In my experience, most gaijin who move here don't stay long. This country's emphasis on tradition and conformity can be pretty imposing, and the culture shock can feel like a straitjacket to some. Of course, many come here with a suitcase full of misguided expectations—about the culture, the economy, the women... mostly about themselves. Even the ones that say they're planning to stay here forever may be doing it for the wrong reasons. Whenever I ask, the long-termers always say the same thing: "There's nothing for me back home."

If you've read this site's archives, you'll know my first year here in Tokyo was no picnic. So, what with the previous three months of no blog entries, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that I ultimately got depressed, gave up, and bought a plane ticket outta here.

Which is pretty ironic, considering how sweet my life is right now. Stunningly sweet.

I live in a cozy apartment with a loft bedroom, a widescreen projection TV that takes up an entire wall, ample closet space and a small park just outside my front door. I'm a nine-minute walk from Ikebukuro station, one of the main transportation hubs of central Tokyo, and surrounded by a thousand shops and restaurants. In 30 minutes, I could be in Ginza. In an hour, Yokohama. In two hours, Kyoto. I work at most five hours a day—usually three. My job consists of chatting with charming Japanese grandmothers, teaching them how to pronounce words like "collateral," and answering tricky grammar questions. I spend at least an hour a day walking around Tokyo, and I eat Japanese food like sushi or tempura for lunch pretty much all the time. I have movie-watching parties at my apartment twice a month (which few people could attend if I didn't live in a hub city like Ikebukuro), and spend my free time teaching myself computer animation, watching Naruto or videoconferencing with friends over the Internet.

You'd have to be pretty nuts to walk away from all that. And yet that's what I'm doing, in four days. I don't know what my future in New York holds, but I'm pretty sure I'll be working more than three hours a day, and I'm pretty sure the job'll be a lot more stressful than just talking about verbs. I doubt I'll be seeing cherry blossoms outside my window, either.

Is my need to be a filmmaker so important? It's a pretty blissful existence I'm giving up. Obviously some part of my thinks so, or I wouldn't be doing this, but you know, I've been wrong before.