They put potatoes on the pizza here!

or how I learned to love the American Narrative

I was in some quasi-italian restaurant with some fellow international students when the prospect of spud-laced Za arose. It caught me horribly off guard, but it also made me incredibly happy. It was just another one of a countless line of strange differences between Japan and home, but it got me thinking about my feelings. Not necessarily if I missed home or any of the silly food we have there, but more how these alien experiences would come to impact me once this whole crazy endeavor is over.

I am more surprised than anyone to say this, but I’m proud to be an American. No, not in the silly, Bud-Light at a 4th of July BBQ, Don Mclean blasting on the stereo way; in a much more strange, much more complex kind of way. First off, Tokyo and Japan in general are beautiful. The perfect balance of modernity and tradition, chaos and order, love and fear. Now that does come off as a bit dramatic, but there is a poetry to life here that is so easy to see with foreign eyes. There is something beautiful about just riding on the subway and seeing how everyone interacts, swaying in place, sleeping or silently tapping away on phones. Or watching thousands of people cross the street, each off on their personal missions, each chasing their own hard to comprehend dragons. Even the act of eating is beautiful here, a practice raised by ritual phrases and foods that require the correct tools. It’s this duality of Japan that I think really attracted me to it. A culture that in many ways due to globalization is intimately familiar, but in many other ways so foreign, so alien, it is kind of scary. It’s with these kinds of thoughts swirling in my head that we ordered the potato and sausage pizza (with a quite a bit of broken Japanese) and I came to a conclusion.

As attractive as the Japanese Narrative is, (I mean the story of the country, it’s history, it’s evolving culture, it’s anthropomorphized characteristics) with its duality and its cutting-age technology governed by centuries old traditions; I can’t help but fall ever deeper in love with the United States. I love how broken we are. Which honest to goodness is not meant to be negative. Japan is just as broken as the United States in its own ways. What I mean to say, is that I like imperfection. I like that we get into senseless wars, persecute the disadvantaged and blindly destroy the planet. I also like how slowly but surely we are doing everything in our power to fix those problems and stop those practices. I like that we are learning. I like that for all our faults and for how up our own asses we can be, we still try to do good (even when it’s ultimately to protect our own interests). I like that we live more and more of our lives on the internet. I also like that we are finally figuring out how important the ability to do that is. I like that I can go to school. Believe or not, I even like that I will be paying for that privilege for the rest of my adult life. I like that we can all be so drastically different, but all know what a McDonald’s cheeseburger tastes like or that Big Bird’s best friend is named Snuffleupagus. As dumb is it may seem, I like, nay love, all of these positives and negatives. Perfection is a goal for the foolish and honestly, the best protagonists are imperfect anyway.

So I’ve got to say that me and the American Narrative, we’re pretty damn tight. A lot of that has to do with the fact that the United States is the story I was born into. It’s the story that I’m most likely to contribute to and the one I’m most likely to help write the end to. I could live in Japan for years, be fluent in the language and be able to tolerate sea urchin sushi and still I would not be able to claim that. My nationality, ethnicity and really just personal background in general are a gift and I’ve only just realized that. All it took was putting potatoes on a pizza.

So I’m going to keep exploring, keep loving Japan more and more everyday, but I can take comfort in the fact that now, waiting back home for me, is a great big country-sized Google Doc that everybody’s invited to edit. So check your Gmail and read the comments I left on paragraph two, I think they’re pretty damn funny.

P.S. Potatoes on pizza is the next peanut butter and jelly. You heard it here first.