By Kevin Cooney
From my first few hours in Tokyo, now almost a decade ago, I have developed certain habits. Habits can be both good and bad. More often then not they are bad, but only because bad habits are usually more fun than good ones. Most of my daily rituals are insignificant at surface level but for me they are an anchor of sanity.
I have my nightly pudding before I go to bed. It is a specific pudding, from a specific shop, that I consume nightly with a little spoon. I try to tell them not to give me the little plastic spoon, since I have a specific pudding spoon waiting at home, but sometimes am too tired or distracted to stop them. At home I have a drawer designated for them called "The Cabinet of the Lost Spoons." If several hundred house guests were to suddenly appear, I would be well prepared regarding mini-spoons.
Now a pudding may not seem like much to you. Mine is not even the nicest pudding around. It is, I have decided after exhaustive research, the most economical yet delicious pudding for daily consumption. It is also except in dire emergencies the same pudding I have been eating since I landed.
Rolling my suitcase through the city I was overwhelmed by the lights an motion of Shinjuku on a late summer evening. Hustle that even as a New Yorker I was unaccustomed to see. Not because the people were so busy, but everything was busy. Signs, walls, ceilings, floors, faces, smells and more, so many things were familiar but indiscernible. My brain was calculating in overtime trying to process and analyze all of the new data streaming into my slack-jawed head. For the first few months it seemed like doing any sort of activity required more brain skill than I had been accustomed to. Even my toilet had options.
But in those first few days I found somethings through the sheer magic of guesswork that have stayed like tent poles unbroken by all the bizarre experiences I've had here. It was then, on my second sleepless night of jet-lag, wandering around at the nearby 7-11, that I found her waiting for me on the shelf, my little pudding. I'll admit, I haven't always been faithful. Japanese convenience stores are an unending cacophony of choice, but my decision has always been relatively easy. I know among all those puddings which one I will get each day.
Some might argue I am mired in a pudding rut. But getting into a routine is after all how the mind copes with change. The 9/11 terrorist attacks happened about a month after I arrived, and pudding was there for me. I've moved five times in Tokyo, but pudding is always at the nearest conbini. I deal with the new and unexpected everyday but always, I have my pudding.
But frankly there isn't so much of the unexpected these days. Pudding has friends now. I know what I'm going to order at the chinese restaurant before I sit down. I know the exact vending machine, and drink I will get as I walk from the house to the station. I have chosen my newspaper. I know the first thing I will order at any sushi restaurant I go to... ever. My life here has nearly become the exact same surprise-less routine that I had back home. It seems no matter how I change the surroundings, my mind aches for routine and with time everything becomes "normal."
Maybe I need to move to another country? Leave my pudding behind and search for new and exciting adventures abroad.
Where does Flan come from? Oh, nevermind.
From my first few hours in Tokyo, now almost a decade ago, I have developed certain habits. Habits can be both good and bad. More often then not they are bad, but only because bad habits are usually more fun than good ones. Most of my daily rituals are insignificant at surface level but for me they are an anchor of sanity.
I have my nightly pudding before I go to bed. It is a specific pudding, from a specific shop, that I consume nightly with a little spoon. I try to tell them not to give me the little plastic spoon, since I have a specific pudding spoon waiting at home, but sometimes am too tired or distracted to stop them. At home I have a drawer designated for them called "The Cabinet of the Lost Spoons." If several hundred house guests were to suddenly appear, I would be well prepared regarding mini-spoons.
Now a pudding may not seem like much to you. Mine is not even the nicest pudding around. It is, I have decided after exhaustive research, the most economical yet delicious pudding for daily consumption. It is also except in dire emergencies the same pudding I have been eating since I landed.
Rolling my suitcase through the city I was overwhelmed by the lights an motion of Shinjuku on a late summer evening. Hustle that even as a New Yorker I was unaccustomed to see. Not because the people were so busy, but everything was busy. Signs, walls, ceilings, floors, faces, smells and more, so many things were familiar but indiscernible. My brain was calculating in overtime trying to process and analyze all of the new data streaming into my slack-jawed head. For the first few months it seemed like doing any sort of activity required more brain skill than I had been accustomed to. Even my toilet had options.
But in those first few days I found somethings through the sheer magic of guesswork that have stayed like tent poles unbroken by all the bizarre experiences I've had here. It was then, on my second sleepless night of jet-lag, wandering around at the nearby 7-11, that I found her waiting for me on the shelf, my little pudding. I'll admit, I haven't always been faithful. Japanese convenience stores are an unending cacophony of choice, but my decision has always been relatively easy. I know among all those puddings which one I will get each day.
Some might argue I am mired in a pudding rut. But getting into a routine is after all how the mind copes with change. The 9/11 terrorist attacks happened about a month after I arrived, and pudding was there for me. I've moved five times in Tokyo, but pudding is always at the nearest conbini. I deal with the new and unexpected everyday but always, I have my pudding.
But frankly there isn't so much of the unexpected these days. Pudding has friends now. I know what I'm going to order at the chinese restaurant before I sit down. I know the exact vending machine, and drink I will get as I walk from the house to the station. I have chosen my newspaper. I know the first thing I will order at any sushi restaurant I go to... ever. My life here has nearly become the exact same surprise-less routine that I had back home. It seems no matter how I change the surroundings, my mind aches for routine and with time everything becomes "normal."
Maybe I need to move to another country? Leave my pudding behind and search for new and exciting adventures abroad.
Where does Flan come from? Oh, nevermind.
Maybe you could do something creative with your left over pudding spoons, like this-
http://media.photobucket.com/image/spoon%20art/daniel_toh/being%20different/2386899541_3dd1e7e9f5_o.jpg
Or you could just give them to people/have a massive egg and spoon race...minus the eggs...hmmm.
Anyway it would make good vlogging material. I'd like it. Although Life In Japan isn't really related to plastic spoons...or is it?
Hey Kevin,
Hilarious post. Btw, where can i see posts about your Comedy career.. ;)... Sounds wild.
Mike
PS. Is that bilingual comedy ala George Lopez?