Yo!

In an effort to keep the tales of my adventures off of social media, which has since mostly become a dystopian collection of bad politics and memes, I have decided to start this blog.

For you see, I am living abroad in Japan on the JET program, as I have been for the past year and a half. I may be here another year. Maybe.

But for now, I shall tell my stories here. Like most JETs, I am not Japanese, and like some JETs, I have absolutely zero Asian DNA within me. This makes everything here exceptionally foreign to me. Maybe that's why I was drawn to this place - the more different something is, the more you can learn from it.

So far, I have found a lot to love about this beautiful country, although I've found some frustrations as well. The need for excellence, for example, the absolutely drowning, compulsive need for perfection and the value placed on saving face when you fail to achieve it, is a bit problematic. As such, I have titled the URL of this blog "Nippon Sanban."

That pretty much translates to Japan Number Three. Once, while passing a restaurant with friends, I found myself complaining about how everyone advertises themselves as Ichiban, or number one. It is, literally, the most disingenuous advertising in the world. The entire premise of being number one rests on there being only one. But everyone says they're number one. I am ichiban, says the man, across from the other man saying he is also ichiban.

One of you must be a liar.

So, I am not ichiban. I am maybe less than that, not number one, maybe not even number two. I admit that I am not perfect. Maybe number three. That way I can still win a trophy at a contest. Bronze all the way. And I'd be ok with less.

Anyway.

From here on out, I shall post about my life overseas here.

Also, I realize I said nothing positive about Japan in this post. There are positive things. Many, in fact. For example, food. Well, most food. I'll go into more detail later.