Big Small World

I've recently travelled to Cambodia and Vietnam.

Besides me getting food poisoning and losing my appetite most of the trip...it made me feel grateful of my own country. 

I live in Japan, where everything is orderly and clean. This past 17 years of living in this country, made me realize how I have gotten so used to this convenience and cleanness. So let me tell you how this country works. 

First, we have convenience store all over the neighborhood. All of Japan, there are more than Fifty-thousands convenience stores, or conbini is how we call it, that are usually open 24 hours and sell anything you need: food, drink, toilet paper, underwear, magazine, medicine to sending out laundry. If you are living by yourself, you can basically live off of getting everything from convenience store. So you wake up in the morning, sleeping until very last moment and you realize you don't have food in your apartment. You can quickly stop by at the conbini in front of the train station and grab some bread and a milk togo. During the lunch break, you don't have time to go out and line up for the lunch special, you can quickly go to conbini and grab sandwich or set up meal with rice, meat and veggies togo. After work, you feel like you want to get some booze but don't feel like going to a bar alone? No problem, just stop by at conbini and grab booze and side dishes or even Sushi togo. Right before you step into a shower, you realized that the shampoo is out, you can walk two minutes away, there you go, you can get whole body products no problem. See how convenient with this conbini in our lives? 

Second, how train comes ON TIME, SHARP. I think train system is advanced in a lot of countries, and on Goggle map you can check which line to take and where to transfer etc. However, in Japan train comes on time as the sign says on the board or on the app you have on your phone. So pretty much if you know the time you get to the station, you can plan out the exact time that you are arriving to wherever destination you are going to. You think I'm kidding? I usually take 8:41 train to work every day, after that it is 8:53. Within that time frame, if the train got delayed for more than 2 minutes, it will announce that train is delayed and they will have a small slip proving it so you can take it to work to show that it wasn't your fault for being late. I mean...it is almost an art for being able to operate this precisely everyday. But ironically, Japan is one of the countries with high number for suicide rate, and is one of the top reasons for trains to get delayed. It could be this preciseness in this country, that makes people wants to kill themselves? Maybe...?

Third, this country is god damn clean! Especially in Tokyo that new buildings are constantly built and renovated that have the cleanness maintained. Besides that though, still everything is clean in a city like Kyoto where old buildings are maintained. I still haven't figured out exactly why this country is so clean...I mean, we litter and the population of smoking is probably way higher than the States, so theres cigarettes buds everywhere...but I walk around and theres no where as clean as Japan than any other countries. 

Fourth, we always have order in things. Like how elder people are respected in this country, we keep order with peace. We line up for things, theres always specific ways to do things everywhere, even in how we drink tea at a tea ceremony. I was at clinic today, waiting for my turn to come and made me think of what my foreign professor said about his experience of getting drivers license in Japan. He said that as a Gaijin (how we call foreigners) he didn't know where to line up and do what, but everyone there who are Japanese knew exactly where to go and what to do next. That made me think how Japanese people are very keen to what other people are doing, and are great at mimicing or following the crowd. We often refer ourselves as island people, hence it was convenience for us to maintain peace in this country that is surrounded by sea water, since theres no where to flea away. So we often read the situation and do the right thing in the environment, leading us to know what to do in the situation. Well, theres always a bad side to anything, and this mental state is the reason why Japan is still monogamous country that has hard time accepting foreigners for some people. 

I'm sure a lot of you out there have good days and bad days, and within the day theres good moments and bad moments...it always makes me wonder, what determines if your life is happy one or not?

I recently realized I am in a very dark place. I mean, usually I would have a reason why I am at the dark place, like bad relationships, bad breakups, bad day at work etc. But my recent "down" just seems like theres no big incident or anything. When I realized, I didn't have much people around me like I used to. I mean, I didn't always have a lot of friends but I had couple people around me that I knew that would be by my side when I needed them, and I knew that they would seek for my help if anything happened. However, all of those people are now distant, my so called best friends are just an acquaintance, and I get no birthday celebration messages from them anymore. I can't help but to ask myself...WHY?

Since the past, I was always the outsider, no matter where I go. I've moved a lot so much during childhood, I attended 3 elementary schools, 4 different Jr. high schools. Of course my school life was a disaster. I'm still not sure why it was...I couldn't get along with class mates, even if I found one girl that would accept me, her group wouldn't accept me and she and I would get kicked out of the group, or I would be friends with 3 girls and 2 girls ended up kicking me out or start to ignore me. Last couple years in high school, I was accepted in a group of friends, FINALLY, but I was always the outsider, who would not get invited or not a primary member to plan some events together. Even now, I am outcasted and I eventually gave up meeting them, because I always ended up feeling like outcast and are just the plus one in a group.

I was always the shy one, very introverted and didn't know how to talk to people. I mean, even now at a situations like parties I do not know how to have a nice conversation with people. I end up listening to other people talking and awkwardly just standing there like a statue, or awkwardly start a conversation with someone and thinking "I NEED TO RUN AWAY FROM THIS", looking for an excuse to leave, or if I'm lucky, the opponent will leave almost like running away. Every time I'm in the conversation with people I don't know, I feel like I don't know what to say in the conversation. I'm constantly thinking of what to say next, how to show that i'm interested in what they're saying, my mind is so loud that I can't hear what other person is saying. 

I'm so self conscious on what I say in the conversation, feels like I state the obvious or not saying something funny that I'm boring the shit our of the person...I guess I usually am. And hey, I spend most of the time watching comedies and TV shows, that I feel like I should be the master at saying funny things and enlightening the situation...but why do i suck so badly? 

So now, I'm trying to think of ways to better myself in the social situation or being likable person. And google tells me I must like myself before anything else! So, I dig deeper...yeah, liking yourself is HELLA DIFFICULT after 29 years of people disliking you and running away from ya.