Tokyo Actually
Since I was a little asshole, moving to Tokyo was the dream. The capital, the brightest and most dazzling city in the world. No question. Spending entire nights in some smoky manga café getting obliterated on beer and video games. Watching schoolgirls in uniform at secret rock clubs—thin ones, cute ones. Getting off on the neon signs and ramen shops and shopping centers.
Wait, remember when I wrote that hugely provocative thing called Goodbye Berlin, Go Fuck Yourself,
where I basically screamed Adios, bitches!
and got on a plane with all my stuff to spend the next year of my increasingly short life in Japan? Yeah? So here I am now. In Tokyo. And I’m thinking: Hm. Yeah, okay.
This dream had been so deep in me for so many years, through so many phases, that I probably never actually thought about what moving here would mean. Moving to Japan at almost 30. Whenever I heard Tokyo,
I’d get so hard I could cut steel, drooling all over the AKB48 fan magazines I’d bought months earlier and still couldn’t read a word of. But honestly, what’s there to understand about singing girls in bikinis anyway.
The excitement dies the moment you’re sitting in your tiny apartment. I used to think: Who cares how small it is, I’m never home anyway—out, out, partying in Shibuya, this is it, best life ever!
Now I’m thinking: For this much money I could rent a three-bedroom in Kreuzberg and actually have furniture that doesn’t look like it came from a fire sale. God, this fridge is loud.
I used to think: I want to be a Japanese teenager, they all save the world with giant robots while doing homework and flirting with the cute red-haired girl week after week!
Now I’m thinking: 99 percent of people here have no idea what I’m saying. I wanted my soup hot, HOT, not lukewarm. HOTTO. ATSUI. Fuck, I’m going to starve to death here.
I used to think: I don’t care what anyone else is doing, I’m happy just sitting in the Starbucks in Harajuku breathing in that loud, intense fashion-music world. Breathing it in real deep.
Now I’m thinking: Does nobody sit next to me because I’m foreign? Are they scared of me? Do I smell? I would genuinely trade a testicle right now for a proper almond-marzipan pastry from a real bakery.
I’m 29 years old. And I feel exactly like I did when I first showed up in Berlin. Building an entire new friend group from scratch? Vegetating in a tiny hole? And why do apples cost five euros? Look, maybe I’m just too old for this shit. Maybe you’re supposed to do this at 18, not now. This doesn’t feel like incredible freedom—it feels like exile. And I’m missing everything that’s actually happening back home.
Since I was a little asshole, moving to Tokyo was the dream. The capital, the brightest and most dazzling city in the world. But I haven’t stopped to think in years whether that’s still my dream. Whether my priorities have shifted. Whether it makes sense to keep burning everything down and starting over every few years.
So I sit here and imagine all the things I could do with the money I’m throwing out the window. All the people I’ve grown attached to. Real apples, not whatever these overpriced imposters are. Tokyo is wild. No argument. But every hour I feel less convinced this is where I’m supposed to be.
Am I about to be the world’s biggest idiot? The guy who threw everything away, cried for two days, and went running back to his mother? Will they put my picture next to irony
in the dictionary someday? First dissing Berlin like crazy, then crawling back on his hands and knees? Nope, not happening.
Maybe this is just homesickness talking right now. Maybe in a few months or years I’ll look back at these words and think what the fuck was I writing about.
Maybe the city will eventually swallow me whole and the love I felt last summer will come roaring back.
Or maybe I’ll be on a plane back home in a few days. See the wasted money as tuition in figuring out what actually matters. Go down in history as the ungrateful Tokyo enthusiast who had his shot and blew it. Either way.
What I did learn: Think sometimes. Even about the things that feel like they’re hardwired into you, like they don’t need a second look. Don’t just charge headfirst into every option that shows up just because it’s there. Think about it. Actually use your brain. Tokyo: Yeah, probably. But maybe not for a whole year. Maybe.