Ten years ago today, I stepped off the plane in Tokyo and began a journey that meant so much to me, I’d later chronicle it in my book: Shakotan Blue. Wow, how time flies! In remembrance of the old days, here’s that book’s first chapter….

POST-APOCALYPTIC NATION

At 2:46p.m. on March 11th 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake rocked Japan. With an epicenter just 70km off the coast of Miyagi prefecture, in the Tōhoku (東北) region, the earthquake was the biggest ever to hit Japan, the fifth most powerful in Earth’s recorded history. You must have seen it on the news. It was the kind of earthquake that moves islands. It literally shifted the Earth on its axis by 25 centimeters. But even worse than the quake was the onslaught of tsunamis it triggered.

Videos of the event instantly streamed images of the devastation worldwide. Wave after wave rolled in, seawater rising up and engulfing everything in sight. The unbelievable destructive power of nature was on display as cars and buses were swept up alongside fishing boats. Eventually whole buildings succumbed to the unstoppable torrent. Landscapes changed in a matter of minutes. Entire cities destroyed. Nearly 16,000 people lost their lives, with another 2,670 gone missing.

The cataclysmic destruction of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami disaster was terrifying beyond imagination. Terrifying even for a nation that has survived the annihilation of two atomic bombs. It was a truly unfair blow to again be faced with apocalyptic devastation.

At 3:20p.m. on April 13th 2011, just a month after the 3.11 Earthquake, I arrived in Tokyo.

It had been a dream of mine to live in Japan for as long back as I can remember, and I had finally taken the steps to find a job that would allow me to do it. I applied for English teaching positions with every company I could find, even companies supplying teachers to Korea and China. Japan was always my first choice, but I wanted to cover all my bases. Eventually I landed a job as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) and was offered a position teaching in Sapporo (札幌), the biggest city on the northern island of Hokkaido (北海道). I knew relatively little about the city besides the fact that they had a famous brand of beer, and I had never really expected that I would end up in Hokkaido. There was sure to be long winters with lots and lots of snow. But it was still Japan, and I was stoked. Even after the Tōhoku disaster, my enthusiasm was unwavering.

My family didn’t want me to go, at least not after the disaster. My mother tried to support my decision, albeit with a touch of trepidation. My father suggested delaying my adventure, perhaps waiting for another year to be sure the coast was clear. My grandmother said flat-out that I was crazy for going (well, she said that to my mother while being more discreet in her direct communications with me). Word of radiation leaks and growing contamination from the Fukushima nuclear power plant were all over the news. The fear of radiation exposure was palpable, a silent specter adding lingering fear onto a monumental tragedy. Japan had gone from being a video game nerd’s Mecca to a hazardous fallout zone overnight. It was suddenly a place few tourists dared to tread. But I was resolute, committed to seeing my plan through and experiencing life in Japan.

The day before I left the US, I received a call from someone at my new company. Doug said that a new opportunity had opened up and they were now looking to deploy a Sapporo-bound teacher to a new, different location. Apparently this new contract was in a more rural town, not the big city like Sapporo, and it required some driving. Therefore, it required the teacher to get an International Driving permit from AAA before leaving the US. They needed someone who could already speak the language, preferably someone looking to be immersed in the culture. And they wanted to talk to the teacher, interview them face-to-face in Tokyo before training started, just to make sure they were the right fit for the position. If I was interested, he said that they would pay to change the date of my flight and fly me in a few days early to discuss everything.

“Oh, well actually I’m already flying in pretty early,” I said. “I have friends in Tokyo and I was planning on arriving about a week early to do some sightseeing. I leave tomorrow, actually.”

“Really…?” Doug replied. I had never met this man but I could tell that a devilish grin was spreading across his face. “Well, how about that? It’s like it’s fate.”

He persuaded me to get the International Driving permit before I left the country, just in case I was a good fit for the position. (This turned out to be a surprisingly quick and easy process, costing about $26. The International Driving permit, along with my valid Washington State driver’s license, officially allowed me to drive in something like 150 countries. And it was good for one year!) He said that when I arrived in Tokyo, he would be happy to meet me somewhere in the city and bring me into the office. If I wasn’t too jet-lagged, we could discuss the position and all the nitty-gritty details.

I didn’t particularly want to take a position where I would be required to drive. Also, despite my studies in college, my Japanese skills were almost completely nonexistent. So if they needed someone who could speak the language, I probably wasn’t a good candidate. Still, I liked the sound of an immersive experience. I had to wonder if Sapporo was too big and accommodating to foreigners to force me into speaking Japanese.

Doug agreed to meet me in the early evening on April 13th, at the Tokyo Dome Hotel.

And here I was, weighed down by an overstuffed backpack and two rolling suitcases, stepping out into the sunshine at the Narita Airport. This was it. At long last I was finally in Japan. So far, it just looked like an airport, any airport. I needed to find one of those bus services to drive me into the city. They usually drive to specific major hotels, and while the ride can take over an hour and a half, it’s a fairly cheap way to get you — and your oversized luggage — into town.

Stepping off that Bus at the Tokyo Dome Hotel, I got my first taste of Tokyo. The area around the Tokyo Dome was a bit strange. It was part mall, part amusement park, with lots of bright colors in the shadow of a gigantic white dome. The hotel seemed rather posh, not at all like the place I was destined to spend the next few nights.

A bellboy appeared, dressed in five-star attire complete with a porter hat. He started grabbing my suitcases, eager to help me inside the hotel. All the Japanese I had learned promptly evaporated as I awkwardly tried to wave off his assistance. The man looked at me perplexed as I gave up on trying to speak the language and said “sorry” in English, simply and sincerely. Bumbling, I collected my suitcases—one carry-on sized, the other gargantuan—and shambled past the front door with no intention of staying at this hotel. Once I was safely clear of the bustle of the entrance, I stopped and waited for my contact. Standing there with my luggage, I looked around for this Doug guy and generally people-watched. Lots of people were going to and fro, mostly groups of students, junior high and high school kids. No one took any notice of the random American with oversized baggage.

After what seemed like 15 or 20 minutes, I spotted another gaijin (外人), a foreigner, outsider) approaching from the other side of the hotel’s entrance. This gentleman didn’t match the mental image I had constructed of Doug from hearing his voice on the phone. I had envisioned a fairly young man, probably just a couple years older than me, and for some reason, I imagined his laid-back tone being communicated through his style of dress. Perhaps if he were wearing a suit and tie, I had thought the tie would be slack and dangling a bit, with his top button or two undone. I had imagined short, tossed hair and an intentional scruff of light facial hair. The man approaching couldn’t be Doug; he simply didn’t match my expectation.

“You must be Lucas,” he said as he closed the gap. “It’s nice to meet you in person.”

“And you must be Doug,” I said. “Thanks for coming out to meet me.”

Doug had a youthful vigor about him, but he was at least ten years older than I had expected him to be. Clean shaven, with round cheeks and a sharp nose, there were crinkles at the sides of his eyes signifying that he was certainly not my age. Despite the warm weather, he was sporting a suit with a jacket perhaps one size too small, and a hideous tie that made me think it must have been laundry day. He warmly welcomed me to Japan with a large, overemphasized smile. Then the smile vanished with comical speed as he changed gears in conversation. He guided us back to the company’s office.

At the company’s Tokyo headquarters, I had a meeting with Doug and a young Japanese woman responsible for the Hokkaido branch. Apparently she had a cold that day, because she wore a white surgical mask covering her mouth and nose. While this is common place in Japan nowadays, it was my first time interacting with someone wearing a mask that way. As juvenile as it was, I couldn’t help imagining that she was a secretly—or not so secretly—a ninja.

Doug informed me that the company had just recently secured a new contract to put an English teacher into a rural town by the name of Shakotan (積丹). Situated on a peninsula about an 80km drive from Sapporo, Shakotan’s main industries were fishing and farming. The town was very rural and it was likely that no one spoke English, with the possible exception of the junior high school’s English teacher. Therefore, they needed someone who could speak the language well enough to get by without English.

I tried to explain that while I had studied Japanese in school, I hadn’t actually used it in three years. And honestly, I wasn’t even very good to begin with. I expressed willingness—even eagerness—to learn as much of the language as possible. But I made it clear that if language proficiency was a must then I probably wasn’t the man for the job. Doug waved off my language concerns as excessive humility.

“No problem,” he said. “You will be amazed at how much you’ll learn from being immersed, being forced to speak the language every day.”

Doug pointed out that this contract was new for the town, as well as the company. Shakotan had never had a resident native English speaker before. This meant that whoever was placed there would be blazing a new trail, figuratively speaking. Then he asked me what I wanted to get out of my time in Japan, what I was looking for. When I said that becoming proficient in speaking Japanese was my primary goal, his eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas morning.

He started talking about his own experiences living in Sapporo versus teaching in a rural village, and he extolled the virtues of really getting out in the sticks. In his opinion, there was lots of fun to be had in the city, but if I was looking to experience Japanese culture and truly learn the language I needed to venture out into the country. Plus, he said, teaching in rural areas is exponentially more rewarding than city work, because classes are small and everyone really gets to know you.

“I’ve got a good feeling about this,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “Lucas, I think you’re the man for the job.”

I thought Doug made some solid points about the immersion that rural Japan had to offer, and his passion appeared genuine. I was moving to this country to truly experience a new way of life, and building my language skills was the most important aspect for me. With that in mind, could I really come halfway around the world, discover a new, unique opportunity, and just turn it down? Or did I need to find out how far down the rabbit hole goes?

We all agreed right then and there, I was headed for Shakotan.

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Shakotan Photos

What Lucas actually looked like 10 years ago.