Going, going....

Guess which of these characters I most wanted to *be*.

Today is my last day of being a twentysomething. I feel like a thirtieth birthday is a rather arbitrary way by which to measure oneself. It’s only a date and the age itself is not really of great importance to me. However, I’ve noticed that many other people back in England think that it’s a fairly big deal. I’m not sure whether this is because they genuinely think that it’s a great occasion to be celebrated or whether the reaction is tied up in the clichés around being 30 years old. The former is a more attractive conclusion than the latter-but it feels like people are going through a process they feel obliged to follow. Although I’m cynical about the whole thing, I still feel grateful to them for thinking of me.

What’s interesting in Japan though, is just how unbothered people are. I’ve experienced incredible acts of kindness here and people have gone to great lengths to help me. I’ve felt that this kindness towards foreigners exceeds anything that foreigners receive when in equivalent positions in the UK. So it’s funny that birthdays-or thirtieth birthdays-just aren’t a big deal here. If I were at work in the UK, people would be mentioning it for days and probably ripping the piss out of me. Here, nobody is bothered. Perhaps the reason for this is that gift giving and obligations are so numerous already that there isn’t space to make a fuss of people’s thirtieth birthdays. Besides which, maybe thirty isn’t considered such an important age here. They have a Coming of Age Day when people turn 20, after all. Whatever the reason, I am very grateful for the low key way I will be able to celebrate tomorrow.

I went to taiko (a form of Japanese drumming) practice tonight and there was no bleeding this time. A new blister is developing but it’s gratifying that people didn’t have to clean up my bodily fluids on this occasion (cue Kenneth Williams). My group are incredibly welcoming, even though we find it hard to communicate. That’s not to say they don’t think of me as a big, giant freak though, because they do. Sometimes I enjoy being the giant freak though.