retrospective

Looking back on a semester in Tokyo is like looking back on an entire lifetime in a calmer city -- in any other city, really. But I can feel that my perceptions of the city have changed greatly, and in some respects my perceptions of the world as a whole were affected as well.

This city is only what you make of it, despite all of the crazy stories you can hear thrown about by foreign visitors, tour books, etc. You can find anything in Tokyo, so if you want a more quiet life you can get it, and if you want to live the crazy party-every-night lifestyle you can do that too. And it's all a short train ride away. I think that's what I find so intriguing about the Tokyo metropolis -- it's managed to organize itself so well into specific districts, with a network of transportation connecting them all so that if you don't mind commuting you will really be able to do anything if you live within a certain range of the city. The fact that a 90 minute daily commute is normal here was baffling at first, but I am no longer phazed -- the city is enormous, and getting places takes time, but in return for relatively small transportation times one can receive an incredible variety of experiences.

Learning about oral history techniques, and trying them for myself, has had a lot more of an effect on my overall Tokyo experience than I thought it would. First of all, one of the customers I interviewed in one of the bars became a good friend, reminding me of why I was so interested in bars in the first place -- they are places that connect people. But beyond that, thinking about the right way to interview someone has made me think about the right way to talk to someone in my daily life. Living with a host family where the mother was often in need of someone to open up to, I enjoyed doing "interviews" for just myself by letting the conversations take their course. These non-recorded interviews ended up being much more interesting than the ones I did in the bars -- it really is crucial to get your subject to open up and talk freely, and once you have that it doesn't really matter if it doesn't fit with your subject. A person's true, honest feelings will always be more powerful than forced answers to questions, or even than unforced ones. It seems like it is best if one just doesn't ask anything at all, but instead listens. And for many people, all they're waiting for before opening up in that way is someone who will listen.