Okaaay … so you don’t eat breakfast. I never eat breakfast.” And you’re like, “No, you don’t get it—-I don’t eat for eighteen whole hours.” And they just stare sadly then mumble, “Yesterday I worked eighteen hours and didn’t even get up to pee.” Which is to say that in Japan, lots of people don’t eat, and nobody cares if you don’t also. It’s like trying to win a staring contest with a cat. Continue reading “Intermittent Fasting in Japan”

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A Week in Tokyo

Tokyo festival

I was flat on my back in the dark grass, pressing my eyes shut while bombs exploded overhead. “Are you watching?” Mizuki asked.

“Intently,” I lied.

After five years away, I’d come back for a week in Tokyo, to visit old friends, old neighborhoods, and apparently endure a fireworks festival on the banks of the Arakawa river, crowded in with a million Japanese people.

Our small group finally found an unlevel spot in the weeds of the riverbank, where we laid on blue plastic sheets and drank cans of chu-hi while colorful shapes exploded overhead and the crowd went oooo, then ahhh. Then oooo again. Only in Japanese. Continue reading “A Week in Tokyo”

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Plastic Japan

In Kenya, you get jail time for plastic bags. In the U.S.,  straw-shaming’s all the rage. Ah, Americans, how quickly you forget.  Cue balloon disaster.

Anyway, I can only imagine what a mind-fuck it is for Kenyans to arrive in Japan and find themselves surrounded, sometimes literally, by a sea of plastic. Because when it comes to being proudly able replicate everything on earth with its plastic counterpart, Japan rules the world. In front of the ramen shop, there’s a plastic bowl of plastic ramen. The curry shop has plastic plates so real you’ll be tempted to smell your fingers after Continue reading “Plastic Japan”

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Feminism in Japan

Feminism in Japan

“Washing your own dishes? That’s commendable.”

This is my co-worker Ms. Oshiro, leaning over my shoulder at the office sink. I’ve got a scrubby in one hand, bento box in the other, and my first reaction is, “Well, who else’d wash ‘em?”

But then common sense kicked in. The same person who made my delicious bento: my wife, of course. Because in Japan, that’s the way it works. Ken Seeroi’s wife hand-makes him a lunch box of rice, mackerel, a hard-boiled egg, and mini sausages shaped like octopuses, then at the end of the day he takes his dirty dishes back to her. Honey, I’m home. Japan’s real 1950’s like that. Continue reading “Feminism in Japan”