I am graduating from college in less than five months. Everyone else around me is applying to med school or grad school, but my gut is telling me to go to Japan.
I mean, seriously, what's a girl with a degree in fine arts to do with herself?
To be honest, I am not too sure what I will end up doing in Japan. Depending on what job options fall through, I may be doing translation and interpretation work at some random company. Or I may join the legions of other directionless college students who temporarily move to the land of the rising sun and tutor English to the many Japanese students, teachers and businesspeople who can't distinguish an 'l' from an 'r.'
The way I see it, it's a win-win situation. I get to postpone finding my true life calling for at least another year. I will be forced through means of survival to really improve my mediocre Japanese language skills. I have a chance to see extended family whom I hardly ever get a chance to see. And finally, I will have more opportunities to entertain notions of acquiring a hot Japanese boyfriend.
Maybe studying abroad in Singapore and traveling through all of Southeast Asia have simply made me antsy. Now that I have eight additional stamps in my passport, I am itching to get further away from my Southern California bubble and throw myself in a different country where I will feel uncomfortable, challenge myself and question myself.
Meeting Japanese exchange students my age and learning more about Japan through their own perspectives have further fueled my determination to move to Japan and see what happens.
I figure if I don't know this for myself now, my repressed wanderlust will rear its ugly head in the form of a midlife crisis where I walk out on my family, lose my marbles in a business meeting and join some Shinto cult in the boondocks of Japan.
I have several other Japanese American friends and acquaintances who are thinking of or have already done the same thing. We don't know what the hell we're doing with ourselves, so we are hoping that returning to the motherland will somehow give us the answers, or at least make us ask better questions.
Don't get me wrong; I'm still a little nervous about this decision that I have made for myself. Becoming a worker bee of Japanese society means saying bye-bye to my nose piercing or dyeing my hair any shade lighter than a very dark brown. If I do end up working in Japan after I graduate, I should start exercising my back muscles so my spine doesn't break from all the sudden influx of bowing I will be doing to my superiors.
Nonetheless, I can't help but imagine my future life in Japan as a ridiculous, twisted hybrid of the movie "Lost in Translation," scenic Japanese postcards, and every other Asian American novel ever written where the American-born protagonist visits her parents' native country for the first time.
I will have an ambiguous, emotionally charged affair with an older, married man. I will come across a hidden family album in the home of my ancestors and discover that I have a long-lost half sister. After being overwhelmed by the alienation of modern society, I will participate in a tea ceremony in full traditional regalia and realize that inner peace is possible even in a big city.
Interspersed between many dramatic happenings, there will be long, scenic shots of me riding the subway in Tokyo late at night, looking contemplative and deep, while some 80's cover band plays some nostalgic rock song in the background.
I can't wait.
Published February 2, 2007
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