The returnee's experience
Rummaging the reasons to stay, the reasons to leave would be the wrong approach. Motives prior to the decision matter less than the decision to leave, the implementation of the decision and the emotional consequences after being back there. I had a too short one hour conversation with D. in France with whom it transpired I share similar experience in terms of stay duration in Japan, generation and professional history. D. lived here for 20 years, then went back. I consciously refrain here to write "went back home", because "home" is a notion I am lost with. D. right away sees his coming back as a positive experience, while longing for a few practical as well as fleeting things from Japan. I just wrote a few keywords from his conversation, hoping to have the opportunity to further the discussion at a later time. Of the clear motives to go back is a feeling toward the coming loss of elder family members, and the self-questioning lace with projecting remorse of being far away when one's parents pass away.
D., who is fluent in Japanese and was attracted to Japan for cultural reasons, cites a growing feeling while being there of intellectual regression, Japan being a king of Dysneyland the size of a country, or at least the size of it's urban extension. D. repeatedly used in succession of things are "petit, petit" here, from the perspective of feeling oneself as being a "citoyen du monde", a citizen of the world. He mentioned how tough it was to reconnect with the debating, clash of opinions about anything under the sunlight that is definitely foreign here in Japan.He left before the Internet wave, before that ease of remote access to the realities of other places, instantly, as distilled by the media. Walking the streets of Tokyo with earplugged geared to a slice of France Culture on podcast is a quantum leap in expanding the distance between the intellectual mind and space. I have read nothing about the subject of the psychological consequences for expats to have instant access to this new streams of outwardness and the mental jumps back and forth they allow. How podcast from one's country of origin allows for creative a soothing, comforting virtual world to compensate for one's physical and cultural daily environment. D. is longing for a few things about that Japan like the "practicality of things", also referred to by J. in the UK, but we did not ponder on that issue this time. (to be continued ...).
D., who is fluent in Japanese and was attracted to Japan for cultural reasons, cites a growing feeling while being there of intellectual regression, Japan being a king of Dysneyland the size of a country, or at least the size of it's urban extension. D. repeatedly used in succession of things are "petit, petit" here, from the perspective of feeling oneself as being a "citoyen du monde", a citizen of the world. He mentioned how tough it was to reconnect with the debating, clash of opinions about anything under the sunlight that is definitely foreign here in Japan.He left before the Internet wave, before that ease of remote access to the realities of other places, instantly, as distilled by the media. Walking the streets of Tokyo with earplugged geared to a slice of France Culture on podcast is a quantum leap in expanding the distance between the intellectual mind and space. I have read nothing about the subject of the psychological consequences for expats to have instant access to this new streams of outwardness and the mental jumps back and forth they allow. How podcast from one's country of origin allows for creative a soothing, comforting virtual world to compensate for one's physical and cultural daily environment. D. is longing for a few things about that Japan like the "practicality of things", also referred to by J. in the UK, but we did not ponder on that issue this time. (to be continued ...).
posted by Lionel Dersot at
5/09/2006 06:38:00 AM
