Smiling today as the sun shines in Tokyo. As I ride the train, I am keenly aware of those things I find nostalgic and wonder if I were to live here again would I eventually find things annoying or maintain my sense of warm fuzzy.
Generational gaps are seen as older generations sit without electronics in their hands people watching or reading the adverts on the walls/ceilings of the train cars. The younger people are either sleeping – falling over or swaying to the movement of the train – or scrolling through their phones desperately trying to keep themselves distracted from possibly becoming bored or engaged in others around them.
I smile at the middle aged women, especially, who seem to feel it their right to quietly cut in line. No doubt this is something that would end up upsetting me as before, but now find simply funny by the passive aggressive cultural aspect of a societal norm.
Or the white masked people who are either sick, with allergies or simply OCD – something I can only laugh at because I both understand why they do it yet would never do so myself due to the ridiculousness of the concept itself.
It is a strange dystopic utopía or a utopian dystopia in some ways as I observe both as a stranger in a land that was never mine and as a returnee to a land that was home for so many years.
I look at it with a fresh eyes of a newbie and the rose-colored eyes of the old. Either way, it is refreshing from the oppressive aggression I normally feel and convinces me even more that w need to find a way out….
~T 😀
