You know how everyone sometimes has those moments where you hyperlink from one thought to another, and before long end up way out in left field, and you can barely even remember the original thought that got you there? Yeah, those moments can be fun, but they can also be dangerous.

The other day on the way to work, I had the ipod on shuffle and a Japanese pop song came up. I’m not really into Jpop, by the way. I just had these remixes of songs by Ayumi Hamasaki that I (ahem) acquired, and I liked some of them so I kept them around. This particular remix I didn’t recall ever hearing before, but I really liked it. When it finished I backed it up and listened again, then did it again, and again.

Listening to Japanese music got me to thinking about Japan, and the fact that I have a three day weekend coming up next week. (Our principal gave the whole school a random day off next Monday. No one is sure exactly why, but no one is arguing either.) That thought sent me to the last-minute deals sections of the Korean air website, scouting out fares to Tokyo.

I’ve been to Japan once before. In December, 2002 I took the ferry from Busan to Fukuoka, then traveled to Hiroshima, Osaka, and Kyoto by Shinkansen. I’ve never been to Tokyo however, and have never been to Japan in decent weather (and have also never been there when I wasn’t hammered, but that’s another story). The bad news is, even at a deep discount, Seoul to Tokyo is just a fucking expensive ticket. For just a little more money I could seriously go to Bangkok for the weekend. Hey, now, there’s a thought…

…Wait. Stop. Stop. Stop. So anyway, thinking about Japan got me to thinking about how I’d always hoped to spend more time in there before I go back to live in the States. One thing led to another, and by the evening, I was looking up information about applying for the JET program. (The program I’m in now is modeled, poorly, on the JET program.)

I learned JETS make more than the average teacher in Japan, and their housing is comparatively more subsidized. My salary would work out roughly the same, or a little less than what I earn now, but of course Japan is psychotically more expensive than Korea. Also, JET doesn’t give you a lot of choice about where they place you, or what kind of school you teach at. None of those things are deal-breakers, but it turns out you have to attend an interview in your home country. So I’d have to fly from Korea to the United States to interview for a job in Japan that there’s no guarantee I’d get anyway. Not gonna happen.

In the past day I’ve done more research, just to satisfy my curiosity, about possibly making the transition across that body of water with those rocks that some people seem to care a lot about. Sadly, the numbers just don’t add up. I guess what that really means is, the only way I could see living in Japan is if I were really committed to living in Japan, which clearly I’m not. In fact for me, like a lot of other people, living in Asia is the means to a different end, not the end itself. Maybe that’s the wrong way to go about it. It must be said though, that Korea makes it very easy to live in Korea without being committed to Korea. It might even be that Korea wants it that way.

The same thing happened when I went to Russia two years ago. I approached moving to Russia the way you might approach changing your hair color. In time I realized the other foreigners around me who were having successful lives either had a Russian background or they had studied Russian in college. Maybe they had some special fascination with Russian history and culture, or maybe they were neo-bolshevists (I seriously knew someone like that). The point is, they had a reason to be there, and I didn’t. I only went because I wanted to leave Korea, and that’s where I got a job. I thought I could live a detached life in Moscow the way I had in Seoul. It was a disaster. By the way, I think that speaks well of Moscow. Moscow, for all the difficulties I had there, was more real. Life should be like that. It’s entirely possible to live in Korea without really living in Korea. The more I think about it, it just feels wrong. Any teacher, business person, or other ex-pat who makes an effort to integrate theirselves into Korean life, and who gains acceptance into Korean society, totally has my respect. By the way, I should also say that, I also don’t regret going to Moscow. It was an important turning point in my life, and finally, I did make some important relationships there that are still with me to this day (Hi Masha!)

But there I go again. See how easy it is to get off on a tangent? I was talking about Japan. The Japan idea is not totally dead, but I’d say it’s in its last throes, like the Iraqi insurgency. I very much doubt I will actually move to Japan. In the end, what I really need to do is accept the fact that I will most likely live in Korea for at least two more years before I can move back home. I’m just getting that familiar itch again. Eventually it’ll pass.

But I am still thinking about going to Japan next weekend. Thinking that is.

Here’s a video clip of Ayumi Hamasaki performing “A song for XX,” the song that started this whole thought process. This is the original version, not the remix I really liked. I couldn’t find a source to link to for that.

Labels: japan, jpop, life in Korea, Video