A lot time ago, I basically quit the internet and interacting with people over that medium. I was once on Twitter with other anime artists and I think I had fun chatting with other people about anime and artists from other countries. But I eventually quit after meeting some people and becoming disenchanted with forcing a persona over the internet. There was also not a lot that I was interested in discussing with people, that was fandom culture which was pervasive on Twitter. If I expanded my search for peers into discord and 4chan, maybe, just maybe I would have found some better friends. But I had enough and stopped about ten years ago, ultimately erasing myself from online and from friends I knew in high school. Instead, I became very close with my siblings and the few friend I had.
I can express myself however I want over words, but that isn't a guarantee that we will get a long in person. Chances are, my prescence and communication style will frustrate you as my attention fades in an out, I dissociate mid conversation, and continue the conversation with a forced question as I am too shy to ask you to repeat yourself. So maybe the internet is a more ideal medium to communicate?
So why have I returned? In the last two years I got my shit together and moved abroad, learned at least two new languages, and achieved career goals. But I have been struggling with a strong cloud of ennui. It took a summer back home, in my "hometown", Las Vegas, closely conversing with my sisteer and spending time doing errands for family (my dad has lymphoma) that I realized.. I was sick of exploring and wanted to start creating something of my own. I envied my friends who never really traveled but where well-read and strong writers, discussors, and musicians. I think I have to stop trying to be so outward and start focusing in on myself inwardly. This is not to say the outward efforts are for nothing. I enjoy going to concerts on my own, to restaurants on my own, walking the streets of Shanghai on my own. I think it is a necessary part of the "learning how to live alone" venture. But I think I had enough after a few months and two years of doing it. I want to retreat back into my apartment to dedicate myself to the skills that I probably.. possess... but do not cultivate.
I suffer from extreme lack of self-esteem but becoming a teacher kind of opened up my eyes, that people like me, pursuing language studiesm, learning humanities (philosophy), and STEM while also loving arts and music are rare... so I might as well make something out of it here. I think when I was younger, I was praised by teachers for writing. I never suffered from writer's block or whatever, and would instead blow out the word limits. I felt ashamed to neglect this skill, so maybe after two decades I will start writing and drawing again. I love learning, and continue to do so by watching The Great Courses for random classes but things kind of pass through my head, especially if I have no one to discuss them with. So I will try again to start writing again to coalesce these into essays and comparisons to allow me to deep dive.
Some projects that I am interested in:
1/ Get good at Chinese and write a post on how to learn Chinese from Visual Novels. I have two years to get sufficient.
2/ Get good a Physics and write some books and textbooks review.
3/ Cook some more! And draw a little cookbook with it
4/ Watch some movies and think about them or something
5/ Complete a zine. I have one in mind called "Toumei(na) Onna
Whenver I make a new friend I am always bumbling over this anime that inspired me to move abroad. No one really heard of it or liked it as well, but it is one of my favorite anime. I think in general, I like anime that feature travelors (Mushishi or other themes such as being girls, Girls Last Tour. This can be similarly made with video games, I grew up watching my brothers play games like Shadow of the Colossus, Ico and Nier Replicant, where the main protagonist runs free in this open field without encountering much NPCs. Somehow I really envy these characters that travel from place to place without a root. In these anime the characters are cool and collected or calm and chill. The female travelers are sweet and pure. The don't concern themselves with work or relationships with other people. In real life, I feel like travelers, whatever they are, are so sensationalized. They are content creators, sexpats or backpackers it seems. There was that article online about how van lifers are hypocritical, they escape from working for corporations, but instead fall victim to capitaslim as they are transformed into content creators. I find that highly annoying. Characters like those in Kino's Journey mostly only exist in fiction, I thought. But maybe these proverbial, quiet, travelors and nomads exist. They just don't flaunt it online. They simply continue to exist and "be", they take in these experiences and sensations and let them flow past them, not feeling a strong need to share, brag or display it online.
A lot of sources praise Kino no Tabi as being highly philosophical. As someone who came from a philosophy background, I don't really see it as the case. It doesn't make you think too hard, at least it doesn't make me think too hard. I remember showing it to a friend, and after the show he was a bit perplexed, and went.. ".. So is this irony?" I suppose that's it. The show is just a bit ironic. I think if it is philosophical, like anything can be, it is an exploration of moral relativism, which is kind of how it felt for me, naive, and leaving my country for the first time to travel..
I guess a personal struggly that I grapple with, is that there is no real person in real life that I really aspire to be like, and Kino from Kino's Journey is meant to fill in that gap. Sure, she is female, and some people debate over the fact that she is non-binary, I will not digress to that point because she was ultimately conceived of by an old, heterosexual Japanese man. In episode INSERT HERE her backstory was revealed, where she comes from the City of Adults. In such a city Kino was a nice girl who liked singing, but she observed how when her fellow peers reached a certain age, they would have to undergo a surgical procedure that turns them into adults. Then the travelor Kino enteres the city and disrupts the social order, getting killed in the process... Kino, the girl was next, but then she fled!
I like to imagine how there were parallels to my life. And these are rooted in notions of culture and coming-of-age ceremonies. I watched a Great Course about these adulthood ceremonies, how a lot of them are brutal, sometimes involving sex and genital mutilation, and how that renders the person as an "adult." In American society, the professor stated that we don't have the exact ceremony anymore. Sure, we have these milestones such as drinking age, driving age, and weddings, but nothing to actually signify that we are adults. In my household, we are Asian-American, we are kind of expected to stay forever until we get married. I was not going to put up with that. Due to modern society, the lines between child and adult are very much blurred. But I knew if I stayed home, I would never become an adult. There were an onslaught of other obligations, like caring for aging grandparents. There was an event where I was trying to call 911 to get help for my dying grandmother, and I was chased by my crazy aunt (she is against medical interventions and just wanted my grandmother to die!) in the streets. As the ambulance passed by me she socked me in the cheek and I re-entered the house bleeding. The ambulance people said I can file a police report, but I didn't. The whole scene felt very absurb, but I was filled with adrenaline:
"This is how Kino felt when she was about to be stabbed with a knife too!" I thought.
Did I become an adult by virtue of leaving and moving abroad? Hardly. I find that I am stuck in a position of liminality between child and adult. And this may persist throughout the rest of my life as I skip other major milestones in American society, these include marriage, buying a house, etc. In a way, it felt like Kino escaped from those obligations. At the end of every episode there is always a villager who yells at her "Hey why don't you stay here?" We can get married!" She does not put up with that and just zooms off on her motorbike, Hermes. And Hermes makes some remark about the city.
In a way, it calms me down as Kino gives an example of a character, however fictional, living outside of the bounds of society. She is just a traveler! And somehow people in the show and novel respect that. Whenever she arrives at a city she receives a lot of accollades for just arriving. They give her a personal tour, show off the city's cultural artifects, and sometimes provide her dinner and a place to stay. Gifts. I soon discovered that those parts of the sotyr is fictional, and I was not prepared for the deep feeling of alienation that I experienced among moving abroad. "It's a blessing and a curse!" A friend of mine would say, commenting on my status as ethnically ambiguous-- I do not look like a foreigner, yet I am. I suppose I do not stand out as a traveler until I open my mouth and speak. That is something that is not depicted in anime with travelers, the vast amounts of language and accents that the traveler encounters, and stresses and frustrations associated with learning and communicating through foggy mediums. But it is what it is.
I go back home to the states, and sometimes I don't feel like I quite belong better. There are scenes that are predominantly white and in those cases, I stand out. So the status of liminality persists. I imagine the scene from Mushishi where Ginko from Mushishi is stuck behind his eyelids, watching the stream of light underneath his light flowing accross, it is a like a river. But within that river are members of society - Chinese, American, whatever -- and they proceed forward on in life-- dating, marrying, having kids, working jobs. I am removed from such a society, it feels. A bit. I do have a job. But at my workplace I hardly interact with my coworkers. Instead they just leave me alone, where I can eat lunch at my own little table, situated between the Chinese and Singaporeans works and the foreign expats. Today my coworker commented on how I look younger each year, more like a student. I am unsure if it supposed to be a compliment or crticism, maybe it is kind of racist.. I have no idea how to dress like an "adult" and I gues also Asian and immature like the students, in some ways.
Somehow, I am complacent with this. Even back in the states I feel like I have only experiences the outeshell of American life, not knowing or being allowed into areas that are iconically "American" in my mind. I don't know. There where things I never went to, like prom, raves or house parties. But at the same time I guess I will be American and always American. Unlike Kino, who has none of these heritages or ethnicities, she is just Kino and most of the time they don't even hassle about her gender.
Lately, I have been accused of being avoidant. This is probably due to my upbringing, how I desperately devised a plan to leave the states. But I always lacked and feared notions of "community." I cherish friends, but communities! I reject all- be it ethnic, religions, schools or online. There are a lot of ingrained fears to this. One is that I fear that others may hate me. Some people don't like me. The other fear is that I become bored, or fall out of touch with the other person. I struggle to connect with most people, so I think it is okay to just "be" and not force myself to belong somewhere that I ultimately will never belong. The second fear is that they are draining - all the voices, and opinions of people who ultimately do not give a damn about you. I need the energy for myself! And finally, I have the fear that communities will trap me and keep me from pursuing my dream, which is to move to many countries. That is, if the community is comfortable. Wait, I have one more fear. It is the assimilating force of communities. I am highly impressionable. But also too nice, someone can really force me to act a certain way and admit that I like certain things that I do not. So I think I am better off going solo, but sometimes I see things that my friends like and they remind me of them. That is the most I can limit "community" to.
Initially, like the standard weeb, my plan was to move to Japan. Instead I ended up in the land where people who want to go to Japan but cannot go, that is China. But as I learn more about myself I think I am open to any country. Maybe even Vietnam, to reconnect with my heritage.
Sometimes I think I will fail to become like Kino. I think I am more like Hermes, which is her motorbike. I am a bit silly and aireheaded, and Hermes did this thing where he would forget certain words, scrambling them up with other words. I misuse and forget words all the time. And Hermes is a yapper! Like me. Kino is more of a listerner, which I suck at.
There is a thing about travelors in anime though, and them just being perpetually young. Kino is 15. I am in my 30s. Or maybe that is just a thing in anime, in general. She does have a boss from which she learned how to use her revolver from. I think characters like Boss are cool and miss the spotlight too. I always have that though, it is okay if I do not amount to anything this year, as I can be old and cool too.
story about reconnecting with family over the summer
story to buddhism
story about my envy towards functional white families, where the transfered knowledge is more "useful"
relevations about the value of learning how to cook and speak the language
story of my dad and the vietnamese james bond that he likes
story of how I am learning other asian languages, and not my own
story of how my parents came to america
is culture a social construct and not real?
I know Japanese. It is a bit like knowing Latin, I practically never use it other than to read a few pages a day and when overhearing it in the wild. My main reason and motivation was that I consumed a lot of Japanese media, anime music manga, and thought that I can make these more productive if I learned that language. It took so long and most of my life! But now no one is impressed. "What is Saku" I proceed to blabber about how it means that blooming of a flower. My friend says he is not interested in that, he just wanted to know what they sell.
Learning languages, or learning things in themselves is a testament to getting really good at something but not having anything to show for it or any praise of interest given about it... I think that is nice.