27 September 2002
[footage from Narita bus trips]We arrived in Tokyo today, and everything has changed.
But I still have the feeling of coming home.
Even the language, which at one time seemed so impossible, floods my head instantly.
When the Japanese feel nostalgic they feel “Natsukashii”
I rode the bus from Narita Airport into the city…a two hour ride. When the jet lag hits, it’s like falling into a dream of Tokyo. You have to close your eyes and settle into it.
This is where it begins.
[continue on with bus shot w/ no v.o. for a while]I’m looking for something out here, but I’m not sure what.
Something about the Cowboys who come here…
the gaijin…
the foreign men who leave everything behind and cross oceans.
I’m sure they come for the money, but…somehow that doesn’t seem quite right.
It’s only the first layer.
But it’s the one I’ll start with.
There’s a guy I know from my time in Japan…came here in the early nineties…just after the bubble had burst.
Back in America, he had been corn fed on the idea that Japan was a place to make your fortune…
despite the economy.
It was a land of opportunity and freedom.
In the beginning of the 21st Century, my friend owns one of Tokyo’s top indigenous headhunting firms,
so he’s plugged into both the gaijin and the Japanese professional communities.
I wanna know if living on the post-modern urban frontier has lived up to his expectations. I wanna know if money bought him freedom and peace.
