You Can't Go Home Again

I've been back in the Philippines for more than a month now,  and I'm still feeling nostalgia for Japan. Not in the marketing retro sense of the word, but in its original Greek meaning - a painful aching to return. 

Cities just make sense to me. I start with the information overlay - the maps and guides, the websites and travel forums, drilling down to the street level until I get a feel for the pattern language of a city. A mentor of mine taught me about how each city is an organism with a unique heartbeat. Travel from city to city often enough and you become sensitive to the variations in these heartbeats: In Tokyo that beat was always fast, always frantic. In Kyoto it was more ponderous, like a temple bell.

So much of our selves are linked to the background radiation of our cities, and we don't realize it until we start living in another - and the change in context jars us to realization. In Fukuoka, where there are fewer cars (and most of them far more well-maintained), I discovered that my nasal issues were due to the heavy air pollution of Manila, and that my constant stress headache was linked to the hellish gridlock of my home city.

Ruby once asked me why some fashion just seemed to work in Japan but would seem crazy in Manila, where the same set of clothes are available (and still weather appropriate). The best answer I could come up with is this - the difference lies in the city itself. You can have Instagram-worthy fashion in Japan (and the US, and Europe) because the cities provide a clean background - solid lines, great lighting, interesting textures. 

But that is all gone now. The first weeks back, I felt reverse culture shock even though I knew full well what to expect: the filthy streets, the mind-numbing traffic, the lack of basic organization and service standards. Those things I can get past through. What really shook me was that, after the elections, it turns out that I never really knew my people. Even as I served them and fought for them, I had always assumed that they shared fundamental values - like human rights and the rule of law. Turns out that's not the case. I also taught I knew my family and friends. Seeing them sublimating to the mob was painful.

I thought I was going home. Everyday it feels like I ended up in enemy territory.