Kyouhei

Kyouhei moved to Berlin because Tokyo wasn’t holding his attention anymore. He’s a photographer—women, dogs, trees—the kind of thing that could be a career if he wanted it to be. Right now he works at a restaurant called Smart Deli. He was born in Okayama in 1988, lived in Tokyo for a while, then decided to leave. I like that he didn’t overthink it.

I met him because I’m moving to Tokyo next year for a project called FRIENDS IN TOKYO, and I can’t speak Japanese. He needs German. So we made an arrangement: he teaches me Japanese, I teach him German, we meet up a couple times a week and sort out the whole language barrier thing together.

This is not working. We sit down with our coffee and within five minutes we’re talking in English about Berghain or cheeseburgers or Mount Fuji. Sometimes one of us remembers we’re supposed to be learning and asks How do you say that? and we both feel briefly productive. Then we’re back to conversation that isn’t going anywhere in particular.

I’m a bad student. He’s not a great teacher. Neither of us really understands what tandem learning is supposed to look like. We just meet up and let the afternoon happen. Ninety-nine percent talking, one percent language acquisition. Or possibly it’s the reverse and I’m just not noticing.

Maybe this is fine. We’re not getting fluent in anything, but we’re getting something.