Reverse Culture Shock

Being a tourist in your native country is an interesting experience, one I'd tried before on a pilgrimage to Canterbury via Oxford & Cambridge, but having been in Kawasaki for nine months, I noticed certain things that I'd forgotten about England, namely how beautiful the place is.

Something else I really enjoyed was eavesdropping on conversations. Any subject, no matter how trivial was music to my ears, more so when hearing two Londoners complaining about congestion charges - "Aaahw, it'll be push-boikes nex' wahnnit?" "Gor-blimey yer roight aintcha?" *

I was determined to sample uniquely English things one just can't find in Japan, namely English Breakfasts (the third one finally yielding that most elusive of beasts, the Hash Brown) and, something nowhere else in the world seems to do; pubs. Look in wonder at






The Tabard, Chiswick, London,








The Highbury Vaults, Cotham, Bristol,






and the legendary Duke of York, St Werburghs, Bristol.


Actually, my early pub experiences this year were worrying affairs, surrounded as I was by hordes of uncouth, vulgar, barbaric Westerners. Still, serves me right for drinking in Bolton.

Reverse culture shock is a peculiar old fruit - what I encountered in England was incredibly familiar, but somehow alien. Aspects of this were particularly pronounced when I returned to Japan, like the sheer volume of space back home, even in London. When I first came here I think I was still reeling from a host of other things, so I only gradually noticed how compressed everything is, it became mundane and I never noticed it. The trip to England has shown it in sharp contrast and made it almost surprising.

I read pretty much every advertisement on the London Underground, mostly due to delight that I actually could, but also down to the underlying crapness of English public transport. Maybe Japan has spoiled me with her optimum efficiency and subsequently aged me one or two decades, but really, pull your finger out Blighty.

Maybe the strangest part of being back in England was feeling rootless. Although it's "home", it isn't any more. Kawasaki isn't "home" but it's become that in another sense over a period of months. This is something I've read about, generally affecting expats, and confirmed by a Norwegian businessman I got chatting to on the way back to Japan. He's been going to Japan on and off for most of his life (he first arrived in 1960 on a propellor plane) and the place frustrates as much as it captivates him. ALT's who started working for my company at the same time as me had already been living in Japan, gone back to their country of origin, then returned, missing something about the place. As my travelling companion said, it becomes a part of you. Personally, it took me about a day to stop randomly bowing at people.


* "My Fair Lady"-isms may be products of the authors' excitement.