52 Countries in 52 Weeks, Chapter 23: Five conversations in Korea and Japan
In Which I Think About Friends, Kids, Normalcy, Purpose, And A Small Island Off The Coast of Thailand
“Right now, I’m still planning on going to Japan.”
It was 2am in Seoul. After a eight-hour flight, I was settled in my traditional Korean hanok to start the east Asia leg of this journey, and had a busy day ahead.
However, jet lag from Dubai had destroyed my sleep cycle. More importantly, Thomas had messaged me, wanting to give an update over the phone on his wife Sarah’s pregnancy situation.
And when you’ve been somebody’s best man at their wedding, you take those 2am phone calls.
“We’re waiting to hear back on a second opinion on if she’s allowed to fly,” he said.
In two weeks, Thomas and Sarah and their two-year old daughter were scheduled to join me in Tokyo and Kyoto.
Even after Sarah became pregnant, they still wanted to go — travelling had always been a big shared passion for them, and as Thomas pointed out, going on the road with two young children was going to be a tad more difficult than with just one.
“This was going to be the last trip in a while where we could have a little bit of our own space.”
But an ultrasound had discovered a complication, and they were now soliciting medical advice on whether Sarah should — or could — go.
Talking through the scenarios with me, Thomas was still planning on coming, while Sarah was TBD. Another doctor checkup would take place on October 30. We would touch base in between if anything happened.
I selfishly hoped nothing would happen.
It would be nice if I could see my friends and that plans I created months ago would remain in place. It would be nice if while I wandered around the earth, the rest of it would be frozen.
That’s how life works, of course.
“What is the point of doing this?”
The next morning, I met up with my old mentor Tamara, who like any good journalist knew how to ask direct questions to get to the heart of the matter.
We hadn’t really kept in touch after she moved from Vancouver to Asia mid-career to get a Master’s degree, so I repeated a lot of the lines I said to inquiring minds before I left, but had left somewhat examined for many months.
“There’s a few different points,” I said.
“I had never travelled outside North America before, realized I could pull it off personally and professionally, and the idea seemed like a ridiculous amount of fun.”
Which, check. Aside from ten or so annoying days (which usually involved a lot of airports or taxis), every section of this trip has been delightful, with bucket list experiences, unexpected and exhilarating moments of joy and wonder, and the general feeling of a kid in a candy story, amazed that I’m able to pull this off.
“I thought travelling would expand my perspective, and writing a book about what makes a world-class city would be interesting and professionally rewarding.”
Which, again, check. Exploring cities through the lens of my reporting on urban issues, and having the focus of writing a book to centre my experiences has been a great way of making me consider why I’m enjoying the spaces I’m in.
“And,” I said, “I’ve been doing basically the same thing in the same city for 17 years.”
“In another 17 years, I’ll be 55 years old. So this is basically an intermission at the end of Act 1 of my adult life, and gives me space and time to figure out if I want to make any big changes for Act 2.”
Which…well, that was still to be determined.
In my prescriptive fashion of trying to plan and quantify something inherently subjective, I had booked a beachfront hotel on a Thai island in late January for the purpose of taking stock of the trip, adding up the things I had learned, and deciding what those big changes might be.
Sometimes I would look at a picture of the hotel. It was such a serene postcard, warm wood panelling and bright curtains framing a perfect mix of sand and tree and ocean.
I would think about making those choices in the most relaxing setting possible, and how grateful I was for that privilege and opportunity.
Tamara understood. When she moved to Asia for her degree, she was feeling personal and professional ennui. Today she has a cool job with an amazing media company and a family she loves. Long-term travel isn’t a magic wand, though it has a way of changing people’s routines and unlocking new combinations that open up a new world of possibilities.
As she showed me parts of Seoul, we talked about how travel changes a person, on her observations of South Korea after being here for three years, on how cultural nationalism is so much greater here than in Canada, on the themes coming together for my book.
It was a wonderful few hours, but it had to end.
Among the changes in her life was being a new mom, and it was time to pick someone up from childcare.
“Pew pew pew! Arrrrrrgh!”
(Collapses on couch)
A week later, I was just outside Okayama, Japan, doing something I hadn’t done the entire trip: hang out with a family, enjoy a home-cooked meal, and have an imaginary battle with a toddler.
I had never met Drew, but he followed me on social media from his time living in Vancouver, and reached out on Instagram when he saw I was in his country.
Aside from a planned hike through ancient Japanese postal towns east of Nagoya, I had kept my itinerary deliberately sparse in the week before Thomas and Sarah arrived in Tokyo, planning to slowly amble my way northeast from Fukoka via the country’s excellent train system.
So a night with good company, grilled meats and sake?
As much as strangers make me anxious, this was an easy invitation to accept.
It helped that I sort of knew Drew, or at least knew of him. He used to be a vice-president at a big Vancouver company, the type that symbolized the city’s buzz after the Olympics, though left it for a variety of reasons, and became a travelling nomad for a bit before meeting the love of his life while in Japan.
(For anyone wanting to sleuth, all names in this piece have been changed)
He now lives in a quiet neighbourhood a 10-minute drive from a city of a million people. There’s a small bamboo grove in the backyard, and on the property are three structures: one for the grandparents, one for Drew’s family, and one that’s just a little two-storey turret, where Drew has created a shrine to his interests and collections, from an old Canucks jersey to D.O.A. punk records from the 80s, to scrapbooks and tickets and everything in between.
It’s kind of messy and kind of perfect.
I ask him what he misses most about Vancouver, and he says the ocean and the mountains and Stanley Park.
I used to sort of roll my eyes at that. Now I’ve been to 100 cities in a year, can count on one hand the places where the integration of city and nature comes even remotely close to my home, and I get it.
Drew then mentions his former professional life, and the joys of being at the centre of the city’s discussions, at the events and around the people trying to make it better and more interesting, and the energy that you just can’t replicate in a farmhouse in semi-urban Japan.
I smile because I know the feeling.
It’s a nonsense, expensive, endlessly contradictory city, with so much ambition and so little land or shared history to bind things together and make it work.
Then you’re biking on the seawall, and passing by families having a walk on South False Creek and whistling by the giant birds in Olympic Village, heading to Mt. Pleasant for a brunch or beer with friends, and you see the mountains and the towers and Science World glimmering against the water.
There’s nowhere else you’d rather be. There’s nowhere else you’d want to be better.
“Pew pew pew!”
His young son wants to resume our imaginary game of shooting invisible and undefined weapons at one another.
I am very good at this game. Humbly, I am very good getting on the same level as kids, at treating all of their joys and grievances and imaginations with full sincerity, at making funny monster faces and then collapsing into a heap on the couch.
It was nice to do it again.
To be clear, I do not want kids.
Never have, honestly. Aside from the fact I don’t think I’d be good at raising a human — given I have a panic attack when trying to fry an egg — there’s nothing in the back of my brain that makes me yearn for fatherhood in a sustained or deep biological way.
Still, on this trip kids keep entering my mind, in ways I did not anticipate.
I blame my wonderful friends.
Aside from Thomas and Sarah, the other couple where I was in their wedding party had their second child in August. A week later, my closest work friend FaceTimed me to tell me she was pregnant. Three weeks later, another friend did the same thing, making me both excited and suspicious of FaceTime requests for weeks afterwards.
A close friend’s social media posts are no longer about cats or work, and now mostly about her joys of becoming a de facto step parent. Two other friends have gotten engaged. When I chat with other folks in our group, they bring up how there are less large hangouts these days, and more small family things or events for people in particular neighbourhoods.
Of course, this is what happens: in your 20s your friends are your family, and in your 30s your family becomes your family.
I’m not particularly worried about those bonds dissolving though. We have group vacations twice a year, fake pagan holidays we sing songs for, multiple group chats and dozens of inside jokes. When I get back the vibe will be different, but the fundamental support networks will still be there. That all of this happened in one year feels sudden, but if it happened over three — and I was back home instead of everywhere else — it would feel natural.
(Plus, a lot of the kids will be fully at the age where I can play imaginary monster with them)
No, it’s not biology or friendship that plays games with my brain when I think about kids.
It’s normalcy and purpose.
Because that’s the path, right? You go to university, find a career, marry, buy property, have a kid — the exact order might vary, but that’s the progression that’s *supposed* to happen.
When you’re autistic, you tend to be innately aware at all the ways you process the world differently than most people.
Feeling different isn’t inherently better or worse, it’s just different, and something you’re reminded of in ways big and small every day.
Through routine and being around the same people and situations every day, that gap usually seems relatively small.
In a year where I’m wandering the world without commitments while the people closest to me are expanding their families, it seems like a chasm.
And when I return?
They will continue the daily work of caring for another human, of giving them skills and food and morals and joy.
I will be covering public hearings over whether a suburb will approve a tall building or not, and ranking the best malls in Canada’s third biggest metropolitan area.
It’s a different life. Not one inherently worse or better, but different.
And sometimes when you’re wandering an old Japanese village, you think about that a little bit more.
“Wait, Justin McElroy?”
One of the days between my hangouts with Tamara and Drew was the British Columbia provincial election.
In any other year it would have been the culmination of months of work and research, hundreds of hours of reporting diffused into a few hours of taking people through election results, and writing a couple thousand words on all what it all meant.
Instead, I was in a cute Korean cafe, ordering fun coffees and snacks every hour, toggling between two livestreams and an Elections BC result page, both completely in my element and completely out of it.
It was weird to see all my friends and colleagues put something together that I love so much and not helping them. It was doubly weird to read a few people talk about missing me online as though I was dead.
And it was triply weird to leave the cafe after that, walk down the street, and suddenly hear my name.
A couple from Vancouver had recognized me. We laughed and talked about how lovely Seoul was, and they said they were looking forward to watching my reporting again.
Before this trip, I said to friends that I was looking forward to a year of living anonymously.
While I enjoy my work, I was looking forward to a break from people coming up to me in a park or a pub or a baseball game, or getting messages from folks who saw me on the street and just want to say hi, or someone barging into my circle of friends at a nightclub.
Instead, I would get to wander cities quietly, observing and contemplating with purpose, curiosity and enthusiasm.
That’s mostly happened. But I’ve also had people come up to me in Seoul and Athens, in Los Angeles and Berlin, on the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland and a cruise ship dock in Trieste. Strangers have invited me to garden parties in Vienna, meals in Okayama, and other meetups far and wide.
By just being myself and talking about the things I find interesting, I’ve built up a life that strangers want to show their appreciation for, even halfway across the world.
To travel the earth for a year and observe things from a new perspective is an unbelievable privilege, and a window into all the new lives I could pursue.
But then I would lose the life I have. It’s not one inherently worse or better than others, but it’s mine.
Or, as Ernie sings in “I Don’t Want To Live On The Moon”:
“Thought I’d like to look down at the Earth from above/I would miss all the places and people I love.”
“We had our treat play a big trick on us today.”
It’s Halloween evening in Kamakura, a beach city full of shrines just to the south of Tokyo.
In 48 hours, Thomas and Sarah are set to join me. Or at least they were, until I get a series of Facebook messages on my phone.
“So none of us will be making it to Japan after all,” Thomas adds, after posting a picture of a very tiny creature in a special hospital unit.
Two months early, their baby is miraculously healthy. Our friend group arranges meals for them in the weeks to come. When I FaceTimed with them last week, they were all healthy and back at home.
They looked so happy, and I can’t wait until I can be a small part of their lives again.
In the meantime, I’ll continue exploring with purpose, curiousity and enthusiasm.
I don’t really need that beach hotel on that Thailand island anymore.
But I’ll enjoy it just the same.
Wow. Loved the introspection. You wrestled with some really big questions in this piece, and did so with such grace. Chef's kiss. I also loved the quote from "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon." That was my daughter's favourite song when she was a toddler. A very good friend learned it on guitar and played it for her on her second birthday. It's still in the rotation at our group sing-alongs 25 years later.
Beautifully composed reflection, Justin.