DO NOT CROSS

Do you ever have a moment when you think about that kinda bratty kid you used to babysit, calculate how old they’d be now, and then just think “aww, I hope that lil’ stink’s doing okay in college.”

Or like when you accidently hit “shuffle” (coz who shuffles on purpose?) and it’s the track you used to cry to on your Sony Walkman headphones at 13, and you laugh a little coz, like, it’s not even a properly sad song… but you vividly remember thinking it was?

That’s how I think of my younger self on that first trip to Japan.

I was 20, but being in an unfamiliar country takes 10 years off your mentality. You feel like a deranged, caffeinated 4th Grader with permanent bed-head. Add a language barrier, and you’re a piteously helpless toddler.

I wasn’t a teenager anymore, but my insecurities were still raw and close; things like body issues, social anxiety, perfectionism, and not being a teenager anymore. I’ve always been a people-pleaser. And the internet had assured me that the Japanese people would be impossible to please.

You will never understand them, stupid American baby. You. Are annoying.

– The Internet

On top of that, I was the first one in my family to fly over an ocean and I’d promised them I could do it, and I’d be okay, and I had a whole plan. I told my friends I’d been learning Japanese and I had a good grasp on the culture. I told myself I was over all those issues and had plenty of confidence now.

All I really had was a crap-ton to prove.

I feel someone following me from the crosswalk on my way back to Hostel S.

It’s the middle of the day and I was recently greeted by a host of elementary school boys in the traditional manor of their kind: set phrases from an English primer, shouted wildly from a block away, while clambering on top of each other to be the most enthusiastic waver.

“Hello! How are you! Hello, where from? What is your name! I am fine! Hello! I’m fine, thank you, and you? Where from?!”

I’m feeling pretty good about myself.

That’s probably why, when I turn around to let the stalker know I’d seen him, and the 20-something boy smiles and introduces himself, I keep walking but let him walk with me. The other reason for that would be crippling politeness; a soon-to-be common theme for stories on this blog.

It’s hard to talk to Ichiin — my Japanese is so broken, and his is curiously worse. In retrospect, I believe he was Chinese. I can’t figure out how to politely tell him I need to complete my journey alone so he won’t see my hostel. He doesn’t really take a hint. In the end I give up. Hey, there are 50 people staying at this hostel, he doesn’t know where I’m staying exactly.

I finally lose him and go alone into Hostel S’ reception/kitchen/hangout hybrid area.

And there he is. My very first irrational nomad-crush.

I met him yesterday; he’s staying at Hostel S while visiting from Ishinomaki and wants to study sumi-e (ink painting) in Tokyo. I don’t know anything about that and he didn’t know anything about anime, except for Prince of Tennis, and you can only imagine my excitement of finally having a robust vocabulary at my disposal. The smoothest conversation I’ve had in Japan so far is about Seigaku’s first match against Hyotei, and Atobe’s level-up technique to tiebreak Tezuka’s first match since the pilot.

I’m not sure this is a good move, I don’t know, I’ve never flirted before. Ever. My Japanese is especially rushed and jittery when I’m talking to Tatsuya from Ishinomaki. I went my whole high-school life never even looking at a guy, and then it turned out, I’d never met an Asian guy, and now I find every single dude my age in Japan attractive. It’s a lot. And at this point in my life, I hadn’t even discovered Kpop, yeesh.

I sit down anyway, casually pulling out my language books to look studious and adorable.

He strikes up a conversation, and asks if he can try writing my name in Japanese. My name in Japanese is ケイティ(keiti), but I know he’s referring to the practice of assigning kanji to each syllable based on reading, as you would write Japanese name, creating a lovely compound of meanings.

It’s a pretty good move.

Before this trip, I had decided to start going by Kate instead of Katy. My siblings often call me that as a nickname, but moreover, I had decided this trip was the beginning of my being taken seriously as an adult. An adult who wears giant pink hairbows. And I guess “Kate” is somehow more grown-up than “Katy” — I don’t know, not sure what 20-year-old me was going for there, I sure hope that little stink’s doing okay.

This is is me being myself. I’m cute but confident, smart but zany — I came to Japan by myself, so I wear what I want, and I don’t care what people think.

Oh lands, I have so much to prove.

Tatsuya chooses kanji based on the sounds of Kate in Japanese (keito). He writes 蛍都 on a little embellished card and explains the meaning.

Firefly City. Such a good move.

I’ve always lived by “fake it ’til you make it” — what else do you do? You don’t know what you’re doing until you do, so dress for the job you hope to get and pretend you’re a Diamond of the First Water.

But the problem with trying to grow up too fast is that you haven’t actually learned or lived much yet. You latch onto fragile distinctions and identities you can’t maintain; you contort yourself to suit the expectations you favor most — your parents’, or friends’, or boy/girlfriend’s, or your own.

That identity gets you beaten to a pulp so fast, and you only start to heal when you realize that there is no true confidence to be found in yourself, because you are, in fact, irrevocably and comprehensively screwed up.

Then, when you realize that you are comprehensively and irrevocably loved, your identity becomes about the one who loves you like that. It doesn’t matter what others think of you, nor what you think of yourself. It matters that He died to rescue you. Humility is where real confidence kicks in.

I knew that. But I wasn’t living like that on my first trip to Japan.

Tokyo was my first boyfriend.

I’m so excited to be doing this, amazed that I’m brave and autonomous and grown-up enough to finally be in the country I fell for 4 years ago. I’m ready to give Tokyo whatever version of me it seems to want; to be effusively polite and to smile sweetly, as hard as I can, so it won’t guess how terrified I am that it won’t like what it sees.

I’m mortified to come down the stairs the next night and see Ichiin sitting in my hostel common room. He’s sitting at a table, talking with Tatsuya.

What kind of whacked J-drama hijinks is this.

I had promised Neechan over our daily emails that if The Stalker showed up again, I was gonna properly tell him where to get off. So I walk up to the table with storms in my eyes. My giant pink hairbow is just screaming “personal boundaries” right now.

The three of us make broken small talk and I realize just how incoherent Ichiin is when he’s talking alongside a native Japanese speaker. I feel somehow responsible for the social awkwardness of my stalker, so when Tatsuya politely excuses himself, I wave him off encouragingly, and then sit at the table beside Ichiin.

I’ve got a whole speech ready to go. I’ve looked up “inappropriate”, “privacy”, “uncomfortable”, and the grammar structure for “please don’t come to my hostel anymore.”

I’m not sure why I thought Ichiin will know these words in Japanese if I didn’t. And I’ve already forgotten the one for “uncomfortable”.

It doesn’t end up mattering, because halfway through my stumbling speech, he grabs my leg, grips my far shoulder, and pulls himself in to kiss me.

Slight blur here — sort of gray and grainy between my memory of being in the chair to being out of it.

Adrenaline makes my voice high, like I’ve been sucking on a party balloon. The pitch finally makes the dispassionate Hostel S staff look up, but they don’t say anything, and Tatsuya doesn’t come running back in to punch Ichiin in the face, so I guess I’m not in a J-Drama after all.

I tell him “dame” (don’t) and “iya da” (I don’t like it) while I back away. It’s kid-speak, but he seems to track. He’s grinning, but glancing at the staff in case they decide to speak up. No, me first. And I’m so done with polite right now.

“Sayonara.”

This is the first and last time I ever say this word. Contrary to pop-cultural belief, it’s not used commonly in Japanese conversation, since it holds a specific connotation:

“Goodbye forever.”

I run upstairs and cry in the shower. I hide in my curtained bunk bed and feel my confidence fall apart and embarrassment take over — plus guilt, since obviously, I let the stalker stalk me in the first place — all while I try to convince myself I’ll laugh about it later.

I pour out the day’s events in my Neechan-email. Let the record show that Neechan got dragged along on my first trip to Japan in all of the emotional support ways and none of the getting-to-actually-enjoy-Japanese-views-and-snacks ways. I love her more than air.

I don’t see Ichiin again. Or Tatsuya, that I can recall. I do laugh about it later in life. Though I haven’t let another boy within kissing-range or context since, so… make of that what you will. 笑 (<– Japanese for “lol”)

I’m glad Rita and Sandra told me how to get to Yoyogi Park, coz it has trees, and I need to feel okay again.

I’ve had a lot of fun in Tokyo.

I’ve taken photos everything from shrines to 7/11 milk-tea, treasured every insignificant interaction, and celebrated the reality of manga stores and hyaku-en shops like I’m filling out a baby-book.

I really like it, but maybe the internet is right; I don’t know if it likes me back. Everywhere I go, I’m in the way. Tokyo is busy and important. Tokyo is a so grown up, and I still can’t believe that I got asked to prom by a senior. Tokyo is pretty tired of having so many foreigners underfoot.

It’s hard when you realize that you’re not your first boyfriend’s first girlfriend. But I’ve now taken this analogy too far, so I take a photo of my umbrella under a tree in Yoyogi Park as proof that I was here, and then go back to Asakusa to pack. I’m on a southbound bullet-train tomorrow and feeling decidedly meh about it.

There’s this ojisan at the Belgian Waffle stand down the second-to-last alley before Hostel S and he’s been trying to get me to stop for a waffle every day since I got here.

I don’t talk to people anymore, especially male people, and I’m feeling pretty glum about spending another 3 weeks in Japan since I apparently suck at it. Yes, a waffle sounds nice. You seem nice. Whatever. I’m so emo.

I try to pay and ojisan waves dismissively over his waffle iron. “No, no, free, free. Beautiful!”

I laugh. It feels nice and the waffle he’s handed me has chocolate on it. Maybe a handy thing about missing a bad vibes on someone the first time is that you’re better at catching good vibes from others after that. I thank him and he asks me where I’m from.

“Oh, American girl! I love America! First time stay Tokyo?”

“Hai,” I tell him, then add with a little relief, “It’s my last day. Next, I’m going to Osaka.”

“Osaka!” He cries happily. “I’m from Osaka! Best city. People, very loud, very strange, strange. Osaka, Tokyo — very different. Osaka people weird.”

I’m laughing, telling him I’m looking forward to it. I find a spot to sit and eat me my waffle and realize that statement is now somewhat true.

I walk to Hostel S, circling a deserted Sensoji one last time to see it glitter in the dark from the 1-hour-old rain that won’t evaporate in this tropical June humidity.

I’m excited to go to a new city. I’m not looking for anything serious this time. I just want be myself and see if it works — if could maybe still feel at home with the people I fell in love with from a distance.

Osaka. Has a nice ring to it. Even though I literally chose it because one of the teams from Prince of Tennis was from there, and they were really funny in the show, so I thought, “Hey, maybe Osaka people are weird.”

Anyway, I just hope we can be friends.

Sayonara, Tokyo. It’s not you, it’s me.