Why Japan?

“So, why Japan?”

This question has been a repeating theme in my life for a while now. Prior to jetting off halfway across the world, while I was still in the US, I was bombarded with The Question by friends, family, coworkers, professors, and most others to whom I told my plans. I would usually answer the same way, a self-deprecated explanation that if you follow it back to the beginning, it probably started with playing Nintendo when I was 7, and that my interest later grew into a fuller and more adult appreciation for a paradoxical culture somewhat similar to but markedly different from my own. This was a line, though. A rote piece of dialogue given to Those Who Don’t Get It. To be honest, I have very little concept as to why or how I’m here. It has always been more of a drive than a desire, a feeling that this is the Right Thing To Do, and that, when I’m older, it is absolutely imperative that when telling my life story, I can have a chapters that begin with the line “When I was in Japan…”. To say that I wanted to be a part of a culture different than mine is also incorrect; I didn’t merely want ‘different’. If I wanted that I’d be living in Siberia or with the Aborigines at Ayers Rock. I wanted parallel. It’s hard to explain; I’m not sure I can elucidate my motivations exactly, but the thing is, I no longer need to.

The Question has disappeared.

In meeting my fellow study abroad students, The Question has never once been asked. Whether talking to my neighbor from Kansas, our good friend from Cairo, or the crazy Australian from whom I steal wireless internet, it has never once come up. It’s superfluous to ask “why”; just by virtue of the fact that we’re here, we all have a common motivation. And I love this. Whether I get along with them or not, I can still related to most everyone here. I came because I somehow needed to. I didn’t necessarily come to further my language abilities or to study Japan-North Korean relations or to embiggen my nerdy comic collection, but for each of us who may have those goals, there’s a mutually-understood thread of motivation. I don’t think I’ve ever been with a bigger group of people that I can relate to, and who can relate to me.