Trends in Japan is featuring notable foreign residents of Japan. This month we are honored to have an essay written especially for Trends in Japan by award-winning author David Peace. While known primarily as a writer of crime novels, Mr. Peace shares with readers the story of his first day in Japan. DAVID PEACE: Stranger in a Strange Land October 31, 2001 I have lived and worked in Japan for the past seven years, seven very happy and positive years that have changed my life. Why and how this came about, I believe, has much to do with why I initially chose to come to Japan and how my first impressions of the country were formed. Originally, I decided to come to Japan more as a reaction against my experiences teaching in England and Turkey than any reason specific to Japan. But I did want to live in a safe country and work in a secure economy with a guaranteed wage at the end of every month. For these reasons I chose to come to Japan and work for a large language school. Only when I was due to leave for Japan did I actually start to research into the country. The things I did are probably very typical of a young British person's perception of Japanese Culture: I read Haruki Murakami and watched Seven Samurai. People also warned me it would be an expensive place to live, but that Tokyo looked like the film Bladerunner. The London to Tokyo flight takes 13 hours and it's usually morning when you finally arrive but still night in your head. When I landed at Narita it was also hot and humid with a distinct absence of neon. I was met on behalf of my employer by an Austrian man and driven to a run-down two-story building somewhere in Chiba where I was shown into a single room with just enough space for two futons, a toilet-cum-shower unit, and lots of cockroaches and mosquitoes. I was told to take off my boots and share this room with another man. After the Austrian had taken 50,000 yen from me and left, I sat in the doorway depressed and unsure of what to do next. This wasn't like Bladerunner at all. Finally I decided to find something to eat. It was 11 am. Outside the building, each direction seemed identical. I walked to a main road with garages, video stores, a 24-hour jeans shop, a launderette, and a convenience store. Inside the convenience store there were balls of rice wrapped in green paper and hot food soaking in brown water on the counter. I chose a hamburger. The young girl in the green jacket behind the counter asked me something. I didn't understand but I smiled anyway. She smiled back and pointed at the microwave. I nodded. She put my hamburger in the microwave. I gave her some money. She gave me some change and then my hamburger. I went outside and bought a Coke from a vending machine. I sat on a wall and ate my hamburger and drank my Coke as a giant white cat waved at me from across the road. It was 11:30 am. I started back to the apartment. I crossed the main road and walked up the street to the two-story building. Opposite the building was a shop with a giant bowl of steaming plastic noodles standing outside. I hadn't noticed this before. I hadn't noticed it before because I was on the wrong street. I walked back down to the main road and turned up the next side street. I passed a row of game machines filled with more robot cats. I hadn't noticed them before either. I realized then that I did not have the address of my room. Nor did I have a single telephone number to call. It was 12:00 noon. I had been in Japan just three hours and I was lost. I walked back to the main road and looked up and down the concrete avenue. I took another turning. Halfway up this street an elderly lady stopped to stare as I walked past. She kept staring as I walked up and down searching for my home. Wrong again, I walked back down the street. As I passed the old lady she suddenly said in perfect English, "Excuse me?" I stopped. "Yes?" "Are you lost?" she asked.   Your Name What did you think of this article? It was interesting. It was boring. Send this article to a friend "Yes I am." "Maybe you live on the next street," she smiled. "Follow me." We walked down the side of a family restaurant and out onto another street and there, sure enough, was my apartment building. "Thank you," I said. "You're welcome," she replied and walked away. Two weeks later I had moved to a new apartment. I never saw the old lady again. In the remote hope that she is reading this and remembers helping a stranger in Gyotoku on September 22, 1994, thank you--because that stranger is now married with two children and a home of his own and not a stranger anymore. Maybe. Sometimes. David Peace Born in 1967 in West Yorkshire, England. Graduated from Manchester University. Came to Japan in 1994. Author of Nineteen Seventy Four, Nineteen Seventy Seven, and Nineteen Eighty. Currently lives in Tokyo with his wife and two children. Copyright (c) 2001 Japan Information Network. Edited by Japan Echo Inc. based on domestic Japanese news sources. Articles presented here are offered for reference purposes and do not necessarily represent the policy or views of the Japanese Government.