Life in Japan/Tokyo in 2004 – Tragedy and Major Changes

Looking back at 2004 has been difficult because of how that year felt like one of the worst years of my life. While 2003 seemed to have ended on a relatively positive note, parts of it would influence the outcomes of 2004 which I should have paid more attention to and have negatively impacted my life.  Certain decisions, I definitely regret in retrospect, especially returning to the US in what amounted to a hopeless cause. I will try to ignore anything US based since that aspect is less relevant to the topic at hand, which is my life in Japan for that period. Bear with me as I try to piece together the more memorable aspects (which may not necessarily be in chronological order)

The change in position from system administrator to Access Control was a steep downgrade in my capabilities as a tech worker. Most of it was more bureaucratic where I had to verify paper sign offs before performing some sort of entitlements gesture. The thing about working in a SEC/audited/SOX following company is that you need a strict paper trail for audits. Our tape backup library, for instance, was supposed to last for 12 years or so. Imagine the amount of waste just with all the physical paperwork. As a result, our team wasn’t popular but the split in duties was a necessity in this company.

Most of my time was spent trying to mentor a few people who had limited tech skills while I was trying to do development to continue pushing my skills. They (i.e. the powers that be) did not want me to do any coding as that was strictly meant for those authorized. That type of corporate mentality made me have a distinct disdain for large corporations because I’m a very hands on kind of guy. Nonetheless, our little group for a small period was reasonably tight and we’d go out to lunch frequently.

Also, when you work in a large corporation, you might encounter the notion of a cost center. Cost centers more or less are a way for finance groups to determine the budget by tracking ones hours. We had a system to input our hours for our administrators. This stuff was kinda public so you could see other group’s weekly hours and maybe even monthly hours. In a few cases, they looked padded and I believe it was done to try and gain headcount. And headcount is another major term used in large companies as it dictates how much control a cost center fiefdom would have.

Regardless, I was part of the administrative and financial side of the technology group, which in truth wasn’t bad because it was stable and less stressful than the more business oriented groups. Internally, there wasn’t too much friction between these smaller departments, although two of my coworkers were less than popular with a lot of people in the company. That isn’t to say that there wasn’t a lot of pressure because it could get horrible where the amount of competing requests on a given day became the primary pain point and there was frequent context switching where we would become the bottleneck. So this sets the stage for what the majority of my work life would be like in 2004.

With the girlfriend, the honeymoon phase lasted approximately three months I would say. One of the first cracks in the relationship occurred during the New Years sales at various department stores. A day or two after New Years, department stores open back up with massive sales. Part of the deal are fukubukuro or “lucky/fortune” bags. Of course, my ultra materialistic dim witted ex- decides that she needs to go shopping so we end up hitting 3-4 major shopping districts on the 2nd (I think). But it was worse than a stampede. Just tidal waves of women crowding every inch of a department store, clawing, scratching and going bonkers for everything. You could hardly breathe and my feet and legs ached the entire time. There’s an episode of Will & Grace where Grace takes her boyfriend Nathan to some sale at Barney’s in NY. Whatever bad experience Nathan had, I can assure you mine was a million times worse.

Being me though, I ended up purchasing her some pricey knee high black leather boots and gloves, which made her really happy. I probably shouldn’t have indulged her but I’m generally a very generous person and didn’t think of it nor the consequences. I mean, I was already more or less supporting us and buying dinner almost every night. I think her father was paying for her apartment in Chiba. But the whole situation really made me hate Japanese women for a while just because it showed me another low of humanity with the commercial brainwashing. I’ll admit that when I had an Amazon Prime account, I would occasionally purchase a thing or two but at least I could do that from the comfort of my sofa rather than being rundown by a fleet of senseless humanoids.

Also, sometime during the start of the New Year, my group would have a private group party. I hinted at an incident with Soy in my previous 2003 blog. Now, this situation may have occurred later because of how the situation would reference the movie Lost in Translation, which came out in Japan in April of 2004. Because the MD (managing director) had asked our main boss if he had seen it, I think that our group might’ve had this party later in the year. Nonetheless…

We were set to have this party somewhere in Aoyama. I can’t recall if we walked or took a taxi to get there. I think we probably took a taxi because we could expense it. The place was a fairly nice establishment, foreign I think, on the 2nd floor. I can’t recall anything about the food but the two memorable aspects were these really heavy, large seats that were throne-like and a massive fish tank that for whatever reason resided directly behind one of these seats. I can’t recall how it was positioned but I think it was on some folding table or platform, which would be a problem as you’ll soon see.

Of course, Soy, without really noticing the fish tank, took the seat right in front of it. We were all talking, drinking and having a relatively good time. At one point, Soy stands up abruptly and pushes his chair back too far with too much force. Our main boss/manager leaps up almost frozen in midair saying, “No wait! Stop!” with his hands stretched out as Soy becomes like a statue uncertain of what he had done. But I’m to his right and watching as the entire place halts like a snapshot from a photo except for the fish tank which tips over and crashes onto the ground. Water spills everywhere and numerous fish are squirming, flipping around.

Naturally, everyone is shocked. Soy is in complete disbelief. The owner scrambles and has almost no idea what to do. I think this is all surreal. Obviously, the owner couldn’t do much and tried to save as many of the fishes as possible while the staff help either brush up the glass or suck up the water, which has cascaded all around. The boss (Chris) tells us we’ll have to move outside for a while so that the owner can clean up and the owner blurts out that the fish tank cost about 500,000-en (or roughly $5k). So Soy is just demolished when he hears that.

We go outside and surprisingly decide to wait rather than being permanently banned from the restaurant. Soy is by himself smoking a cigarette and up the street comes the big boss, the good ‘ol MD/CIO himself, walking (I think he legitimately enjoyed the walk). He was supposed to accompany us earlier but got caught up in late running meeting. So he’s examining us and wonders out loud, “Did I arrive late?” for which Chris replies, “We broke a fish tank.”

I think some of us (Soy in particular) thought he would explode. But I’m guessing that the previous meeting and the sheer and utter ridiculousness of the situation blew his mind because he started laughing hard. I’m sure Soy believed he would be hung out to dry just because of how low on the totem pole he was. I guess Chris got the owner’s information and exchanged meishi as the company or someone would pay for the damages down the road (didn’t happen from what I learned). The owner cleans up and we’re invited back inside surprisingly while Soy sulks in the corner the rest of the night, sipping on a beer and being absolutely miserable.

The next day was a typical work day. I don’t think we stayed out that late but Soy wasn’t in by the time I got there. So we started to wonder, “Where’s Soy?” and thought he got fired. Eventually, he showed up from oversleeping (probably drank too much after the incident) and apologized to everyone profusely for his tardiness. The first email he sees in the morning came from Chris who wrote, “Good morning, slave.” Everyone started laughing while he realized how indebted he (half humorously) was to the company (cues Ted Dibiase’s “everyone has a price for the million dollar man!” tune from the WWF with “money, money, money, money!”) Also, he sent Reiko, who had quit by then, an email telling her that he broke a fish tank for which she only responded, “HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!” But he was legitimately depressed even though the rest of us were simultaneously sympathetic and amused. Probably my favorite story out there that is a nice humbler to tell Soy once in a while if he ever gets out of line.

Along the way, my adventures with the ex- continued. I got to hit up the only time I would ever attend Disney Sea over in Chiba. I think I took her for her birthday. Here, I have to admit I never really was a Disney fan. Yes, I’ve got an unhealthy obsession for The Black Hole, but that’s different from being a hardcore Disney fan. I’ve always thought of Disney as being exploitative and for marks who want to turn off their brain and enter into some childish semi-Christian/religiously friendly fantasy while being secretly manipulated into consumption. Disney Sea did not improve my impression one iota.

First, the rides all sucked. The lines were about the same length as one may expect at any Disney park. The place might’ve been worse but I think I had gone on a weekday and taken a day off to be with her. But I distinctly recall this one shitty ride that took forever to get on which was only 10 seconds in length of going up and down in some crappy mushroom thing. The longest ride by far was some Indiana Jones adventure thing, which topped off at 1 minute or so, despite waiting around in line for about an hour or whatever. In addition, the food there was god awful. I was hoping to get something familiar that I’d find from the states like their fudge, which is one of the few things that I can distinctly recall that is legitimately decent.

Worse of all, there were these young girls from around the country, who just love this stuff like some 5 year old dolt. It was beyond annoying to me. Now, I’m not a nice person and I’ll be the first person to tell you. But I remember seeing one person dressed in a manner that was, say, not fashionable compared to what you’d find in Ginza, etc. So I pointed at this person and commented, “Cho inaka!” (which is like that fuckin’ hick). My gf was embarrassed and said I shouldn’t say those things. I really didn’t give a shit. I was done with this type of place and couldn’t wait to go back home. We might’ve had an argument because I was tired or just upset and she wanted to go on everything while my legs were tired. So again more cracks.

Work would have more major shifts. One was that the MD/CIO would quit sometime in March. This was going to be devastating internally as there were a few people vying for that position, including the highly ambitious head of infrastructure. Everyone knew that if he got that position, unless you were Indian or one of his drinking buddies, you were out. He already had made major plays by politicking and getting rid of key positions in the tech team, replacing them with people he knew and pushing the others out. He got rid of any semblance of project management to remove his own accountability. So it wasn’t looking pretty.

Around that period, we also had to get training in sexual harassment. Now, this was highly amusing as the mandate came from the US HQ but the material prepared had been through some Japanese company, using their own actors to do the videos. All the gaijin laughed at the ridiculously dumb scenarios and bad acting in these videos, where they seemed more like a terribly produced J-drama rather than attempting to reinforce the importance of the idea of sexual harassment at the workplace.

But I have to give them a tiny bit of credit because they did show both genders being sexually harassed. The best part was demonstrating women in power where this older female was some manager who had a kohai and threatened his job “for not seeing her late in the evening.” This poor guy made this really awkward face that was more comedic to me. Later, I came to find out that all the Japanese employees had no idea how to react to these videos because it was completely foreign to them.

So what does this have to do with the CIO’s departure? Well, they had a large going away party for him at some bar/restaurant. Don’t remember where. But it was chaotic and involved lots of drinking. There was one guy who was part of the market data team. Very professional Japanese guy who’d come in with suit and tie daily. Always serious. At this party, he randomly wandered up to me and started babbling nonsense like, “You are access control.” And I’m like, “Yeah, and?” Then he would say things like, “You know Ando-san, he’s political.” And start laughing completely out of character. I kept thinking to myself, “Man, he’s drunk” while my coworkers told me, “Oh, you haven’t seen him drunk yet.” But the moral of this story is that you haven’t lived life until you’ve hung out with drunk Japanese coworkers in Japan.

Oh, and there’s the story I wanted to get to. At some point, I had dropped my keitai (mobile) somewhere in the bar/restaurant. I might’ve started to head towards the station when I realized that my mobile was missing. But the important thing was that my keys were attached via a strap. So I panicked. I went back, looked on the ground and everywhere. We might’ve even tried going to a separate spot. Some people continued to linger around the original bar and one person told me that Takano-san had it. Takano-san was an older woman who had a director or senior VP title and ran the operations tech side of things. She was notorious for exclusively having guys on her teams and many would stay late.

Anyway, I found her somewhere by the bar and asked about my phone/keys. She handed them back then suddenly embraced me and told me, “I saved your life.” I was like WTF is this? It was a really weird moment because I knew she had a bit to drink. Later on, I might’ve approached her to get into one of her groups because I wanted to still be a developer. She told me that I would need to do it after hours and not put it on record. It was around the time things were getting pretty bad and I was becoming desperate to get out of my role as a bureaucrat. Makes me wonder what those late hours would’ve entailed. Maybe I should’ve done the “side” work since my career hadn’t been all that great in all honesty. But yeah, I guess I kinda learned about the flip side of that video in a very ironic manner.

Just before the MD left though, they worked with the HR department to move the bulk of the tech group to Harumi Triton Towers. Harumi Triton Towers was one of the newer offices close to Tsukiji, Tokyo’s famous fish market. However, it was a pain in the ass to get to with only one major line running towards it (the newer Toei Oedo-sen) where you could take the Kachidoki station and walk for about 5-10 minutes. This would become a major pain in the rear for me because I had to transfer two times to get there from Ushida. I used some back route to go to Kita-senju station then changed to the Hibiya-sen (which was sometimes more horrible than the Chiyoda-sen because at least with the Chiyoda-sen, you could get a near empty train that started from Ayase station) and finally do one more exchange at Shin-Ochanomizu station to get onto the Toei Oedo-sen. In addition, I think I needed a different Pasmo for these various exchanges. Normally, if you had a route, you could optimize it a bit so that you’d pass through certain areas in town that were popular like an Ueno, Akihabara, Shibuya, etc. so that you effectively got a “free pass” paid by your company. My route was just crap as I had nowhere interesting to transfer to.

Nonetheless, no one was happy about moving homes from Akasaka to this new spot. We’d lose access to all the wonderful restaurants around Akasaka and Akasaka-Mitsuke along with the other neighborhoods. Some people would walk or take their bike to the office as they had special arrangements for being an ex-pat. This all was part of that terrible deal that the HR made when they rebranded the company. One of the senior VPs was friends with Scott Adams of Dilbert infamy and submitted the story. A day later a strip came out where the pointy haired boss tells the staff, “Today, we’re moving you to the bottom of the ocean.” One of the guys made a large print out and taped it to his old cubicle side and remarked, “I wonder what future generations will think of this.”

Not everyone had been moved though. Only select staff that were considered “essential” were allowed to stay in the Akasaka building. So this felt like one of those Japanese business culture things where they pushed you out into a spot that’d make you feel ashamed and quit to avoid dealing with firing you.

The only real benefit of moving out in this direction was that we were close to Tsukiji and occasionally grabbed lunch at a decent sushi spot. Food options were much more limited and less international. Outside, they had the bento cart vendors, which weren’t bad but notorious for having food that stayed out in the sun too long. I got food poisoning at least on two separate occasions, which made me more cautious. There was a small market downstairs but the bento wasn’t that good either.

Also, the building was huge. I think we were on the 34th floor, which after 9-11 is fucking scary especially because of all the jishin (earthquakes) Japan is known for. And yes, when an earthquake struck, you could definitely feel its impact. There were two buildings with a bridge infrastructure piece to prevent one from crashing into the other. That was part of the earthquake safety, which probably has better standards out there than in America. Also, being up that high meant you’d get a lot of static electricity. It was bad enough working in the DC at Akasaka on the 22nd floor but you’d still get the occasional spark especially during the windier parts of the year.

The absolute worst part though was the annual fire alarm test. I think Akasaka had one too but here, we were on the 34th floor and I knew I wasn’t going to walk down however many steps because of my general acrophobia. Fortunately, a few of us had planned a secret “ice cream” meeting where we went to the local AM/PM to grab some treats beforehand, using the elevator and waited in our assigned spots while the rest trickled down. Everyone who arrived were sweating, out of breath and telling us we cheated. None of us really cared and I’ve been of the mindset that if I had to work in a high rise ever again where I needed to walk down more than 4 flights of stairs, I’ll just jump and kill myself. Why bother? After seeing what happened to the World Trade Center towers, I know I wouldn’t survive for a few seconds if something like that happened. Not to mention The Towering Inferno was a childhood favorite movie of mine and it’s impossible to ignore poor Lisolette/Jennifer Jones’ character who plummeted to her death and impaled herself at some point in one of the most horribly unjustified deaths in the movie.

Regardless, my life started to normalize drastically during 2004. Despite all the various pressures from everywhere, things felt like a real, basic life, which wasn’t bad all things considered. Just go to work, come home, have dinner, watch TV or a movie, play games, go to sleep. That isn’t to say things weren’t easy though. For instance, the ex- had a snoring problem and I’m a light sleeper that can’t handle disruptive noises. I thought having someone else besides me would be to my benefit. Not when you deal with a snorer! And my apartment only had a single bathroom. Then when I wanted to play a game all night, she would complain. I still was the one buying dinner almost every night or we’d go to the local Jonathon’s, where she would accuse me of eating the same thing or going to the same spot. But it was a nice place and she wasn’t cooking (nor probably could).

What the real problem was that I didn’t realize how much of a negative effect she was having over me. My libido had shrunk, I was unmotivated and tired almost all the time. I had to deal with problems at work and at home. But I did stop going to the shady spots, which started to save me some money. Instead, as stress continued to build and my arm would swell up from high blood pressure, I went to the local gym. There is/was a Renaissance Gym around Kita-senju. So I signed up, paid about $200/month and spent most of the night there after work. I didn’t understand the split routine workout and did everything except legs (yes, I skipped them). But I was into heavy cardio on top of the usual walking around Tokyo. I don’t know if I was losing weight around this time because my eating habits continued to be god awful, but I do know I started gaining muscle again. Also, working out was my way of diminishing the blood pressure every night and I think I might’ve been going at least 3-4 times a week.

Beyond that, I managed to hit up a few concerts. Around that period, I was a huge MAX fan. At one point, I got it into my mind about falling in love with Reina, probably because of how I liked Namie Amuro a while back since she resembled a friend back in college. Then for quite a while, I became enamored with Reina to the point where I had worked on a few J-drama type of scripts. So I got to see them twice at some small venue with dinner, which was nice but didn’t get to meet them personally. Yeah Otaku…I did print out that massive script and tried sending it to her along with a CD that had the documents. But I doubt she could read it or make sense of any of it.

The other super rad concert I got to see was Iron Maiden at the Super Saitama Arena. I believe that happened in February according to one photo’s meta info. But what a concert. The opening acts were Sonata Arctica and Arch Enemy. I hadn’t heard of either groups before but they both blew me away. I became a fan of both and really love their music. Arch Enemy was particularly impressive because I saw this tiny figure on stage with a light voice when this person spoke normally into the mic. My friend Thierry, who bought the tickets, mentioned, “Hey, that’s a girl.” I was like WTF? No way! Sure enough, the person turned out to be none other than Angela Gossow, possibly the hardest rocking death metal vocalist, if not THE female death metal vocalist ever.

With Maiden, you have to know that they’re probably my favorite band of all time. I’ve been listening to them since 1988, can play a variety of their songs on guitar, have idolized Adrian Smith and Dave Murray as early inspirations for playing guitar and think they’re fine blokes all the same. Unfortunately, at this point, I had fallen off the metal bandwagon and didn’t keep up for a while especially after Bruce Dickenson’s departure. I did return when Dickenson and Smith returned with Brave New World but I knew nothing about Dance of Death, for which this tour was in support of. I think this may have been the first time I heard Wildest Dreams from them, which eventually motivated me into picking up the rest of the album on mp3. Concert was excellent, although at one point poor Bruce started limping because he did his famous leap and landed badly on his ankle. He said something like, “Old age, old age…” then talked about how the tour had its share of casualties with a few members getting their nicks in. I even managed to pick up a program, which I still have and I believe is valued at $100 or so on ebay. Wonder if I should sell mine as it’s from Japan and in very good condition still.

After the concert, I think I ended up over in Harajuku. It might’ve been late say around 9 or 10pm. But I ended up going to the Jonathon’s. I’m certain by this point I had moved out of Harajuku and probably went there because I had gotten off nearby. Regardless, I needed food and it was the usual rowdy late night teenage crowd with the interior stuffy with smoke. Next to me sat an elder lady who started talking to me. I have no idea why she chose me but we chatted for an hour or so. I think she was complaining about the noise from the kids. Eventually, she brings out an old newspaper clipping from the Asahi Shimbun. It must’ve been at least 20-30 years old or so where the coloring had faded/become yellow. The clipping talked about her shop, where she was a craftsman doing kimonos with a shop up the street. The woman was much younger in the clipping and I think she kept it as being the most significant thing to occur about her life. She talked about how her son had long ago moved out and I think she was a widow. But it was obvious she was lonely and maybe sought the Jonathon’s out as a way to remember her son. None of the kids there probably would want to do anything with a crazy old lady holding a newspaper and reminiscing about the past. Yet she chose me to speak with. And my Japanese was still awful but she didn’t mention it compared to so many others I’d encounter out there. Eventually, I had to depart because it was getting late and I needed to go to work but she clammed up, looked down and I could see that she probably knew she would be alone again. I felt really bad for her but knew that I was in this weird yet privileged situation where being 5th generation Japanese-American, being isolated in this massive city where 65 million people are imported on a daily basis, amongst these oblivious kids, that only I could experience this once in a life time beautiful moment in being able to give a lonely widow some company even for a short period.

Another memory is when I got to go to Shizuoka with my GF. Shizuoka was known for the hot springs so we traveled out one time to rent a hotel and spend time at one of these places. GF aside, the hotel was awesome. They had this crab dinner meal which was incredible. Sadly, I recall almost nothing about the hot springs itself but the idea is that if you do go to Japan, you definitely need to check out an onsen. I would go to others later on even a few parks. But this was a great experience alone.

One thing you might notice in these stories is that I don’t mention much about America. There’s a reason: I hadn’t come home the entire time out there. There simply wasn’t a reason and I had a life in Japan for that duration. However, I was concerned about my family because I would send money home and they would help handle managing the account to pay off my bills. I still had my student loans, credit cards and car lease. My parents might’ve taken over the car lease because I wasn’t driving and they were down to two cars. I can’t recall how my credit cards were managed but I was still running a big tab because I might’ve done at least once balance transfer and had no idea about interest rates and managing debt. The student loan wasn’t as bad in terms of the monthly, but it’s just another weight on your shoulders. In short, I still needed to keep in contact with my parents.

But that leads to the one thing I really didn’t want to discuss but is inevitable. It probably is the thing responsible for how I feel about the world, religion, corporations, politics, humanity, you name it. It’s my father’s stroke. He actually had a series of strokes that might’ve started in the summer of 2003. My mom sent me an email telling me that he had a heat stroke and found him lying on the ground unmoving. Because of her wording, I didn’t take it too seriously. Until I finally had the opportunity to call them directly. My father picked up the phone (and this was from the office since Skype calling wasn’t a thing yet) and he was barely legible. He spoke with a slur and I couldn’t understand what he was saying.

I might’ve waited to call back later because eventually my mom answered. Normally, my mom, at least as how I knew her while I grew up, was a very garrulous individual. She would be energetic and could hold a regular conversation. This person was a zombie. Hardly sad a word, just listened, I had no idea if I had the wrong number. But I learned my dad had health issues maybe even a stroke.

So I had to go back to see what was going on. Needless to say, I brought the GF with me, which probably was a huge mistake, would pay for everything again and figured on going on a vacation while I was out there. Well, it turned out he, indeed, had a stroke and was hobbling around with a slurred speech but still capable of talking somewhat normal. But he still had his bad habits of smoking and would even drive my car to his detriment. I eventually took him to the doctor to have him inspected and confirmed that he had a stroke. That broke him down and me as well because I had never seen him cry ever. The man I knew growing up seemed immortal despite all the bad habits. But I guess the stress of home life, not having a job, no insurance, bills and his various bad habits finally caught up. It wouldn’t be his last stroke either.

We ended up going to Vegas with a friend (the GF and I) and staying at the Venetian. She was clearly out of control though and kept bugging me to go shopping everywhere. Because of my father’s situation my heart and mind were elsewhere but I was getting really fed up with her because she didn’t care about my situation and treated my father’s situation nonchalantly. At one point, my friend had to leave so I would end up being the one driving back. Unfortunately, someone left my internal car light on which drained the battery. By this point, I was freaking out and pissed. I called AAA, where I had no membership, to jump start the battery but was probably more annoyed that I had to drive back.

The GF wanted to go to another outlet mall but that was it. I was done. She threw a tantrum because she’s was so goddamn selfish. As we drove home, I told her I was done with her. She even had the gall to tell me that my father didn’t look bad. Let me say this: this woman was far from a brain surgeon. Like some of those massive cockroaches you’d see in Tokyo had more smarts than her. But it was this insensitivity that made it clear we were done.

Once I got back, the pressure at work didn’t relinquish. I became more aware of my stress and maybe it was around that period I started to work out. Work was getting more bureaucratic too because every action required additional audit steps and we’d get reviewed for everything by another group of log reviewers. I think when I was going to hit up one of the MAX concerts, I was trying to print out something but failing for one reason or another. The GF had been slinking around my place but I yelled and effectively kicked her out. You’d hear about how people who broke up would go through these tremendous heartbreaks, some people even going as far as making hit singles. Not me. I was elated that leech was out.

Apparently, so were my coworkers. When I admitted that I officially had broken up with the GF, the group cheered for me. I think my problems must have been so bad with her that I wasn’t able to see them myself. I probably had been complaining even more than ever about taking her out or whatever issues we were having but never noticed the effect that it was having on me. Oddly, I wasn’t craving another relationship so quickly after that.

But I did go to Com Inn once again and guess who was there? Yup, the ex-. It was just one of those awkward moments where I had no desire to look at her or be around her. Yet I was listening the entire time. She started to brag about going to America, buying Chinese food (Panda) on her own, seeing Vegas, etc. Then it became absolutely clear what I was to her the entire time.

Strangely, there was another person I had met there once before a while back that returned. Let’s call her Crazy because that’s my official name for her. Very pretty woman who I really think had some major mental issues. I kinda liked her from before but there was something wrong with her that I could not describe. Anyway, as we were talking, the ex- comes around the corner and both women eyed each other. I’ve seen that look between two women before and internally I was smiling. I’ve only had that feeling/experience one other time in my life but I recognized it immediately.

As for that the ex-, I stopped contacting her entirely but she tried to get back to me. At least once, she sent me an email to try to help her with English. But I wasn’t generous anymore. If anything the email merely reinforced what I meant to her.

Regardless, my manager began bugging me about my future at the bank. I had been taken down several notches because of my family’s situation, which I learned how my dad had another severe stroke that left him at a nursing home for his remaining days. Because the nursing home was in Costa Mesa, it meant my mom would never visit him and probably wouldn’t on her own because she hated him and vice versa. Yet the ball somehow was tossed into my court and I had to figure out something. One of my coworkers, who was a selfish bitch if we are to be honest, did tell me that, “This is your life and you should worry about that.” But I was at the crossroads and effectively experiencing an early type of midlife crisis.

My situation started to feel like a few stories I read both as a child and as a college student. One was a childhood tale called Urashima Taro. It was about a young man who rescues a turtle which turns out to be a beautiful princess of an underwater sea kingdom. He’s taken to this kingdom to live amongst their people as a reward but grows homesick and worries for his family. He’s given a choice and decides to return home. In turn, the princess gives him a box and warns him never to open it and that he would never be able to return to this kingdom. When he goes back to the surface, he’s found that his village has changed and that his family and friends are all gone. He asks about himself in name whereupon the villagers respond that Taro had drowned at sea. Hopeless, Taro opens the box and he ages to his real age, becoming an old man and dies shortly thereafter.

The other story is from Natsume Soseki called Kokoro. My modern Japanese literature course at UCI had us read it. I might’ve gotten at most to the half way point but could not finish because it was too depressing. But I suppose one way to describe it is a Japanese person-like Death of a Salesman at least in emotion. Part of it is the modernization of Japan and how the narrator tries to escape his home, only to be sucked back because his father needs him with all his problems.

Both of these stories remind me of my life where I feel like I cannot escape my family and whatever curse they bear. But in the end, I decided to return to America. It wasn’t what I wanted but I thought I could help my folks out. I thought I would be able to get a job at some dot com and make millions and bail out my father. Boy, that life is reserved only for the super lucky, well connected and rich. If you’re poor, you get nothing.

Despite that, I still had some time to wind down. While at Harumi Triton Tower, I would frequently go down at hang out at the Starbucks. At this point, I finally started drinking coffee. Or at least a high calorie strawberry frapuccino and grabbing a cookie during my breaks. There were a few cute girls who worked there, including one who reminded me of the model Shiho. Shiho is one of the prettiest models in Japan and I had become, of course, infatuated with her when I saw one of her Nescafe commercials. So you can imagine this girl was quite cute.

However, there was another girl who worked there that I was talking to as well. We became friends and she was fun. I invited her to accompany me to America because she wanted to learn English. Man, what a sucker I am, huh? So I would pay and there was a spare room for her to stay in, which was my childhood room growing up. In my mind, I had these grandiose plans where I could solve everything. Nothing could’ve been further from the truth.

Because I was leaving Japan permanently (or at least for another whole year), the one person that was actually sad to see me go at that time was Keiko. I took her to a party and one of her friends told me that she was going to miss me. Goddamn it! Why didn’t she say anything to me way before all this shit started? I know writing all this in retrospect that I had totally fucked up. That one night in Shibuya was going to be THE NIGHT. And yes, I continued to keep in touch with her for a number of years, but leaving Japan would change things. If I hadn’t been so dense and brain dead, I probably would’ve had a family by now and maybe more stability in my life.

But you really can’t know these things as they’re happening. No one can truly predict the future for better or worse.

Leaving Japan was no easy task either. First, I had to deal with the payback for the apartments. Imagine seeing the ticket shock of how much I was supposed to owe the bank. Yup, the house always wins. I needed every cent so I signed some agreement that put the burden on them since I didn’t realize I would be coming back a little over a year later. Then I had to get rid of all the furniture I bought. That was harder because it cost getting rid of big items. Some people would come down to pick up a few things like my refrigerator or cabinet. But it hurt seeing the thousands of dollars I had poured into this new life just go down the drain.

Which reminds me of this Australian guy who was sitting next to me for a while. He was really smart about his life and had gotten a pre-furnished place, which I didn’t know about. He knew he would eventually return to Australia and decided to avoid buying anything permanent (except maybe a bike which was easy to get rid of). But he hinted at how much he was making as a contractor and it just showed me what a dunce I had been in selecting the type of life over there. When the big fat head of infrastructure decided to cut the Aussie guy’s contract, it wasn’t a big issue because he just had a single suit case he needed to pack. In my case, I had been accumulating stuff like my guitar and Lego. The guitar would stay and I’d given that to Soy but the Lego I needed because of my future plans (which are still in the future).

Fortunately, Soy knew someone that could help me get my stuff back to America. It was horribly stressful due to customs and all the other nonsense of moving things overseas. It would cost quite a bit but I’d use a slower carrier which brought down the cost. Nonetheless, I was sad because in all honesty I wasn’t ready to head back. I had managed to establish a little life in Tokyo and was mostly happy outside of the job and the ex-. But I had gotten rid of the ex- and the job was stabilizing to a degree.

With all the recent layoffs and the bad job market in the US as well as my own employment instability over the years, it makes me wonder how much better or worse my life would’ve been if I decided to stay. In truth, there was nothing I could do to help my family. My dad was pretty much a goner and wouldn’t live for many more years before the nursing home’s poor conditions caught up and he got pneumonia and would die from it. My mom was another ticking time bomb both physically and mentally. But my friend’s words about my life being my life was something I should’ve paid more attention to.

Seeing that a lot of people I had known out there eventually would leave, I’m sure that I would’ve made my way back to the states at some point. The 3-11 earthquake along with the horrible response to the Fukushima reactors would’ve probably been the tipping point. But it’s hard to say just because maybe my presence out there alone could’ve changed the narrative. I think having some patience would’ve eventually allowed me to pick up a new job. Soy would swap to another company and I’m sure I could’ve come along.

Maybe the biggest regret is not going after Keiko. I don’t know if she would’ve been the real solution to all my problems but I can’t help but think about that night in Shibuya. What if I wasn’t such a fucking coward and had been more open with her. It really tears me apart knowing that there was a small chance of having a somewhat stable life than what it would become over the next two decades.