For the first time, I came to Japan, in 2003. I jokingly say that I have lived in Japan practically since the last century. To imagine how it was a long time ago, I can mention that at that time I was calling home to Lithuania with a landline phone. It was necessary to buy a prepaid card to pay about 20 EUR and it was possible to chat with the house for almost an hour. In those days, there was no Skype or Zoom or other technical inventions. There wasn’t even Facebook in Japan. And that’s how we lived in those times when, instead of facebook, a local network called MIXI somehow functioned in Japan. In such times, born and raised in the forests, in the wonderful resort of Druskininkai, I landed in a real metropolis.
Someone from International Christian University was supposed to meet me at Narita airport, where my OYR (one year regular) student academic year was supposed to start on the first day of September. So I arrived to Narita. Where to go, what to do?
While the plane is still flying, the kind flight attendant hands custom declaration sheet and something similar to a passenger declaration document. I approach the customs hall, pull out the aforementioned two forms and start filling them out.
When you first land in the land of dreams, all the questions and answers seem so important, so I fill them responsibly. With a trembling hand, I try to spell my name as beautifully as possible.
Ah, what else should I say here. How much money did I bring? I pull out dollars, euros, pounds, and even litas from the most secret pockets of my pants and jacket and try to count. Everything must be written in Japanese yen. Ok, so at what exchange rate should I convert my currency reserves. I start wandering around the lobby trying to find some information about today’s exchange rates.
Meanwhile, as you can imagine, the biggest Boeings are landing one after the other. About 500 travelers from America, about 500 more from Singapore, another 500 from Australia. The customs hall fills up in no time, and I’m still counting counting my pocket money.
Oh poor thing, until I went through customs, until I picked up my things, from the time the plane landed to the time I left the airport, almost three hours passed. Well, what do you think – a human robot from the university waited for me for three hours holding a sheet with Mr. Gelezauskas ICU. Now that I think about it, it must have been a man with iron nerves and balls of steel.
By the time we left the airport with the train, we bought the tickets, we arrived at the University campus, the evening had come. It was my entire journey from getting off the plane to knocking on the door to the ICU campus in the Musashisakai area that took until the evening. As I remember now, we took about 15 minutes by bus from the Musashisakai station to the ICU, and since it always gets dark very quickly in Japan, it seemed like the darkest night already at 6 pm. We get off the bus at the central gate of the ICU and walk. Night is around, cicadas are chirping and the roof of the ICU church is shining in the distance. A phantasmagoric sight and an indescribable feeling. Oh my goodness, where have I gotten to? The real shock for me. I feel like those Portuguese missionaries who came to baptize Japan, like a character in Endo Shusaku’s book “Silence”. When people ask me – Andrius, what was the biggest culture shock in Japan, I can safely say August 28, 2003, darkness, cicadas and a cross shining in front of my eyes. Thus my crusade in Japan has started.
