Off to Japan...

With mixed emotions. I’m not really sure what to think exactly about a 13 hour and 45 minute flight, first of all. Sounds like a physical challenge that I’d rather not take on. I was restless and anxious after my last cross country flight to Yuma, Arizona, so I’m definitely worried about the additional oh, EIGHT hours that this flight will be.

I think perhaps also that I have completely over thought this trip (big surprise there). It’s a business trip and in the run up to the trip there was a lot of pressure on me to produce a not insignificant amount of work product to get my boss’s boss’s boss ready for the work that we’ll do there. The work is done now, so that pressure should have gone away, but I’ve been thinking about it for so long that I haven’t quite been able to let go of it yet. Soon I hope. If I don’t let go of it entirely after I get back from Japan, I’ll seriously consider getting back into counseling.

But probably deeper than the work related stuff--and that runs pretty deep--is a real ambivalence about Asia in general and Japan in particular. Where that comes from I’m not exactly sure. I have incredible curiosity about parts of our Earth. Europe, especially, even the dangerous parts, I want to see and learn about and experience. South America. Absolutely. Even Central America and most of Africa. But Asia? Not so much.

Did I buy into the inscrutable Asian stereotype as a kid? Have I watched too many World War II movies with ruthless Japanese enemies? I don’t know.

I read James Clavell’s Shogun when I was young (probably too young given some of the descriptive erotic scenes--the term “time of the clouds and rain” sticks in my head) and gained an admiration for the ceremony and tradition of Japanese society. Yet when I think of Tokyo and its millions and millions of people, when the image of Shibuya crossing, with what looks like a hundred thousand people crossing the road under the glare of five story tall neon signs for huge department stores and hit movies, I cringe a bit. Too many people, I think. Too close together. It seems claustrophobic and frightening.

Will it really be that way? Will I hate it as much as I expect?

Stay tuned to YDS.