Close to you...

Starting from scratch in this country was f@#%ing hard. When we arrived in Japan, almost 2 years ago, we knew nobody, save for the family Matt did a homestay with 10 years ago. We were also poor, sinking our meagre funds into an apartment (we paid 5 months rent up front). Luckily, we didn't fall prey to the much-maligned "culture shock", but after a few months of being overwhelmed by the novelty of Tokyo, we did miss our friends back home a great deal.

It took us a long time to build up a new friendship network. Now its probably 50% Japanese, 50% foreign. At first, the most obvious source of friends was the ex-pat (ugh, hate that term, but I'm too hot to come up with anything witty) community, but its a fairly small pool and I'll be honest with you - I have found that I relate to relatively few of them. They're mostly decent people, but I'm talking about clicking with someone, having an affinity blah blah blah and just because someone's an "outsider" in a particular country, doesn't make them your kind of person (or vice versa). The ones we are close to however, rock my world (you know who you are).

Sometimes I wander what I'm doing, moving to different cities, countries, in search of new experiences like a dog sniffs another dog's butt. By nature, Matt and I are wanderers which is great for us as a couple, but not so great for maintaining our other relationships. We both get bored easily (but we're loyal! very loyal!), and the fact that Japan has held our interest for so long has been a big thing (read, surprise) for us.

Tokyo is a fantastic city to be anonymous in - you can observe human nature at work without becoming particularly involved. For the introvert in me, this is liberating. The extrovert in me continually cries out to get to know the locals better, which can be a cultural mine-field.

First, the personal space thing here is fraught with ambiguities. People squish onto trains and breathe each other's air, girls hold hands with each other, even the girls at my work like to hold my hand when they talk to me. In other situations, they bow to each other rather than shake hands. Public kissing (not talking about tonsil mauling, just a simple smooch) is still frowned upon.

And many Japanese are impenetrably difficult to read. The traditional "stomach-talk" - talking around the subject rather than about it (very popular in Japanese companies which is probably why nothing ever gets done and the economy is so shithouse) sometimes transfers itself to the dinner-party table. No-one in this city seems to want to cage an opinion, should it offend someone else. For me, coming from a country where opinions are encouraged, asking me to "stomach-talk" (and trust me, I can do it, I just hate it), is like asking me to stand naked in Shibuya Crossing with an American flag draped around my wares. I could do it, but it wouldn't make me feel so chipper. A few times I've gotten into scalding water with my company because of my "directness" and when it comes to friendships, I've had to compromise on this desire should I alienate someone I care about (alienating my company on the other hand, appears to be OK? Yes! Definitely OK!).

By default, other foreigners are "easier" to get to know, simply because they (generally) speak English and have a westernised mindset (though this is not always a good thing). As we got to know Japan and our friendship circle grew, more Japanese came on-board, mainly students of ours, or JTEs we taught with. But invariably these friends had pretty good English, had lived overseas or had a burning desire to. Now we're entering the third phase - befriending Japanese who love being Japanese whose English is dodgy at best.

Before the inevitable cries of "Well, what do you expect? They're Japanese", let me say one thing - to become close friends with someone you need communication and usually that means verbal communication. Even Matt, whose Japanese is damn good, struggles with the finer nuances of feeling and intention. So making the effort to get past the problems of language and culture has been both intimidating and rewarding. One of our gorgeous Japanese friends loves being Japanese. This may sound like stating the bleeding obvious, but I mean she f#$%^ing loves it - I swear to God she was a Geisha in a previous life. And I f@#%ing love getting to know her, in spite of the difficulties, because she has opened up a whole new world to me.

If only she'd been around when I was attempting to tie my yukata (no offence, Matt) and if only all of our new friends could come home with us when we leave...