Escaping the "Bubble"

My ex-pat days are long behind me but their impact on my life remains.

Fortunately, unlike many “former expats”, I don’t have to rely on my memory of the time abroad because I return to Japan and China multiple times each year. I see the constant change in the Middle Kingdom and marvel at how slowly things change in the Land of the Rising Sun. I find both situations comforting and, from my perspective, as they should be.

My first trip to Asia was 23 years ago. Since that time I have spent almost the same amount time in Asia as I have in the US. I am writing this after a five-mile stroll through the quiet backstreets of Tokyo beginning at 5:30am and finishing at a coffee shop where the idea to write a blog post seized me.

Room with a View - 33 floors above Tokyo

Despite my strong Irish catholic origins, I have always appreciated the Confucian belief system that drives much of the behavior on this side of the world. I am more comfortable in the major cities of Asia than most big cities in the US. Moderate language skills certainly help when traveling in Japan and China but truth be told one can easily survive in most cities in Asia with only English fluency.

Few Americans truly appreciate how easy the Japanese have made getting around even for those who can’t speak a single word of the local language. It is easy to create an ex-pat bubble and have what amounts to an ersatz overseas experience. Not getting out of your comfort zone and embracing the culture is probably the biggest mistake most ex-pats living in Japan make.

Although I did a pretty good job of avoiding the “ex-pat” bubble trap when I lived in Japan and China, in recent years I fell into the trap of never pushing out my comfort zone on business trips – staying at the same hotels, eating in the same restaurants, taking the same running routes, etc.

Fortunately, when I lived in Japan I was not working a big company office with a large number of expats and bilingual staff. I had to set up an office and also worked in a joint venture company office where I was the only non-Japanese person. Unlike many of my peers, I went of my way to have a local experience – to the extent a foreigner in Japan can.

Tokyo is a Great City for Walking

My trip this week presented an unusual opportunity to move out of my self-created business trip rut. I was asked by a client to fly to Japan for a single meeting that had the potential to morph into additional dialog – or not. I decided to book myself for three days in Tokyo. Trips from North Carolina to Japan with just an overnight in-country actually are two nights sleeping on a plane and one night in a hotel. As the years go by I have lost my enthusiasm for Trans-Pacific “day trips”.

So I had three nights and the better part of four days on the ground in Tokyo and the unusual situation of mostly free time. Over those days I met socially with multiple local friends, stayed in a hotel I had never stayed in and walked over 120,000 steps (or approximately 50 miles/80km) in and around Tokyo. I purposely rode subway lines I had never been on, entered small suburban restaurants where non-Japanese don’t normally go and certainly not without a local friend. I speak Japanese well enough to go where foreigners don’t normally appear. It was refreshing to get outside my comfort zone in my “second home”.

Just Point to it - You don't have to Speak Japanese to Order Food in Tokyo

Walking for hours at time was great. Despite a population far greater than any American city there is a lot of green space in Tokyo. Surprisingly, in the early morning hours, I could walk for several minutes without seeing another soul. There is a peacefulness in Tokyo I never feel in NY, Shanghai or LA.

Best of all, thoughts of work left me. I thought about the time my family lived in Japan – learning how to get by in a very foreign world, my first feeble attempts at speaking the language, the joy of learning how to relate to people with a completely different world view.

My brief sojourn was more vacation than business (please don’t tell the client picking up the tab) but it was also a great reminder of how much my life has been enriched by spending more than a decade on the other side of the world. That said, it is important to take time to really see and experience  what is around you.  It is easy to take world travel for granted after so many years. Hopefully last week is a reminder that will stay with me for awhile.