I am a one-man Lewis and Clark. It does not matter that hundreds of men — explorers, prospectors, cartographers, guidebook authors, and students on holiday — have covered this same land before me with both concrete and rubber; I feel as though I am the first to walk the avenues of Queensland’s fair capitol. It’s a strange place to have chosen as a frontier (albeit a semester-long one), but one that certainly leaves much to be charted and accounted for.

It’s not an easy thing to be alone, truly alone, and I sincerely doubt that the majority of my countrymen have dared to learn this lesson. And why should they? Happiness is indeed best when shared, and those with the privilege of others to share with seem hardly likely to go about giving it up. However, it takes a certain type of person to wander the path alone, for however briefly. Not only must you be comfortable with the entirety of yourself, as only you can know, but you must also be happy with that same “you” otherwise you will never reach the end intact. And even if you have these, they are no guarantee. It will be difficult in either case, but the reward for taking on solitude is great: a much stronger, wiser, wholer you.

My adjustment to life in Australia has been slow and at times painful. I have wrestled with the transition and a drastically different way of life that I simultaneously yearn for and detest. I entered the country from a life in Tokyo of pure independence and much satisfaction into the structure of university life - both a blessing for its opportunities and safety net, but a curse for its demands and nature. Sure I could go to class every day and eat every meal at the dining hall and meet college buddies at the Regatta every weekend and do just fine, but that was never what I really wanted. Instead I am spending my idle hours walking near-deserted streetscapes in search of culture, experience, something new and enlightening for me to take away from this riverside city. It has been trying and slower than both average and expected, but I am coming around at long last, finally able to be alone.

Of course there are other circumstances at play. In my solitude I am subconsciously asking myself the age old existential question, “what does it mean to live?” Yet I am not just pondering the dilemma in passing, I am deeply invested in the answer as I never have been before. Once the formalities and comforts of my previous life have fallen away, I am left wondering which of them are meaningful to me. Perhaps this feeling of uneasiness has been brought upon by my seniority, the mere proximity I have to making my life in the world alone. Looking back, I have no memories of a time when I was not under the wing of one educational institution or another, so it could be that I have less of an identity independent of academia. Or perhaps I have just grown tired of expending energy on the meaningless or the monotonous. I cannot yet say which is closer to the truth.

It’s not the solidarity of my life here that bothers me. I’m the only one in an empty cinema theatre listening to the same eight French covers on replay monopolise the complex’s airwaves. Like clockwork the film begins on time, even though it’s for an audience of one. It’s not so bad; there is some beauty in a whole world played out for my eyes alone. It’s almost more real when it’s just me. But it is a steep and at times unwanted task I have put upon myself to start at square one once again, with nothing to help me make my way. It is up to me and only me, for better or worse. Surprisingly, this fact is not oppressive in the least. In fact, it’s liberating. It has given me permission to make the decisions others cannot make, and to find my way home without a map, or indeed whether to stop here to make my own home on this foreign soil or to keep heading west in pursuit of something greater.

Perhaps the only way for a place to feel like a true frontier, vulnerable to the twenty-first century manifest destiny is to look at the landscape alone. The pioneers made their cities with their hands, while I am afforded the same freedom by my imagination (and a fairly comprehensive public transit system), but we will both have to deal with the same problems. No, I don’t mean rattlesnake bites and uncles dying of beriberi, but instead how incredibly complex of a feeling it is to have the world at your fingertips, a vast land of opportunity at your disposal, but one without your wife and children, one where you must give up all of your friends and family, and everything you have ever known. The question really is: will I find something in this new land that was worth leaving behind?

I know there are four, technically five film periods since the medium’s inception, but to me there will always be three main thrusts of the industry:

1) Back when no one knew what they were doing (i.e., silent films and early stabs at auteurism up until about 1934)

2) Boring bits that established film as legitimate (i.e., the golden era of Hollywood and all the existential art new waves)

3) The mucking about with old bits trying to make new bits (i.e., postmodern horror films, pastiche galore, and the industry from 1970 to as it is today)

This last category is the most important to me, simply because it’s the environ in which I am trying to make my living. There’s a lot going on in this period that doesn’t quite know what to do with itself, and I’m trying to figure out not just where I fit in, but also where the industry as a whole is going. There have been numerous criticisms with the way films are being handled now, and indeed with the type of films that are being made. On the one hand, the rise of the boutique production and the inundation of the independent film has completely changed the way we make and think of movies. The blockbuster is still alive and well, and many of the fresh eyes in the whole system are shaking their fists and claiming it’s all recycled and trite and not close to what we want. Films like Garden State, Juno and Brick are supposed to be telling of our time, yet are constantly in flux as our generation repeatedly regales and then rejects them. Their merit has not yet reached a consensus.

In this world of turmoil then it is perhaps not unlikely that there has been a resurgence of the exploitation flick and a surfacing of the “Cult Classic,” a term generally used as an epithet for “this film sucked when it was made, but because we’ve even heard of it, now it’s cool.” This may sound like the bitter and jaded response of a film student lectured about the evils of Quentin Tarantino one too many times, and in some respects it is. But unlike most such characters, I don’t abhor the drive-in double feature about werewolves, and I certainly don’t despise Tarantino. I think the B movie is entirely misunderstood.

The year is 1974. You take a hammy, over the top, low-brow movie with gaudy ______ (fill in the blank with any of the following: sexuality, nudity, violence, cursing, blood and gore, fetishism, stereotypes, and the list goes on), slap a cheesy title on it and you throw it in theatres. Maybe it’ll make some money, maybe it won’t, but the most you could ever hope for is a niche audience, a bit of box office recognition, and a crossover director. That was then.

This is now. Kids still know all the dialogue to Monty Python’s The Holy Grail by heart, vintage and previously-unheard of sci-fi posters are selling like hot cakes, and you do your grocery shopping on Sunday night because on Saturday the parking lot is blocked of by a queue of cross-dressig nerds waiting in line for the monthly midnight screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show at the cinemaplex next to the supermarket. What happened?

I believe the modern-day phenomenon of embracing the exploitation flick as it was never accepted before is not a random coincidence. Neither is the seemingly puzzling pattern of Hollywood blockbuster smashes that hit close to the home of cult themes everywhere: vampires one year, zombies the next. The industry has been taken by a stream of horror films - first with aliens and then with samurai and now with superheroes. And by industry I should say industries, because even in Eastern markets such as Hong Kong films are experiencing an increased popularity in wuxai-style martial arts films and the obscure brand of humour offered only by Stephen Chow. Pirates vs. ninjas doesn’t even touch the tip of the iceberg. So what is it? What combination of factors has led society to find obscure pop culture references cool rather than corny?

We’ll begin with the economic ones, because I wholeheartedly believe that the economic shifts of the industry from the 1970s to today have a lot more to do with the whole shebang than the culture does. In 1972 the only commercially available format for viewing movies was, well, television (Betamax and VHS weren’t introduced until 1975 and 1976 respectively, laserdisc not until 1978). To give you a sense of setting, Star Wars Episode IV didn’t come out until five years later in 1977, and countertop microwave ovens had only been available for the last five since 1967. Movies were consumed more or less singularly in theatres, thus a film’s box office success was vital to its distribution. In 1972 the media did not overhype box office sales as much as they do today, certainly, but unlike today, theatres were not 24-screen monstrosities and art house cinemas were few and far between. If a film did well in larger cities, it was then pushed to smaller cities. Essentially, teenagers in the midwest depended on senior citizens in Los Angeles and middle-aged moms in New York for variety in their hometown theatres. This is a very different landscape from moviegoing today.

I could talk for days on end about the difference in audience habits over a thirty year span, but that’s not what clinches it for fans of exploitation films. Today, consumers of movies get their fix not from television, and not from the theatres, but from DVD sales. Theatre box office sales are only a slice of the pie, a the majority of film profit overall actually comes directly from DVD sales (and VHS back in the day, and perhaps BlueRay tomorrow) over any other means, including digital download. We’ve moved from the big screen, to the small screen, and now to the laptop screen. The point is, in 1972 the industry could only sustain a small niche market for so long before it was just hemorrhaging money. Enter the low-budget B film. Cheap, easy, and consumable by those with disposable income, namely the ’70s youth. Why did exploitation films survive in the first? Because 1972 was rife with angsty nerds (isn’t every era?) supporting the horror and sci-fi genres, and the African American population that supported Blacksploitation films hardly classify as small potatoes. However, unlike the cinema landscape in 1972, today’s market is nothing but niche. Current audience viewing habits allow for DVD sales to easily double what the film brought in when it premiered, and the advent of a computer on every desktop and internet access at everyone’s fingertips transformed a world of hard-to-find side projects into a realm of nearly mainstream success. Even as late as 1980 if you wanted to find a film like Tampopo or Akira you had to look hard, usually in seedy video shops or college yard sales. Now over 70 different sellers on amazon marketplace offer up these historical gems.

The result? Up go the DVD sales. For starters, the average individual who is likely to own a DVD or two is just as likely to own a modest collection of a dozen or so discs as he or she is to own a collection that ranges in the hundreds. DVDs are cheaper to make and coming out faster, and in multiple editions under the guise of “Extended” or “Director’s Cut” to give re-releases and edge in the market. Moreover, the proliferation of DVDs and popularisation of google (and indeed online authorities on subjects such as films) makes movies that were previously unheard of discoverable, and films that were previously unmarketable in the ’70s and ’80s suddenly marketable. Profit exists now where it did not thirty years ago. Take for example the Grindhouse debacle. If exploitation films had a posterboy, it would be Quentin Tarantino. He just loves them: cheesy horror where cars/plants/anything eat small suburban towns, vampire flicks, low-brow heists, slashers, thrashers, splatter movies and anything that will make you want to vomit in your hand, triad kung fu films, stereotypical westerns, crazy rock-operas, Japanese-derived graphic novels, he loves them all and for this he has earned himself a fanatical following and a name synonymous with graphic violence. So when Tarantino and film buddy Robert Rodriquez decided to actually recreate one of those 1973 horror double-features, you’d think all this niche audience would convene. Grindhouse flopped so terribly in America it was separated into single features abroad in hopes of garnering more fiscal success elsewhere. This is an important finding to note: the exploitation and cult classic film is just as unpopular in the mainstream today as it ever was. Was it a vanity production? Certainly not. Both of Grindhouse’s features — Planet Terror and Deathproof — were successful in their own way. They attained cult status without having to wait for a quarter century to pass to do it. The important difference between a film like The Cars that Ate Paris and the Grindhouse films is that Grindhouse will be seen via DVD and download more than The Cars that Ate Paris or Invasion of the Body Snatchers ever were because the audience still exists, just not in the theatres.

And more of these movies keep getting made. Admittedly some of the success can be attributed to those like Tarantino and Rodriguez and Michel Gondry who hype it up, and have thus popularised the medium into a celebration of the B-movie on the screen today, and also an investment in the B-movies of yesteryear. They wouldn’t be so successful if the genre didn’t make money. It’d be daft to pin it all on economics though. There are certainly cultural parallels that make the resurgence of this material feel destined. The ’70s were a decade dealing with the post-counterculture sentiments of the generation before them, and solidifying its trends towards as many revolutions as it could muster: a sexual revolution, a civil rights liberation, a political upheaval, a sudden and vested interest in pop culture, and a desire to reveal and lay everything bare. We are not so far off from those sentiments ourselves. Riding on the tail end of the hacker revolution and economic boom of the ’90s, today we are making our decade bask in some slippery notion of “the information age” in which today’s generation craves the liberation of information, the freedom of expression, a revolution against politics again, and the rise of rampant individualism. So the roots that pushed exploitation films into existence are repeating themselves. We are just as happy to push the limits of our cultural censorship with South Park in 1999 as If… was in 1969.

For some reason, we are terribly attracted to this initial phase of exploitation. We love pastiche. It’s an unhindered nostalgia for eras the current generation has never known. In a way, exploitation films have a newly birthed cultural status imbibed in them. Films like Juno and High Fidelity propetuate the image that the obscure and the old fashioned are desirable. Sly wit and esoteric music obsessions are hip. Authors like Chuck Klosterman and Douglas Coupland teach us that pop culture trivia is like money in wall street - highly desirable. So in a sense, today’s culture has made room for the exploitation film. Even more surprising, the exploitation film shows up in a number of guises elsewhere, masquerading as a “quality” film. For what is the superhero blockbuster if not a high-budget exploitation film? It’s a flight of fancy, a two-hour CGI version of Tarantino’s beloved corn syrup and red food dye. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen typifies this obsession with the cult icons: dorian grey, vampires, science fiction, and the steampunk era to boot, dabbling in literature, fantasy, comic books, and action film. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen isn’t the only one either; there have been a series of other large-scale re-envisionings of the 1970 exploitation film that have found much more than a small niche, though they elicit a cult following. Films like Pirates of the Caribbean and Batman and Hostel are all of the same seed leftover from 1968. Our comedies take a page from the book of exploitation films too; how many Ben Stiller or Will Ferrel films are just low-class jabs and toilet humour and over the top costumes not out of place in a film like Car Wash or Blazing Saddles? Shaun of the Dead is just an even lower-rung City of the Living Dead, Good Luck Chuck a twenty-first century stab at Alvin Purple, and Snakes on a Plane a dumbed down version of Shaft.

There are almost as many types of exploitation films as there are screens at The Grove: shock films, biker films, cannibal films, chambara films, slasher flicks, zombie flicks, mondo movies, splatter movies, spaghetti westerns, euroflicks, prison films, martial arts films, propaganda films, stoner films, blaxploitation, sexploitation, ozploitation, and a million other subgenres to include. It is certainly not a unique phenomenon to say the least. The Blair Witch Project, Tokyo Gore Police, Sukiyaki Western Django, they are nothing more than reiterations of what has already been: Dawn of the Dead, Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, Turkey Shoot.

What inspired this long-winded glimpse into the world of exploitation flicks? Well, two things. One, the documentary Not Quite Hollywood left me fearing the world would only hear one side of the skinny of exploitation films: from the men who had lived through the 1970s. I thought someone from the younger generation had to step in and say their bit. The Brisbane International Film Festival is rolling in this weekend, with a special on Horror and special section devoted to the ozsploitation films of the ’70s and ’80s, and while I may not be able to describe the social climate of the era as accurately as someone like Tom O’Regan, I will certainly be able to describe the atmosphere of today with a good deal of accuracy and insight. In summation the shifts in viewing attitudes from public to private exhibition, the industry’s refocusing on niche markets, and the cultural similarities have allowed exploitation films that were overshadowed in the 1970s and 1980s to flourish today both economically and culturally. Of course it’s more than that, isn’t it? There’s something deeper than the face-value of audience tendencies now that really says something about why we’re still watching the same pieces of celluloid so many critics hailed as nothing but rubbish. Perhaps audiences are longing for an elder era of cinema? Perhaps we’re so desensitised by our own society we require the absurdist antics of exploitation filmmaking to reach us? Perhaps we just don’t want to think about it anymore, we just want to watch? This is a discussion for another, equally long-winded diatribe. But it is food for thought.

Although interest in this genre may seem a random and passing trend, I urge you to think about how long exploitation films have been around, and how their popularity has been affected by the passage of time. Perhaps we should be giving less thought to “solving the problem” of B movies and more thought to why it is they are so prevalent. It is a phenomenon that appears founded in more than just a few teenagers in a drive through with some change in their pocket. I believe this is where we draw the line from “films” into “genres.” When a man can make his living and his fame by these criticisably low-brow films, it might be time to reframe our subject.

Looking Back: A List of Insignificant Things that Had a Monumental Impact on My Life

I recently found a cache of my old music collection, back when it was a fairly reasonable size. I let it play on shuffle for a while, and ran across a few songs I haven’t heard in several years. I know my tastes in music have changed dramatically (as they should refine with age, like a taste for wine or for comedy or for good writing), but I was surprised at how quickly I slipped back into an older mindset. So I let myself take a long trip down memory lane, pulling out a few songs here and there relating to specific memories in my life. It’s funny how something as simple as a song can bring you back somewhere so quickly.

I’ve run across articles or films or albums that talk about places I’ve been or things I’ve done. The NYTimes had a piece about the International Thespian Society I once worked so hard to attend. Of course, I haven’t been in four years, but my memories were so fresh and so vivid, I found it difficult to believe the event and the culture continued without me and has now heralded in a different generation of theatre geeks singing different songs and wearing different hairstyles.

With each such recollection, I play it like a moviola reel until the film runs out and I remember that it’s not a world I’m part of any longer. But the celluloid has left an image in my mind and I’m homesick enough to continue down memoir blouvard. Along my journey, peering into driveways as I travelled farther and farther back into my past, I came across a few memories that stood out. Although I didn’t realise it then, I can, with the wisdom of hindsight, pinpoint some life-defining moments I’ve had. I thought I’d share a few of them with you, in a list that only scratches the surface and motivates me to write a memoir one day. Here are a few of the gems, for your enjoyment:

Tiger 2-XL
For those of you who aren’t up on your geeky computer toys from the ’90s, 2-XL was a talking robot with four buttons that was more or less a trivia games using 8-track tapes. It would ask you multiple choice or true/false questions like “How many tiny creatures are living on your body?” or “Is a centimetre larger than an inch?” and as a reward for getting questions right, you’d get another piece of trivia. The appeal is not immediately apparent, as any kid who would voluntarily take a test in his or her spare time is clearly not the most popular on the playground, but it wasn’t just the premise of good ol’ 2-XL that did it for me. I saw the 2-XL commercialon television at one point or another, and was irrevocability drawn to the idea that, like the kid in the video, one who knew a lot of useless information, could somehow disband a pack of seven older, stronger, cooler guys. Not only did I play with 2-XL until its voice became dark and menacing due to the decay of my robot’s inner workings, but I took from this unusual holiday gift the belief that knowledge is fundamentally the key to not getting my ass kicked at school. While I still remember more strange trivia than anyone else I know, this weapon of brainpower is also going to keep my salary’s ass from getting kicked as well.

Pink Starburst
By far the most superior of all Starburst flavours, pink (or strawberry) Starburst were highly coveted among yesteryear’s youth. One particular Halloween, Starburst were the “it” candy, and after amassing more Starburst than I could have possibly eaten, I carefully traded all of my other sweets for all of my sister’s pink Starburst. It was here my tendency as a hoarder rather than a spender was first apparent, but it was also here that I first learned the dangers of saving too much. Now, with my plastic bag filled with only my favourite candy, I was the happiest kid on earth. I know what you’re thinking. You ate them all and got sick! You grew tired of pink Starburst! But neither is the case. In fact, just the opposite. I didn’t eat a single one. I saved those Starburst for later, knowing that one day I would crack open that bag and dance in my strawberry Starburst delight. When that perfect day came along, I tore open the plastic bag, ripped the wrapper off the first tiny square of sticky deliciousness and bit down. I nearly broke my teeth. Starburst, which are supposed to be soft and chewy, inevitably go rock hard with age. I had waited so long to savour my strawberry Starburst that I had rendered the entire bag inedible. In retrospect, it was really a difficult lesson for a child so young to learn (I don’t think I even had full days of school yet) but one that I still take with me to this day. If you’re going to trade all your chocolate for Starburst, at least enjoy the Starburst.

Switzerland
More specifically Silvaplana, Switzerland. My immediate family went on a trip to Europe before I went to high school, a very meaningful trip for us all. The site of my parents’ honeymoon, it was also the first time either me or my sister had travelled internationally, the first time I ever saw the world was bigger than my backyard, the first time I was on a train, and the first time I ever realised my parents were people too, not just parents. I learned so much on that trip; my eyes were wide open every step of the way. This beautiful town in the Swiss Alps gave birth to the moment I decided I needed to travel, that I didn’t want to stay in the U.S. But the most defining moment of the trip was something much more casual. It was the Swiss national holiday, and there were going to be 3-course meals at every restaurant and fireworks in the evening. It was summer, but there was still snow on the mountain, and I was terribly excited for the street faire I could see forming from our upper story deck. And my father, halfway through eating a loaf of bread, said, “Switzerland is just as pretty as some parts of Colorado. This is just like the fourth of July there.” I don’t even know if I was into the double-digits age wise then, but I had been to Colorado, and suddenly I saw he was right. I’m not saying Switzerland is the same as Colorado, but I knew what my dad meant. There is beauty everywhere in the world, and you have to appreciate places for what they are. But at the same time, don’t come to Switzerland because it’s supposed to be beautiful, and expensive, and extravagant. Come to Switzerland to see Switzerland. Go to Colorado to see Colorado. I have adopted that philosophy through every country’s soil I’ve set foot on since.

Blue October’s “Calling You”
We all have our days. And some of us our lucky enough to have our heroes too, our knights in shining armour that stroll up to the castle and fight off our bad days tooth and nail without hearing a request to. I remember one evening I declined an invitation to go out with friends on one such day. My three knights in armour didn’t remark on it, or ask why, or do anything other than ride up to my house in a beat up Honda, stand in my driveway, and loudly belt out the lyrics to Blue October’s “Calling You” in its entirety just to make me feel better. It worked. And while the song itself doesn’t hold any special meaning for me, just hearing a single lyric from the bard reminds me that I have extraordinary friends in this world who are willing to go to extraordinary lengths just to get me to smile. In a way, they have spoilt me by proving that true friends who truly understand me do exist, and will pull a U-turn on the freeway to serenade your bad days away. How lucky I am to have more than one such hero.

My Grandmother’s Garage
Grandparents have always been a marvelous species who properly spoil their grandchildren and in my case, tell the best bedtime stories and make the best vegetable soup and let you swim in the pool until you get pruney all over. I was one of those kids lucky enough to have one of my grandmothers live right down the street from me, well within the distance of a reasonable eight-year-old bike ride. While some of the best grandmother memories are usually confined to the average persons dim-at-best childhood memories, my grandmother’s crowning moments didn’t begin until I was in secondary school. My junior and senior year of high school, my friends and I had it in our minds that we’d start a band. So, my closest chum and I split the cost of a drum set and began our quest for two other willing musicians. The musicians were easy enough to find, and the cover songs easy enough to agree on, but finding a practice location was a different matter. My grandmother came to the rescue, not only allowing us to practice twice a week in her garage well into the summer, but providing cold beverages, delicious after school snacks, and towels should we decide to once again let our skin get wrinkled and pruney in the pool after rehearsal. In many ways that garage and the generosity of that grandmother made many of my dreams come true, and I will not hesitate to thank her profusely for her kindness, and, on behalf of my now-defunct band members, for being a surrogate grandmother to silly school children in good need of some fantasy and butter creams.

“Yesterday” by The Beatles
On another musical note, I have to place a distinct memory of my seventh-grade biology teacher sitting next to my sixth-grade math teacher (incidentally two of my all-time favourite teachers) parked on a picnic table in Big Bend National Park, strumming some chords and singing some notes that resulted in ultimately playing “Yesterday.” Now, I can’t say I’ve ever been a particular fan of the Beatles, but everyone seems to start guitar lessons by learning their songs (usually “Blackbird” is the first) while everyone seems to think their mastery is the mark of guitar success (usually “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is the last). Although not part of this school of thought, it was nonetheless this passing Beatles song that convinced me I could pick up the instrument and experience a moderate level of success. I had found my mothers old Alvarez C-Neck in the garage and claimed it for myself. She had played a song or two for me from her own high school band days and I was blown away. Never could this musical magic be mine on my own, no matter how many times I read the chord book or studied “Killing Me Softly,” the only sheet music we owned. But then, I saw Mr. Elliott and Mr. Easton making their own magic on their own magic wands. Noticing my stares intent on their fretting hands, both teachers admitting to being self-taught, and from then on I decided I too could acquire this self-taught voodoo. “Yesterday” was the song I first started with because it was the song they first started with, and now that I know it by heart, I will probably never play it again.

Gừng
Gừng means “ginger” in Vietnamese. Or, if mispronounced, can also mean ginger, root, husband, and a number of other, completely different words. This I was taught by my eighth-grade World History I teacher, Ms. Trahn. At the time, hearing an eastern language was news to me, in fact, I don’t think I had ever before even heard of countries like India or China, much less Vietnam or Laos. The idea that intonation could change the meaning of words seemed such a powerful notion that I immediately began to notice the subtle and subconscious differences in human intonation and speech patterns (which perhaps explains my love of irony). Although I learned an incredible amount from that course in the way of world history (and indeed cultural awareness) and made a life friend and fellow easter-philosophy buddy, the only specific memory I have from that class is the lesson on how to properly pronounce gừng. It is this memory that impressed upon me the need for impeccable oral delivery, leading me to a successful run in the disciplines of debate, oratory, foreign languages, and, as it were, sarcasm.

And there are of course more. There is the pair of robotic toy dogs (the brown one of which my sister claimed and I then decided to sabotage with a marble), the time Greg Bahm and I wrote our own newspaper and delivered it to the neighbourhood, the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), and a brief period where I pretended to like Hamsters to remain close friends with Josh Lavine and Jeremy Cohen. There’s a holiday where I mistook a bookmark for a piece of candy and a doll I refused to ever give up, and my staunch dislike of pencils that earned me a reputation in the physics department I to this day do not live down, and the best teacher/mentor/friend who led me to everything I know and love.

But they are just windows among the many houses lining my path back home. After I’ve been driving long enough to get low on petrol, the lawns and front porches get fuzzier and blurrier and I have difficult keeping the memories accurate. Part of me honestly believes that these memories have something important to teach me; that’s why they’re still around. I’ve been afraid to lose them, so here I share them with you to preserve them, and to let you in on something about my life that makes me who I am today. So concludes the list of insignificant things that profoundly influenced my life. What are yours?

After living in America, studying in Australia, working in Japan, and travelling in Europe, I consider myself a bit of a globetrotter. Not only do I pack lighter for a seven month stint than most people do for a weekender, but I am equally familiar with both the English and Metric methods of measurements/weights/temperature, can convert currencies and voltages in my sleep, and am confident enough in my abilities to navigate a public transit system blind that I have no qualms about getting off the aeroplane/train/bus/boat with nothing more than a sense of direction and, with any luck, a map. I have my routines down. In every country I visit, I purposefully purchase a postcard and ingest a Kit Kat bar in whatever variety is available. Less premeditated, I nearly always end up eating some Special K at one point or another, and I invariably miss the last train at least once on each journey. Bonine is my best friend, I will never leave home without a towel, and I’ve given up on being picky about my pillow type. Time zones mean nothing, sleep is the cure all, and jet lag is nothing but an urban legend. In short, you could call me a seasoned jet-setter, but it’d be an understatement.

Now, why would someone like me, who is so enamoured with travel in its many forms, consider settling down at university for anything longer than a month, let alone four? Well, I could bullshit you for hours about all the joys of being a university student or all the benefits of living in a place rather than visiting it (there’s merit to both), but there’s really only one reason: money.

After all the student loans and university bills I know it seems counter intuitive, but especially if your tertiary education is the sort easy on the bank account, hear me out. Besides just the heavy discounts that come with being a full-time student or the many inevitable field trips that will come my way, enrolling myself in a university affords me the most flexible schedule, the most free time, the ability to change my mind at any given time, and numerous study abroad and summer programme opportunities. And in this particular case, thanks to UQSport and my various degrees of internet jedi magic, for a mere A$1500 (the same price of a weekend ski package) I can get:

1 S.C.U.B.A. certification + 3 dive dates

1 weekend trip to a tropical beach + 3 surf lessons

2 days camping on Fraser Island

2 days camping on Moreton Island

2 days snorkeling Herron Island

AND

Muay Thai lessons twice a week for 3 months

Japanese stick fighting on Thursday nights for 10 weeks

all with catering, accommodation, transit, and equipment rentals included. For another A$600 or so I can go on another 5 day snorkeling adventure, a 3 day outback safari, go deep sea fishing, and take up Tae Kwon Do.

Sailing I can do for just the price of a bus ticket, along with just about one million other activities not limited to: sand tobogganing, learning massage therapy, bushwalking and rock climbing, capoeira, rugby, Japanese lessons, and ceramics. Australia is one of the most welcoming countries for adventure sport.

That list of travel opportunities is music to my ears. “Why did you go to UQ, Leigh?” will be a question you need not ask again. Ladies and gentlemen of the Internet, I rest my case.

Of course, just as I become fully acclimated to life in Tokyo, it is time to leave. Since I am mere hours from boarding a plane to my next adventure in Brisbane, I thought it only fitting to give my final end-of-the-road notes on my experience in Japan (besides the cursory “I loved it!”)

One of my keen observations leads me to believe that most of the people who have never been to Tokyo imagine it both glamorous and exotic. Sure, I’ll take that; to a large extent Tokyo is what you make it. Once you get past the hieroglyphic-looking Kanji, the city has much to offer. With 100,000¥ to drop on Louis Vitton sunglasses, Tokyo can be a haven for highrollers to rival Fifth Street or the Champs Élysées (which look eerily similar to Ginza and Aoyama, respectively). But if you’ve only pocket change to spare, Tokyo has enough standing room only ramen shops to keep you full forever and enough flea markets to hone your haggling skills. There’s homeless and ritzy and everywhere in between.

Foreigners often field the largest misunderstanding, believing Tokyo (and Japan in general) to be so unlike the Western World. While the Japanese lifestyle and values differ vastly from my own, I don’t find this opinion to be as valid as I once did. Japan and, say, France have more in common than they’d like to admit: xenophobia on a political level, cultural homogeneity, a love of pastries, a flair for expense, great educational institutions (with liberal and idealistic students), a tidy and efficient metro system, and a taste for fine dining and boutique shopping. Even without eating every meal at Hard Rock Cafe or McDonald’s it is incredibly easy to live out the Western lifestyle. Someone like me, usually aghast at tourist destinations and vehemently opposed to both guidebooks and “must-see” tourist traps, naturally fit in with a pace of life not so different from my own.

How do I explain this eerily similarity? I’ll show you. Below is an 8-minute account of an average day I spent over the last two months in Tokyo. For some, it may appear completely mundane and banal, but that’s the point of it. I wanted people, especially Americans, to see that Tokyo life isn’t this alien concept. It’s just regular life with a different background (hence the particular detail to scenes of transit so you could see all the different neighbourhoods of Tokyo).

A Day in Tokyo from Leigh Cooper on Vimeo.

If I had to pick a city to compare Tokyo to, I’d choose New York. The city is incredibly diverse, dense, and filled to the brim with character. All the different wards of Tokyo have their own brand of Tokyoites and there is an unending amount of osmosis where citizens easily spend a day in over four different neighbourhoods according to the need. And, like New York, living in Tokyo definitely comes with a particular lifestyle. It really is a great city and I’d highly suggest it to anyone that loves urban living. I’d be happy to answer any and all questions and offer up some real-world advice now or in the future if anyone is planning on visiting.

A few last notes: Tokyo is really mind-bogglingly big. I recall the first time my roommate Allison and I missed the last train home from Shibuya. We didn’t realise how far away the city centres were. Imagine the sprawl of Los Angeles with the density of New York. The only way to describe it really is epic. Needless to say, Allison and I had little idea of what we had set ourselves up for, but we embarked on foot to get home nonetheless. After three hours of walking through a maze of motorways we found ourselves home. The most amazing part was not how long it took us, but how dense the city was. From Shibuya all the way to Roppongi it was nothing but city. It was actually a good experience. We wandered through residential neighbourhoods, strips of bars and restaurants still open, a park or two, and a few big business and shopping centres. And this was just along the motorway.

In fact, most of the travel I’ve done in Tokyo is fairly disorienting. Using the subway system is akin to being a groundhog. You go down one hole and pop up another, sometimes sticking your head up for air or sunshine (or 7/11) until you decide to go back to your den. For example, my commute to work is roughly 45 minutes (sometimes more if Tameike-Sanno is so packed I can’t fit on the train during rush hour) with one transfer and almost no waiting time. Yet the actual distance from door to door is less than 5 km. You can understand a map but until you get above the city via Mori Tower or Tokyo Tower or any of the numerous sky bars that accent the skyscraper landscape, the vastness of Tokyo will not really be clear.

In summation, I’ve enjoyed my summer here immensely and proved to myself that I really can go anywhere, do anything and still live happily. I am grateful for the experience, and though I’m ready for the next layover on my epic jetsetting journey, I will be sad to say goodbye. And that is how it should be.

17:30 — I leave work. Most of the day was spent outside the Bic Camera in Yurakucho, covering the release of the 3G iPhone. As a result, I am hot, tired, sweaty, and dehydrated already. After a brief stop in Akasaka to change, make some peanut butter sandwiches, and grab my bag, I leave for Shinjuku with Ryan and Luke. We are going to climb Fujisan (Mt. Fuji).

19:00 — We are in Shinjuku and cannot find the proper bus terminal. After a few frantic calls to Alisa, and some rapid translation, we manage to get all four tickets and board the proper bus. Luckily our bus is empty so we all get to stretch out and take a serious nap on the way up.

19:50 — Bus departs. Only two hours to the magic of Mt. Fuji. I can see the moon from my window. Beautiful.

21:45 — I have to pee like a racehorse.

22:20 — Bus arrives at Yokigaduchi 5th station. It is brisk outisde, so we change and eat quickly before the station closes down for the night and they kick us out.

22:45 — We leave to climb the still-active volcano. It’s pitch black out and there are trees completely obscuring the sky. Most of the travellers with us on the trail are Japanese, but I hear a few lines of accented English. Ryan and I sing ’70s songs to pass the time.



23:30 — The trail, initially a gentle incline, has taken a steep turn upward. The sky has opened up and there are more stars than I have ever seen. Everyone is quiet, enjoying the view. To the left I see the hazy ambient light from civilisation. It seems so distant.

00:15 — We pass an abandoned bulldozer. It is officially the next day and I start counting down the hours until the sunrise. Around the corner is the 6th station. We are making great time.



00:45 — The trail now necessitates the use of a torch to prevent inevitable tripping. We take bets on who will eat it first. I bet Alisa, Ryan bets himself. No one bets on Luke.

00:10 — Luke and I start feeling queasy. Either we ate too much sandwich too fast or not enough noodles in too long. Luke buys another dinner and manages his chopsticks fairly well with icy fingers. We press onward.

00:30 — Alisa now feels queasy and lightheaded. We stop for a break at the first 7th station. No longer ill, I fall in love with SoyJoy. Mmmmm.

01:00 — Apparently the 7th station is actually a complex of several 7th stations. It feels like we are making no progress, I am out of Aquarius (Japanese Gatorade), and it is much colder than before. It must be 14º out. We are all wearing jackets and gloves.

02:15 — Ryan is now feeling under the weather. He falls behind a bit to prevent complete intestinal malfunction. I am told the distance between stations 7 and 8 is the greatest and will take us 100 minutes or more. I see why: the trail has become a series of upward-sloping boulders we must traverse literally on all fours. There are iron chain handrails to keep hikers on track in the dark. Luke and Alisa race ahead.

02:30 — Luke’s coworker told him not to worry about the hike because his grandmother could do it. His grandmother must be a superhero. There is a bottleneck on the trail and the mass of hikers are all walking single file up the steep switchbacks. If you look up you can see a trail of flashlight bulbs leading all the way up to the 9th station. It’s beautiful.

02:55 — My torch dies. I now revise my bet on who will fall down first.

3:00 — I meet up with Luke and Alisa at the 8th station. The hardest part is over. We have less than 2km to go, but an altitude change of 500m. Ryan is trudging along like a trooper. The wind is howling and we are all freezing cold. I am wearing all of my layers: long sleeve thermal, t-shirt, fleece jacket, windbreaker, shorts, sweatpants, rain pants, gloves, knit hat, and socks. I still feel frigid.



3:50 — I buy Ryan a 600¥ hot cocoa to warm him up. Ryan arrived at the top over half an hour ago completely blue and shivering uncontrollably, so, fearing the worst, we bought a one hour rest at the 8th station. We share some nutella and try to guess how far Luke and Alisa are while the colour returns to Ryan’s face. We decide to go for the top.

04:15 — The sky is staring to get light at our backs. We have just passed the 9th station and don’t know if we will make it to the top in time for the sunrise. The hikers have thinned and the wind is threatening to bowl us over.

04:30 — We are 100m from the top of Mt. Fuji and the sun starts to rise. After an all night hike through the wind and cold, it is a downright spiritual experience to see the clouds part and the sun rise. The sun is bright red and sends like-coloured rays through the cloudburst and over the land…just like the rising sun flag. This is quite possibly the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen. Right now it is just me and this mountain.



04:45 — The sun is warming us up. The view from the top of Fuji is astounding. It’s a clear morning, so we can see for miles. Everyone is congratulating themselves on a job well done. Fuji was no walk in the park, but we all made it to the payoff.

06:00 — I am back at the 8th station. The route down is through a landslide of volcanic ash that’s hard on your knees but easy on your watch. I pay 200¥ to use the restroom, and a woman in the stall next to me spends six or seven minutes solid retching loudly. It is unpleasant.

06:30 — I buy the most expensive cup of noodles in all of Japan for 735¥ at the 7th station. It is also the most delicious ramen I think I have ever eaten. I even lick the bowl. We ask a man how to get back to the right 5th station and he points us down the trail.



07:45 — We reach where the 6th station should be but are blocked off by a series of ropes. We turn a corner down a dry riverbed that faces a gorgeously green valley. At the bottom we see a glistening car park. Ryan and I start planning out what our breakfast will be.

08:50 — Walking down volcanic ash is like skiing on dirt. We are moving quickly enough that when I look back at the mountain, it looks like a postcard. I can’t believe we were just there less than five hours ago. In the light the entire mountain looks different. It literally comes out of nowhere, with flat land on either side.



10:15 — I stop for a snack and a rest. My ankles are quite tired and I’ve lost sight of the car park. Hopefully we will make it to our bus on time.

10:50 — We make it to the car park. We will not make it to our bus on time.

11:45 — Arrive by bus at Gotenba station. We take the Gontenba line to Matsuda. I know it is rude to eat in public but I am terribly hungry. I do it anyway, despite the stares of a little girl and the glares from her mother.

12:30 — Arrive at Matsuda. We take the Odakyu line to Yoyogi-Uehara. I pass out on the train and sleep through the entire journey.

13:10 — Ryan wakes me up in time to get off at Yoyogi-Uehara. We transfer to the Chiyoda line and head back home.

13:45 — I am walking up the steps to my apartment, sore, tired, dirty, and hungry, but incredibly glad for the experience. It was an evening well spent.

I have said it before and I will say it again. The Japanese like their drink. Whether it’s smooth, cultured sake (nigori is notoriously difficult to find), a solid round of mango-flavoured Yebisu, or just enough shochu to keep the enamel on your teeth, Japan offers up a variety of hard and soft liquors, and everything in between.

Never a big drinker at home, what kind of cultural immersion would I be feigning if I didn’t at least try some of the local brew? Since I’ve been in Tokyo my few short weeks, I’ve tasted the sake the prince drinks at the royal household, visited the gold-plated building that is Asahi national headquarters, and spent an evening making slurred attempts at small talk with the locals in the closet-sized bars of the Golden Gai. I have given up a few nights of sleep in favour of a pub crawl or a karaoke marathon, and I have let a few of my taste buds go numb in the noble effort to experience Japan’s frontline first-hand.

It all started with the official (ironically government-run) Nihonshu Fair 2008, where the Japan Times sent a few of us over to Ikebukuro’s Sunshine City to document the world’s biggest sake tasting. So, camcorder in hand, I set out to videotape the event. Of course once the taping was done, I had the opportunity to rub elbows with some of the highest brow sake journalists in the country, learning loads about the industry, the specialties of each prefecture, and the etiquette of downing sake. I emerged from the experience a good deal more knowledgeable despite leaving several brain cells lighter. Below you can see the video I put together of the event for The Japan Times Online.

What I really took away from the Nihonshu Fair was not an understanding of sake artistry or a history lesson of industry competition or a lecture on the technicalities of federal export laws, but the realisation that the generally reserved Japanese find it difficult to stay that way the moment the tap turns on. Japan takes fourth place on the global list of widespread drinkers; 92 percent of the population has had a drink in their life, a statistic that is reiterated in my nightly observations.

Everyone drinks here. I mean everyone: middle-aged men in sharp business suits, young single women in stilettos, teenagers still in their school uniforms, college kids, intellectuals, foreign travellers, housewives out with their neighbours. On weekends it is hard to walk three blocks without seeing someone in last night’s outfit crouched in a corner or by a sewer with a plastic bag, perhaps flanked by a few concerned comrades, but otherwise beyond sleeping it off. On evenings it is difficult to secure space in a crowded restaurant where you cannot audibly hear the drunken laughter emitted by the 26-person table of Japanese coworkers two rooms down. The drinking culture is so omnipresent and so accessible, they sell beer in vending machines. And when a coke-a-cola costs more than a Kirin stout, it’s no mystery why so many turn to the pints until the last round is called.

The drinking culture is so omnipresent and so accessible, they sell beer in vending machines.

Tokyo especially is a shockingly 24hour culture. It is easy to spend only three nights a week actually sleeping, since so much is open after hours. But when you step back and look at the demographics of what stays open through the wee hours of the morning, the picture starts to get a little less fuzzy. At any give 3 am morning on any given street, at least 15 percent of the establishments in the area are open, but they are limited to convenience stores, grocers, restaurants, and, of course, bars. Sentos and onsen (bathhouses) are open late for those wishing to soak or sweat out the excess alcohol, and capsule hotels offer all-night check-in for those unwilling to sleep on park benches until the first train arrives in the morning.

There’s a magic to it, that’s for sure. It’s a unique experience to watch the sun rise at 4:30 in the morning over a far from deserted Shinjuku or Shibuya. And it’s part of the Japanese experience to find yourself on the darker side of rice, potato, or even plum wine. It’s just a part of the culture so upfront it doesn’t take much searching to find even off the beaten path dives.

In any such dive, local or tourist, you can get a Japanese bar-mate to say more about the death penalty or child abduction or global warming than you can anywhere else in the city. Japan likes to present a unified front on a macro and micro scale (both in foreign policy and in day-to-day encounters) that does not take kindly to open discussion of social issues anywhere that isn’t on an anonymous blog. But the bar is a sacred place where politics of any variety can be discussed with little to no retribution needed the morning after. In fact, anything said over a tankard is exempt from the following: being believed, repeated, remembered, or revisited on any occasion for any reason. So drink up, my friends, and find safety in the knowledge that your otherwise uncouth cultural faux pas will not only never be recounted, but will undoubtedly be the most entertaining event of the evening.

If it started with the Nihonshu Fair, it ends in Asakusa, next to Sumida-gawa, above the Flame d’Ore, overlooking the expanse of the city and its many drinking habits as a whole. I’m still standing at the top of my Tokyo game, drinking it all in, and toasting to a city worth visiting.

All you need to know - 8 simple rules for drinking in Japan:

The Tokyo Weekly Mansion is filled with models. I have always imagined Tokyo as a major fashion centre but, being distinctly fashion un-inclined, never thought I’d find myself anywhere near it. While I admire the wearers and makers of the clothing design world and would like to think the best of models in the industry, I have been urged to believe the opposite even in the short time we have lived among them.

Three models live at the end of the hallway, another two across the way, and several on the floors above us I have the…er…pleasure of riding with in the elevator down to the lobby. To the list of things I have learned on this trip, please add: models are smelly, loud, rude, and cheap. It shocks me that people so beautiful and so admirable would bathe irregularly if at all, hassle the poor non-english-speaking general manager, or belt out portuguese pop lyrics in the hallways during the wee hours of the morning, but they do so often and without qualm. After weeks of finally adjusting to the strangely formal culture of the country, the models seem oddly out of place in this bow-heavy, service-centered world.

Japan, although not as dissimilar to the West as I had expected, is generally a strangely considerate place to a degree I may never be able to match — commuters will greet you with a bow, even when you are shoved underneath their armpit during rush hour, mobile phone usage is strictly prohibited on public transit and in banking, postal, and educational institutions, and even the homeless remove their shoes and sweep the ground outside their cardboard hovels out of respect for their neighbours. Coming from America has put us at a great disadvantage because in our culture, courtesy is a commodity and not the necessity it is treated as here. Politeness is built into the very structure of the Japanese language while conduct, especially in business, is usually predetermined by a set of strict social rules based on seniority. As easy as it would be to take advantage of the situation and the extraordinary kindness of the people here, no one seems to abuse the system. There is a magical barrier around Japan where the mentality is: for the good of the team. “Get it done no matter the sacrifice” has its advantage as a mantra, and though the culture is undoubtedly repressive toward salarymen (and even more so toward children, who, by the observations of Jared, are forced to attend primary school in 1923), the Japanese manage to make it work, saving everyone’s face and still speaking everyone’s mind over pints of Asahi after hours.

Business practice is quite distinct in Japan, favouring loyalty and hard work over individuality occasionally at the expense of progress. The Japanese seem to believe religiously in the concept of “win-win,” that there is a solution for every party that can work within the preexisting infrastructure, benefit both sides of the dispute, and also affect larger society in a positive way. Until such a mutually beneficial solution is reached, the argument gets tabled for as long as necessary. This methodology seems to produce world innovation and many engineers. No wonder the working class drinks so much.

Working at the Japan Times provides me with an interesting perspective on Japanese culture, an almost insiders view that, not speaking the language, I would never be able to glimpse myself. Beyond the politics of the office, the strange layout and clash of cultures, and the JT’s absurdly eccentric style, the paper has more of a world view than perhaps any other publication I’ve read, even those like National Geographic or the Economist, which pride themselves on global approaches. A great number of the social issues brimming under the surface so intense protests are just waiting to happen end up hidden behind the impeccable Japanese wall of etiquette and infallible public face that makes the country so unified.

One of my assignments is to ask random passerby on the street a weekly question about a hot topic, usually something controversial and current. This week’s was especially difficult; so difficult in fact that Jared and I had to change the question from “what do you think of the Japanese death penalty?” to “what should the Japanese do about global warming?” because no one wanted to have their answers published, at least not next to their picture. But even with a question on a topic as en vogue as climate change, we struggled.

The publication is presented a unique set of challenges: the Japan Times must tackle the traditionally tight-lipped Japanese perspective on global and domestic issues for a heterogeneous population of 750,000 during a serious industry slump, while taking care not to lose anything in translation along the way. The paper is catered to the foreign community in a country so xenophobic 99.4% of Japanese citizens are ethnically Japanese, and though there is a strong expat community in Tokyo, the paper must navigate a close-circle Eastern system in an aggressively Western way that values freedom of information. As one of the only English publications in the country (the Japan Times is certainly the largest), much pressure sits on the shoulders of the 30 or so coworkers Jared and I assist. These folks, made up of Kiwis and Brits and Yankees alike, must tread lightly on all topics since contention over issues such as Tokyo’s candidacy for the 2016 Olympics are certainly an international issue but are seated on the down low in every other aspect of the country. It’s a hard job, and they do it admirably.

But, to keep from depressing you all, I leave with a joke.

Q: How many Tokyoites can you fit in a subway car?

A: One more.

It is unreal that we are actually here in Tokyo. Each morning I wake up expecting to see the expanse of Los Angeles outside my window rather than the Tokyo Broadcast Station skyscraper and HSBC tower (which appears to be wiggling from a distance). I am continually arising to a dream. And a good one at that.

Before leaving for Japan, I conducted so much research and asked so many people innumerable questions about what the country is really like. I suppose I’m not all that surprised that nothing could prepare me for the experience of actually being here. I’ve been making a conscious effort not to form too many expectations and let the city speak for itself. So far the city speaks in a language I can understand: that of urban growth, a rich mix of old and new culture, and a love of respect and efficiency.

The city speaks a language I can understand.

The food is phenomenal. I can already tell that though I may tire of so much seafood and so many alien dishes, I will undoubtedly miss the cuisine here. With the great variety of dishes I can’t imagine growing tired of Japanese food! It’s such a nice change to get away from the greasy American food and Italian food which uses the same ingredients over and over again (which I love despite). I am sure the fresh diet is the reason so many Okinawans (among other Japanese) manage to live to age 100. I look forward to a visit to Tsujiki Fish Market for some early-morning sushi and perhaps one of the world famous fillet knifes sold in the outer stalls.

There is much more English writing on signs than I had expected (which I am grateful for), though almost no one speaks English. If nothing else, my experience of just a few days here has moved me to consider taking Japanese lessons on evenings or weekends. I can already tell I’ll be learning a massive amount from work and life here alone, but I feel as though at least trying to learn the language, or at least how to pronounce it would benefit my understanding of the Japanese. Besides, when else does one have the opportunity to practice an Eastern language among native speakers? The chance is too good to pass up.

I’d also like to note how easy this transition into Tokyo has been thanks in no small part to the USC Tokyo office. It is a relief to know there are a few people just around the corner who speak English and can understand the difficulties of being in a strange new place. So many thanks are due to the folks down there.

Today was probably my favourite day of our summer adventure so far. It started with a productive day at work, when Jared and I were able to go on a field trip and get out of the office for a bit, ended with delicious seafood paella at la amour de Gaudí, and involved an art exhibit, a Japanese middle school, and watching the sunset over the skyline of Tokyo from 52 stories up in a posh lounge atmosphere. Tokyo is a great fit for me.

I’ve always been an urban girl, from my fanatic affinity for contemporary art museums to my eccentric obsession with subway maps and train timetables, so falling in love with the world’s densest urban culture was never too far of a stretch for my imagination. I find myself aimlessly wandering neighbourhood after neighbourhood wide-eyed and giddy, and though I never seem to know where I am going, I always happen upon some tucked away unseen treasure (like the time I stumbled into a shrine during a late-night run in the rain) or some outlandish gem unique only to Japan (like the store that offered pachinko, pickles, fresh fish, and handbags in the same two feet of space) and still always manage to find my way back home, or at least to a great cup of tea. This is, as I see it, the city looking after me.

For a metropolis of 13 million uptown dwellers, 19 million in the surrounding area, Tokyo is surprisingly efficient. America is the illusion of convenience — with our wasteful fast food chains, healthless prepackaged microwave meals, and greasy takeaway pizza — but Japan is the embodiment of convenience. You are never more than two meters away from a vending machine with both hot and iced beverages, convenience stores are open 24/7 and actually let you use the washroom, and with the combined powers of the Tokyo Metropolis Metro system and the numerous JR lines, you can get from one end of the city to the other in 45 minutes for less than 600¥. Not bad at all. Though I wouldn’t dare drive or take a taxi, as the lines that divide the traffic lanes mean absolutely nothing to the Japanese.

I attribute Japan’s success (or at least ability to be so prolific) to the culture’s unyielding levels of politeness, strict discipline, and utterly baffling social rules. On one side of the coin, I am terrified I will commit some unforgivable act or mispronounce “may I have the check please” as “your mother is a country swine” accidentally as everyone is treating us with the utmost respect, bowing even as the elevator doors close. Yet on the other side of the coin, get enough shots of Shochu in even the tightest-lipped Japanese salaryman and you will learn a entirely different set of colourful vocabulary words and insults that are unheard of in the light of day.

Get enough shots of Shochu in even the tightest-lipped Japanese salaryman and you will learn an entirely different set of colourful vocabulary words and insults.

Aligned with my interest in urbanity and all aspects of Japanese culture, I am counting down the days until the weekend, when I plan to take a walking Architecture photo safari, delve into the Japanese nuJazz hip hop scene, and throw myself into the nearest purikura I can find with whatever new Japanese friends I can make.

I am a firm believer that in order to fully appreciate a place, you must let it speak to you on its own terms. As such, it seems natural that I would find myself extremely disapproving of those who speak for places they have yet to know. True, in the land of group karaoke and “sumimasen,” I am still in the middle of the first handshake (or bow as the case may be). Yet even before Japan extended her hand and muttered “hajimashite” in my general direction, the gaijin and I fresh from the flight could still garner some fairly accurate first impressions.

It’s safe to say that nearly any city of appreciable size comes to a point where individuals, no matter how unique, become part of the central throng where the masses take on a life of their own that neither man nor nature has found a means of controlling. In the largest city in the world, this unpredictable, overpowering concept of “people” dictates every aspect of daily life that even a mere visitor such as myself will be overtaken by the force of Japanese willpower amplified thirteen million minds strong. In many ways, it is the like-minded mentality and cultural discipline that has allowed Tokyo (and all of Japan for that matter) to flourish so. This same tendency to favour the group over the individual and to keep things running as smoothly as possible has also enabled a city this big to be surprisingly functional. Without the discipline and respect inherent in the culture, Tokyo would not be the lovable city it is today.

Japan is such an interesting mix of both new and old in the same way Europe is; the country has such a rich history and a strong sense of cultural tradition that has survived numerous natural disasters, political upheavals, foreign occupations, and urban obstacles, not to mention the sheer number of thousands of years. Yet Tokyo has embraced the new in a way that Europe has not, wholeheartedly funding urban development, contemporary design, and modern engineering unlike any other country because Japanese thought takes into account the surroundings, the natural resources, and the beauty that makes the land of the rising sun and the divine wind so great. In the same way that the Japanese simultaneously practice Shinto and Buddhism, so they also acknowledge progress and history. It is truly inspiring.

I have long since had a love affair with tea of all kinds. This should come as no surprise to those who know me, nor to any of my coworkers who, being Japanese, have a hereditary obsession with the stuff. Ever since I first saw the concept of time lapse art played out in front of me, I’ve wanted to make my own version, and what better subject to use than tea? So, mere hours before I embarked to the land of matcha, I conceived, created, and completed this project for Tea USA’s Calmasutra Scholarship competition. Honestly though, I would have made this video without the competition. The possibility of scholarship money is just a bonus.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. The vimeo upload is a bit dodgy and leaves a ghost trail, but if you download the source video it doesn’t. More videos from the land of tea, vending machines, and “sumimasen” to come.

White Tea, White Board from Leigh Cooper on Vimeo.