Issue 2: Leaders

Grounded Immigrant

By Brendan Joel Reid

Tokyo is reminiscent of a Fisher Price í‚ © set I had when I was eight years old. The vehicles are of like-design, brightly coloured and made of meticulously crafted plastic. They fit in your hand; the cars and buildings and people fit together nice ní’ tightly in your mind. The uniforms of policeman and firemen and station attendants are neatly pressed and packaged; the roads intertwine in a spectacle of unbroken, jet-black, shiny asphalt that reminds you of a road you once built stretching from a doorway to a stairwell. Ití’s perfection. Just the way you thought it would be, should be. All the pieces are there for you to play with. And the label on the side of the box reads: NO APHORISMS PERTAINING TO ROME REQUIRED.

In Tokyo, you feel big AND small. You might feel this way because you are an outsider. Or perhaps you feel this way because of something you ate. Come to think of it, the shellfish you dined on last night hadní’t tasted quite right. Or maybe it was those eerily human looking mushrooms they put in your ramen! Conspirators must have fed you the legendary fungi species that grows only in the high-mountains, the one that saps you of your will to participate, agitate. You soon deduce that all foreigners are fed such a mushroom; because most of them exhibit the very same sloth you feel growing in you. After some time you might feel disconnected and wonder, where is my community. Where are my leaders? Nowhere. Why? Simple. Because they never bothered to learn the native tongue. Because they were lazy, the got cooshee teaching jobs, and they never bothered to acquire the one tool that is the basis for strong leadership and communities: open communication. Because you came here to run run run from something, not to something. And as for the oft mistreated Koreans, Chinese and Vietnamese, well, as far as youí’re concerned, they look Japanese, so it stands to reason that hey should to speak it! But doní’t panic, you were poisoned by the Pygmy Special Operatives Unit. Ití’s not your fault.

The fungi you unwittingly ingested has taken full effect. The world around you has shrunk down a size. You, and your brain, are like a brand-new cotton-T washed in hot water. Now you are left with no other choice but to contort your body to fit the shirt, and hope no one notices the sudden transformation. Everywhere you go you to duck: in subways, lavatories, gated entrances, restaurants and supermarkets. You are constantly battle with the embarrassment one feels at wearing clothes that are plain and simply too small. When you stand up in the trains, your head touches the ceiling of the car, the limits of the culture. If you want to look outside, the only decent angle you can get is either from a stopping position that likens you to Quasimodo, or by looking directly down and away like Bob from Awakening. And then, in a moment of clarity, you find fault not with yourself, but in my less than perfectly crafter Fisher-Price í‚ © set.