Tokyo, July 2019.

My spaceship landed in Tokyo in early 2019. It felt like arriving on another planet. As I ‘touched down’, I knew the next two years would set a course that would influence the rest of my life.

My writing may seem, at times, biased, after all, I come from Mars and landed in Pluto. But, it also captures the fresh perspective of one’s first visit to Japan. This is no easy task. There are few cultures so complex and subtle as the Japanese.

Exploring unknown territories is not an alien concept to me. I was born in the Brazilian countryside and moved as a teenager to São Paulo, one of the busiest megalopolis in the world, where I lived and worked over the last decades. I studied in Germany for one year during college, and moved for a few months to San Francisco for work.

But landing here in Japan has been my most radical detour.

My move wasn’t part of some life changing master plan. That is not the type of creature I am. I also didn’t wake up one day with my mind locked on the idea: “I’m going to Japan!” It was the other way around. Japan called me, and I could not resist the charming invite.

I came here to work, to fuel my desire to explore and my urge to imagine. It feels like I am conquering an intriguing and dangerous world. It is my own private journey into the great unknown.

I made the decision to move abroad between the first and second rounds of the 2018 presidential elections in Brazil.  The turmoil in Brazil influenced my decision to say yes to travel. Being here, right now, feels like exile. 

I reckoned Japan may be upside down and far away, but moving here might give me a better perspective. Maybe some things will start to make sense. When I left Brazil back in 2019, even after a painful surgery to correct my myopia, it was difficult to see a decent present or a hopeful future for my home country, an absolutely unequal nation.

As I said, it is impossible to understand how it feels to be a foreigner in Japan unless you live through it. And as restless as I am, I had to experience it firsthand, I had to feel it.

The allure of fiction, the pull of poetry, the chaos, obedience, cruelty, and even the sordidness I experienced after scratching the surface of Japanese culture; it is all worth sharing.

Yoyogi Park, Tokyo / Photo: Fe Cerávolo

My emotional link to Japan

I’ve always had a place in my heart for Japan. Perhaps this isn’t surprising. After all, Japan has always been within reach for us Brazilians; Brazil is home to the largest Japanese community and best Japanese food outside Japan. Despite these familiarities, I still like to think that it was my own intuition that brought me here. 

Let’s forget about intuition for a while and focus on the facts.

I was born in the São Paulo countryside, growing up alongside the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Japanese immigrants.

My (non-Japanese) mother is an expert in Ikebana, the millennia-old Japanese flower art that was brought to Japan in the 6th century by Chinese Missionaries.

My brothers took Judo classes. My seven years old nephew takes Judo classes.

I had a number of close Japanese friends throughout my childhood. One of them was Murakami, ‘Mura’ (not the famous Japanese writer). His parents owned the jewelry store in my village. Another was Leticia, my neighbor and classmate. Her parents arrived in Brazil as children, growing up as Japanese immigrants, and Japanese culture was still very much steeped in their daily lives.

My father competed for his slot at Med School, in São Paulo, with the Japanese.

My sister, a surgeon, dated a Japanese doctor while in college.

My brother, also a doctor, is married to Dani, the bravest Japanese woman I know.

(No, I did not date a Japanese Doctor nor went to Med school).

My favorite childhood paraphernalia were erasers, stationery, and pencils illustrated with Japanese characters like Hello Kitty.

I eagerly drew manga characters with giant eyes, bright and alive (which my mother threw away, to my despair).

Several Japanese brands were interwoven into my life and childhood: Atari, Canon, Nikon, Sony, Yamaha and Honda. I still have the scar on my right thigh where I burnt it on my father’s Honda CB400 exhaust pipe.

Tokyo, through the eyes of the female alien. 

The body I inhabit is female, so for now, I will focus on that perspective.

You need a strong stomach to be a woman here. My perception might change over time, but at the moment what I see, as an outsider, is submission, arranged or “necessary” marriages that exist for the preservation of the status quo, and multiple bizarre incidents that surface the extremism of misogyny.

Taito City, Tokyo – Summer Festival / Photo: Fe Cerávolo

Hanging in the air is this eternal unspoken sentiment that the only formula for a “happy home” is a family made up of a straight couple, with well-educated and obedient children who speak softly and only when permitted. “What’s wrong with that Fernanda? The narrow mindedness was obvious to me”. If you cannot see it, I will lend you my old glasses, the ones I used before my myopia surgery.

Extremes and exceptions are part of any culture. Here I am talking about what caught my eye, the patterns I observed in Tokyo while wandering around my neighborhood, the surrounding area and suburbs, and even in my workplace. There is still a lot to explore.

Today, 70% of working-age women work, a percentage that represents a revolution over recent decades, and yet the environment is still very hostile to them. Japan has a long way to go to become an inclusive nation. I am not one to talk. In Brazil equal representation and inclusion are in short supply.  People of African ancestry have very little representation or power, yet they make up roughly 50% to 60% of our population. Not to mention the levels of violence against the LGBT community. But although I’d heard a lot about the millennia-old history of submission in Japan over the years, I was shocked at the degree to which it persists.

In Japan, women are forced to fight fiercely for a seat at the table, in effect, they must justify their presence. Even as a gaijin, or perhaps because of it, I feel this tension in the atmosphere. I feel it often, on countless occasions, daily.

“Fernanda, there are many places in the world like this. Just look at Brazil!” Well, yes. But Japan is supposed to be the future! Just like us Brazilians, in terms of building a more fair and just society, Japan is medieval!

Machismo is ingrained here. It is carefully disseminated and perpetuated in every facet of this hierarchical, caste-based society. It’s clear who commands and who obeys. Little room is left for spontaneity and more genuine relationships.

This causes a divide between genders that is near-impossible to bridge. Depression rates among young people are high, older people die alone in their homes and relationships built on genuine love are rare.

Put simply. He who does not bark, gets bitten.

Japan has a rich heritage, it is the land of samurai, ninjas, geishas, sumo wrestlers. But it is also a land of misplaced traditions, dark secrets and unfounded taboos. As a modern, western woman it can be baffling.

A paradise but beneath the surface, there exists a deep and inscrutable wound.

The End