Getting Centered.

By Henry Aberle ‘16, J. F. Oberlin University (2016-2018)

The first time I come to Tokyo I am 19 years old and really scared. It’s about 4:30pm when I arrive at Narita Airport. I’m probably a really ugly, jet-lagged combination of excited and nervous as I make my way up to immigration, but before I know it I’m sitting on the Narita express with an unwieldy suitcase by my side. About an hour later picture me in the middle of Tokyo station along with the other thousands of people rushing by. Still a nervous wreck, I remember looking for the train and accidentally entering and exiting the toll booth before realizing where I needed to go. Up a flight of stairs and I throw myself and my luggage onto the always crowded Chuo line headed towards my hostel in Asakusa-bashi (one stop over from the famed electric town of Akihabara) in raggedy Taito-ku. That night I treat myself to fancy instant noodles from the convenience store and go to bed in awe of this city.   

Fast forward three years, three months and two weeks (I counted) to present me sitting in my bed at 4:27pm writing this blog post from quaint Tadao 4-chome, Machida. My honeymoon with Tokyo is long gone, probably from around the time I started my job in September. Like any relationship I’ve experienced through movies, the first emotional down from the highs of partying and traveling is difficult. Living where I do now, an hour and a half away from the city where your curfew is dictated by a last train felt like the end of the world. Add on the fact that I was a nervous wreck trying for some reason to figure my job out alone and you get me in October of last year contemplating walking away from an amazing opportunity in a city that still felt like a fantasy only a few months prior.

When February came around this year I made sure to take a break from life in Japan. I went to Australia for the first time and then spent the month of March state side. Neither of these counties are in Asia, but for my first vacation it was just the right amount of space I needed to reconsider what this experience means to me. Most people straight out of college move to New York or San Francisco and hope for the best, but as a Shansi Fellow I’m given experiences that are very unique. Being in Australia helped me remember the literal and figurative distance I had gone, seeing new places on the other side of the world. Going back to America helped satisfy the part of me that was stressed over graduate school and family—visiting Oberlin to see friends and receive counseling from teachers, New York and California for family.

Now back in Tokyo, I have a different outlook on a lot of things. The exorbitant free time I thought I had feels less so, now that I am better at managing my time. Seeing a physical therapist has made me more conscious of my physical well-being. A TV drama I watched has given me the positive reinforcement I needed to get out there and see new things and eat out without feeling self-conscious or worrying about money all the time. And lastly, new opportunities are always on the horizon, as is evident by the fact that I’m now volunteering at an NGO in Tokyo that I knew of from my time at Oberlin. 

I think that every Shansi fellow is someone who is driven. We push ourselves to be better than we were yesterday, to categorize each period of our lives in the hope that down the road we look back and say with confidence that there was never a moment wasted. Coping with “wasted time” has been my greatest struggle for the past six months. This weekend for example, my Saturday consisted of 3 hours of commuting round trip from the city, 4 hours of Karuta practice with Waseda University Karuta Club, and 4 hours celebrating the club’s 34 new members afterwards. It was a full day. Today on the other hand, I woke up at 10am and seven hours later I still have not left my home. To me today was a failure of a day, but if every day is a battle and the fellowship is the war, well, you can’t win them all.

Tokyo is a fast city, but Tadao 4-chome is a very slow town. With time, trials, and errors I think I’ve come upon a rhythm that works for me. Learning to live in both worlds hasn’t been easy, but somehow I think I’ve found my way to the middle.

My friend Shannon admiring her mitarashi dango @Plum Blossom Festival and Market, Kitano Tengu Shrine, Kyoto 2/24/17​

Shannon and I laughing away at a Denny’s about to devour a parfait. Ikebukuro, Tokyo 4/1/17

A view from the tower @Chōkoku no Mori (Hakone Open Air [Sculpture] Museum) in Hakone, 4/20/17

“Beat the seniors”: On the last day of Waseda Karuta Club’s spring retreat, each graduating senior has to walk through a field of shredded newspaper while being beaten with pillows. They then give a short speech about their time in the club and then must walk back while being beaten a second time. It in part represents the younger members’ desire for the older members to stay.

Iwai, Chiba, 2/18/17

Me and my friend Ryotaro in Melbourne, Australia. Ryotaro had just finished his one year work-study and showed me around the city.