I went To My First Drift Event
alone, but being by myself isn’t a new feeling. Naturally being an introvert, I’m usually lost in my own mind anyway. After doing a lot of thinking, self improvement, and reading I decided to start expanding my comfort zone. One way to do this is to talk to strangers, the scariest thing in the world for me.
Being a foreigner and having a limited Japanese vocabulary makes this more difficult than usual as communication is made more difficult. One thing that makes talking to people easier is a similar interest, so when I was invited to go to a drift event I reluctantly accepted. The person who invited me had a breakdown on the way to the show so I was left to go through it alone.
Things Started Out as They Always do
my heart beat as I watched the other people chatting in groups, laughing, and enjoying themselves. My tendency to avoid eye-contact, and socializing in general manifested itself in using photography as an excuse to be alone. After all my reading I’d realized that now was the time to combat all these fears.
I said Hi to the one person I knew
he didn’t notice me at first so I gave him a light tap on the arm and said what’s up. Monti was busy because he had broken his axel, so he had to take care of that. It was comforting to start off talking to someone, filled with the courage from that experience, I began introducing myself to random strangers. Although I was still afraid to talk to people in groups, I took the time to awkwardly introduce myself and I found that it wasn’t as scary as I had made it out to be all these years.
After making small talk with people from Australia and Various parts of america there was still one fear I haven’t conquered yet.
Talking to a Japanese person.
I hovered around
groups of local japanese drifters only to nod my head, say hello, and turn and run like a dog with its tail between its legs. Making my way from one car and group to the next I hovered around an orange 180sx. Studying the exterior it looked an awful lot like my own S-Chassis. A man who was standing close to the car looked at me and nodded as I took a couple shots of his car.
あなたの車？ (Is this your car?) I managed to say before I even had time to think about it. To my suprise that small statement was enough to spark a conversation in japanese and english about the lack of turbos in both of our cars, the enjoyment of naturally aspirated car sounds, and his trip to america. Our conversation abruptly ended when I needed to rush to the bathroom to pee. I was happy having met a japanese friend and also being able to talk to people.
