There is something about leaving a place that one has lived in long enough to feel at home in. Especially when that feeling of being home occurs just before the realization that time is nearly up. That is what hit during my last month in Okayama.
I’ve been back in the USA for nearly two weeks now and I find myself thinking and talking about my experience in Japan constantly. I find returning back into a lifestyle that I was once accostomed to as new and strange. I now ride a car rather than a bicycle, shop in a mega-sized grocery store rather than various small shops and eat substantially less rice, sushi and ramen. Those are a give. But more to the core of this feeling of surreality that I’ve been feeling over the last two weeks–it’s the realization of just how similar some things are against just how different other things are. Some might call it “reverse culture shock,” but I’m used to the feeling–it’s just the strangeness of coming home.
It’s quite difficult to articulate these realizations. Over the last year I’ve been able to begin to understand that there are similar ways to achieve the same things. I mean this especially in regard to the general way that people treat each other. My home country and Japan have very different ideas of what is polite and how to carry oneself to attain respect. But somehow, over the year I began to realize and understand these differences as normal.
There are countless people, places are events that will remain in my memory. Strangers who helped me when I was lost, Japanese friends that helped me find the people and places that would make my stay enjoyable, people from the university who went out of their way to help me, and teachers that were enthusiastic and excelled at what they did. And at that point, it’s apparent that these kind of people will be wherever you go if you take a chance and leave what is comfortable and every-day.
That’s what Japan was for me–leaving what was comfortable and every day. I think I changed a lot because of it.
So, at that I will wrap up my last entry by detailing some of the things I learned:
- In Japan, most of the time people will be decent when you get lost and do their best to help you find your way again.
- Eating ramen more than once in the same day is a very bad idea. The same goes for Japanese curry, yet not sushi.
- One should not bicycle when extremely tired or under the influence of sake.
- It’s easier to work around the words you do not know than to give up on expressing a thought.
- Finding a small locally owned and frequented eating or drinking establishment to visit often is one of the best things one can do for their language skills. But it’s also the best way to find out about local events and history.
- Sometimes coming home feels stranger than leaving.
I cannot recommend taking the option to do study abroad enough.
I look forward to arriving back in Edinburgh. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Okayama and sincerely hope to be able to return to Japan in the future.
