Hello World

Welcome to the latest incarnation of a blogging project that began nearly ten years ago , at the dawn of Internet 1.0, with the monthly Postcards from Hokkaido and which continued some years later with Tokyo Kills Me. At the time, I wanted these blogs to be a way to stay in touch with friends and family while I spent my oat years perambulating around the globe, choosing from a beggar's banquet a place to settle down and call "home."

A lot has changed, of course, in those ten years. Most important for my overseas adventure, my status in Japan has changed from that of long-term traveler - I arrived with a three-year departure date firmly in mind - to... what? resident alien? I like the sound of that... immigrant? ... no, nothing that permanent... expat? that's getting close, though the term makes me think of gin-soaked nabobs ... native?... of course not, but part way in that direction. So, how about "half-gone native?" in any case, that will be, I suspect, the subject for a later post...

For now, I'll describe my current situation in anthropological terms, as a participant observer. On a day to day basis, I share in the miseries and the rewards of big city life with the other workers living in Tokyo. At the same time, I barely speak the language and I work in a Canadian school. What's more, and this is key, I still have not reconciled myself to the idea of settling permamently in Japan. In other words, the adventure continues. It's just that it's entered a more introspective phase lately, and so this blog may turn out to be more introspective as well, now that the shock of the new has worn off. This blog will be a journal of that adventure as it enters this late, self-conscious stage of development.