This semester has been absolutely mental and I'm trying my best not to drown. My friends have been really amazing and supportive so I'm really grateful for them.

Last week I was getting frustrated because I had been studying such long hours that the feelings of purposelessness from A-Levels and IGCSE resurfaced. I was whining to Damian, who said this:

"...It's not your true calling I understand! But the paramis that you need to develop!"

Such a simple little remark but it gave me lots of strength. The imagery of the 10 jars of water being filled up drop by drop came to mind. The grind that life gives us is the fodder we need to perfect all our qualities.

Funnily enough, some of us from uni visited Ajahn Kalyano at the monastery a few weeks back. He asked us how our studies were going. At the time, I didn't know I was headed for such a tough semester so I didn't think much of it, but Ajahn said something like, "With this, you just need lots of patience - khanti." Such pertinent advice.

A few months ago my big brother Ash also shared this Sufi quote with me which gave me life!

"If you're irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?"

We're often so scared of suffering and the feeling of unsatisfactoriness that we don't investigate it. But the mud is where the lotus is - this is so easy to forget.

When I'm going through an issue, basically my entire circle of friends will come to know about it... I'm sorry for being a downer the past few months you guys I love you thank you for your support hahaha

The reason I'm blogging now is because I'm really tired of my Syntax assignment and need a break, so here I am free-writing. But I did mention I had a list, so I've chosen a topic I wanted to write about.

Over the winter, I met up with my dad and brother in Tokyo. We stayed there for 3 days, then went to Okinawa for 5, and then back to Tokyo for another 2 (just my brother and I). While we were there, we took the cab a lot because we spoiled babies weren't used to all the walking in Tokyo haha. 

Anyway, I'm glad we did because, boy, did we gain lots of taxi driver wisdom. If you happen to be going to Japan and can speak Japanese conversationally (and are willing to spend more money cabbing), you're in luck. While the cabbies were quiet for the most part, we met a few gems who would start chatting us up heaps when they realised I could converse.

The first cabbie I remember sent us from Nishi-waseda to our hotel in Shinjuku. He spoke great English -- which is very rare among Japanese people in general, much less a cabbie -- so that itself was a major perk. He appeared to be in his fifties or so, and said he had majored in Psychology in university. The reason his English was so good was because he did a little exchange to Sydney and also worked a desk job in Germany. Also he was previously married to a German woman but got divorced. When I heard all that, I straight up asked him why he ended up becoming a taxi driver. He said he's worked many different jobs but he's happy being a cabbie (though his friends think he's weird). Then he said, "Life is a funny thing."

I found it so special because Tokyo is this concrete metropolitan jungle whose society demands people to be on top of their careers, and especially having had a university education, you're expected to get this amazing DESK job but look at this fine, happy specimen who is none of that and is just living life on his own terms. It was a good day.

The next cabbie we met was when we were trying to get from Ginza to this sport shop in Shinjuku. It was a long weekend coming up so traffic was horrendous so we ended up taking a long time to get there even though the distance wasn't very large. But it was such a great time because we had this amazing cabbie. This guy wasn't as 'exposed' to the world outside Japan as the last, he was more of a typical Japanese who had never left the country before (he actually mentioned this).

He was like super excited to be talking to us because his company had just started giving English lessons to taxi drivers in the morning before work. He could communicate with us a little because of that and that I could speak a little Japanese too got him really chatty hahahaha. 

I remember we were just like sitting in silence when we got in the car, then he starts talking to me a little. After the preliminary conversation dies down, the bloke randomly asks questions like, "Hey did you know why we call the Japanese Yen the Japanese Yen?" So we spend the entire car-ride talking about Japanese history, like stuff about the Mongols invading Japan and that like no one really knows which of the nations came first because the style of battle between the two are quite similar? (No idea if my understanding or memory is accurate). Anyway, my Japanese is extremely limited so I was trying to catch what he was saying and when I started understanding something he would go really into it and use big words that I didn't recognise and I would sort of go like whoa wait and whip out Google Translate, and this would happen repeatedly, and the bloke would start laughing when I really didn't understand the depth of what he was saying. 

But all this talk about history got my dad so super excited because he's a big fan of history, especially about war, and he knew about this stuff so I was trying to translate between them. It was so fun but also a big problem because not only were things getting lost in translation but this guy was making big claims about Japanese history which seemed to be kinda controversial and when I asked him how he knew this stuff he would source a Japanese YouTube channel - like Malaysian uncles for political videos - which seemed low-key dodge.

Anyway at one point he started saying that Japan is all about harmony because the country is basically an island and historically they relied on a lot of external help from other countries. He said this harmony thing was linked to one of the symbols in their country (soz guys this is all really fuzzy right now). What I remember is the conversation turned to 'kids these days'. He started saying that the education in Japan today is sooo different from the education in his day. I think he said people these days don't connect like they used to. I started saying how society is more materialistic these days, always going through the rat-race, and he said yeah that's because young people 'dont know enough'. He said the older generation was taught contentment. He used the words 「足りを知る」which I think is such beautiful Japanese. It literally means 'know enough', 'enough' being a noun here.

He also started saying how we are dependent on other people for survival. Something like if we choose to fend for ourselves only, we succeed; but if we take care of others and if others take care of us, it may not be as successful but it's better. I can't remember the details accurately now but the vibes were like collectivist > individualist.

At this point Ryan started getting restless because we had been in the car for nearly an hour already so I ask him how long more it's going to take, and it's like 5 minutes away. He apologises for the delay and asks us what else we'll be doing in Japan. I tell him we're going to Okinawa in a bit and he goes like, oh so lucky, wish I could go too but I have people I need to take care of.

Later on as we were reaching the destination I asked him why he decided to be a taxi driver. I asked him if it was fun, and he said yes. He then said a whole bunch of things I didn't catch but what I got was, fun comes from yourself, not from things outside. He told me to remember that the two important things in life are 権利 (rights) and 義務 (obligations) (I have no idea why he started talking about this ahahha). Then he said true happiness is being happy even when things are hard (he used the word 辛い).

[He then said something about the origin of the Japanese word for 'happiness' or 幸せ being the 'desire for grace' which Yuzuru later said was incorrect hahahhaaha]

He ended on that note and we thanked him for the great car-ride and told him to keep the change about which he was super happy. Such a simple joyful man!

That car-ride was better than lots of the things we did in Tokyo -- taxi driver wisdom, man. Is there anything more profound?

I don't know why but this is the second year in a row I've spent winter in Japan, which is summer there, which is like totally not the period people should be going to the land of the rising sun. There were heatwaves and floods happening in parts of the country which was like whoa. 

I got to meet Yuki in Tokyo, another language exchange friend who is really really sweet and soft-spoken and pure. We met up with Yuzu twice too which was nice.

Visited the Women's Active Museum on War and Peace in Nishi-Waseda, which is dedicated to the memory of the so-called 'comfort women' during WWII. The place is tiny and run by a few workers and volunteers. I think it's the only place of its kind in Japan, since the issue is incredibly complex and controversial over there. The lady there gave us some explanations but it was in Japanese so highly recommend bringing someone who can translate for you if you go. There were resources in English, but not enough volunteers there that could speak English that they can do an impromptu tour of the place in English.

Also visited Hacksaw Ridge in Okinawa, which was cool (fam's like rly into this stuff).

Don't have much else to say about the trip except that I decided not to go on exchange next year after properly exploring Tokyo for the first time. I'd learned all about the society in theory but never realised the place was pretty much incompatible with my way of life. I've been telling people it's like HK on steroids haha I'm sorry

I would go to Kyoto or something for exchange if I could but one of the core subjects required for my major was only available at Waseda (but then again the scope of my research was quite limited) so yeah not really an option. Oh well.

Here are pictures though!!