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Tag: misogyny

Becoming Desensitized

October 29, 2016October 29, 2016 tokyointerlopersLeave a comment

“The funny thing about travel is that no matter how completely you try to leave the country, be it Japan or wherever, the country never completely leaves you. So far, I’ve lived in four different countries – Japan, Vietnam, Spain, Saudi Arabia and now back to Vietnam. Each of those places, no matter how muchContinue reading Becoming Desensitized →

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A bit of shocking news: yours truly had heart failure and was admitted to the hospital a few days ago. While I won't be doing street interviews anytime soon, here are some scenes from my hospital bed in HCU (high care unit), taken with my phone.
Spring has sprung 🌸春が来た! Rare picture of my family having a stroll around our neighborhood today (with a bonus closeup of my one-year-old toddler begging to go out).
It’s graduation month 👩‍🎓 🎓 Time to embrace adulthood.
“I’m from Ukraine and I do web design. I also do cosplay in my spare time. It’s never too late to start something new. I’m 27 and I started this hobby during quarantine last year. Growing up, I’ve always wanted to do cosplay but couldn’t afford it. So I just watched others instead. But then last year, during lockdown, I had so much time for thoughts. I watched Tik Tokers. So many cosplayers there. Maybe I should try it too. Age doesn’t matter. If you have an opportunity, why not? When I cosplay, I feel brave. It’s good for creativity, for imagination. Rather than buying ready-made costumes, I can create my own.
“I’ve been dealing with depression for a while now. I think coronavirus was the tipping point that finally made me decide to seek medical help. I’m a student from Singapore and our campus classes switched to online last year. That exacerbated this feeling of being alone in a foreign country with little English support. I didn’t know who to reach out to. Good thing I got the courage to share what I was going through with my friends. Turns out a lot of people have been going through the same thing. I had no idea. Shared experience brings comfort. That’s why now I’m very open to talk about mental health issues. I feel like a lot of people suffer in silence. I’ve been isolated in my apartment for a whole year, and I was doing poorly in some classes due to lack of motivation to login online. I owe it to my friends who helped me get through these tough times in Japan. For six years, I didn’t want to reach out for help. Even when I was in Singapore, I was thinking, ‘I’m fine. I can do it. I can handle it.’ But I was not. Now I’m getting the help that I need and on-campus classes are set to resume. So fingers crossed that 2021 will be the year that I finally feel better mentally, physically and emotionally. Hope to see my friends face-to-face again.”.
Her: “We met at a music festival. I was born in Osaka but moved to Sweden when I was 12. I’m half Japanese, half Swedish. He’s half Japanese, half Iranian.”.

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