Poor in Japan I Made the Worse Decision Moving Here
When I moved here almost five years ago I had a plan; I had a plan five hours ago when I got home. Living here has been financially challenging. Careerwise it has put me years behind my peers. Demystifying Japan by existing here has been utterly soul-crushing. I’ve accomplished my dream of living here, but at what cost? Were the small specs of gold in the mud worth all the digging?
I sat stunned as I looked at the pile of bills on the ground that I couldn’t pay. An hour and a half passed before I could bring myself to do anything. This had been nearly the sixth time I had run out of money in Japan. Just like last time I was broke and hopeless, I simply lie on the ground. I didn’t have the energy to even go to the bed two feet away from me. Anxiety kept me from sleeping so I simply looked up at the ceiling pattern.
Five Years of Being Poor in Japan
The moment I landed in Japan I was struggling to keep my head above water. My legs were tired of treading water and soon I would lose the will to swim. Unlike many who had traveled to Japan with positive stories from the Jet Programme, to the Japanese people and government, I was an unwanted product. Instead, I squeezed in with some barely legal ALT company who treated their employees like the JET rejects we were.
JET Programme participants usually got much better pay, subsidized housing, and much better job offers upon leaving. They did the exact same job, but even then Japan’s salaries for entry-level employees even ignoring the exchange rate is some of the worst for developed countries. Even those prestige JET positions that people raved about in the 70s, 80s, 90s, was a low-income for a college graduate. . .maybe that’s a generational problem rather than a Japanese one. Everyone is poor in Japan . .. not just foreigners
Walking In Place
Thirty years ago is a long time. . .hell five years is a long time. After five years of trying to make “it” happen and I found myself in the same place. No money, hope, and broken lying on the floor looking at the oddly familiar roof material. I had footage of the recent drift event I attended. . . I was supposed to edit it and “Live the JDM Dream” that the elite YouTubers and only the elite YouTubers lived. Losers like me sat on the side of the track with a camera that was as beat up, hopeless, aged, and battered as the nigga holding it. Electronics are expensive in America, but when you’re poor in japan it’s worse because of the exchange rate.
My Japan plan and my night’s plan went to shit as I looked at an unforeseen residence tax for a city I no longer resided in, the monthly regular bills, and the bill to fix some asshole’s Lexus. . .even though the accident was mostly entirely his own fault. I hoped karma would rip him a new asshole. . .me wanting that makes me just as much of a punk, what I really wanted to do was key his newly repaired Lexus in a stealth mission at night or slash his tire. . . but I’m not above that just afraid of the consequences. . .or better yet fill his gas tank with water. . . but yes not above that . . . the benefits don’t outweigh the consequences. . .oh I can dream of sweet revenge.
It wasn’t just thoughts about revenge. I had thoughts of crashing my car on purpose without my seatbelt. The visualizations shifted to me hanging from the everyday noose we called a necktie. I wanted to just disappear and not deal with anything.
Walking Dead
I willed myself to put on my workout clothes and go to the underused gym that I didn’t even know I could afford next month’s admission fee. I didn’t want to move or do anything yet I found myself pouring my anger and frustration into an epic hour-long stationary bike ride. Being the weirdo I was while on the bike I liked to pretend I was DJing to a large crowd of people. I sat in my fantasy pretending to EQ, Play with Faders, scratch, and add spinbacks and effects. When I walked through the hallways I’d live out fantasies of driving race cars or being spiderman. Living in fantasy was the one thing that kept me from taking my life.
Cooling off, I practiced some dance moves. I thought of all those people who were able to make a living off something cool like dancing or DJing. The zen part of me thought that shouldn’t you do those things anyway because you like doing them. Isn’t there some merit to just enjoying them without any reward? I practiced some new shuffle moves in the dark glass that became mirrors at night. Japanese Gyms were whack, sure they had baths. . . but you couldn’t use the studios without entering a class for some reason.
Endorphins
Oh, the way the naturally occurring drugs calmed me down. I felt good for no reason after taking a hot shower, putting on my eczema creams (fuck eczema), and relaxing in my favorite attire. My hoodie and sweatpants made me feel warm and cozy enough to pay most of my bills. I looked at the nearly 600-dollar tax and the 800-dollar repair fee and wondered how I was gonna pull some magic out of my ass to cover them. The debt to my friend and professional drifter Yoshitatsu loomed over my head. It took 2000 dollars for registering my car that I need to get to work.
I looked at my options and canceled my BetterHelp subscription right before payment was due on the 30th. Exactly what a person with poor mental health needs when they are in a tough spot. Being cut off from your mental health provider. Was I Arthur Fleck now? A part of me hated the society that punished poor people for being poor. We’re gonna charge you money for not having money for taxes, bills, or insurance. . . You know that thing you don’t have?
I Take Responsibility For Some of my Misfortune
When you’re poor in japan you’ve got to take some responsibility
There were some things I was at fault for. I had stupidly purchased a $500 Gpu when I had a month of good overtime. It was to “invest in my twitch career“, a dream I should have alt+f4ed much sooner. I refused to live in the company apartments because they had no internet. The quality of the apartments was subpar, but I had lived in worse. My genes suck. . .nothing I can really do about that. The 1000 dollars a month in medical fees was something I was resentful for, despite the medicine giving me a relatively normal life.
I had taken a risk buying an EVO4 in hopes to sell it and start a business. The engine blew “living the JDM dream” in Gunma. My money and dreams vanished with that pop. Starting an exportation business exploded faster than my dreams of playing college lacrosse when my ACL also exploded.
I wanted to ask for more pay. . . to go home. Above all, I wanted to not be a failure. But that’s all I could think I was. Maybe I had gotten too comfortable and I needed a wake-up call. Anyway it’s time for me to really scaleback my life and start to monitor my expenses again.
Poor in Japan.
LaidbackMarco
