Tokyo Time Warp

Since the end of snowboarding season, I have spent the past few weekends catching up with friends in Tokyo in a variety of activities that this city has to offer. Catching up with friends always takes a little more time and effort in Tokyo, as everybody seems to live such busy lives. Between work, family and relationships, it seems as though sometimes there is little time left over for meeting with friends.

My friends and I have affectionately named this phenomenon the “Tokyo Time Warp”. As in, when you say: “let’s catch up sometime after Golden Week” what you actually mean is “We’ll see you in the summer.” In analyzing the time disappearance, whilst at first glance, it seems improbable; in actuality it appears to be a function of the various demands on time in a large city.

This past weekend, I had the chance to catch up with some friends with whom I go snowboarding. In typical “Time Warp” fashion, it was our first reunion in almost two months. While there is a core group of both Japanese and foreign friends, who will be here for a number of years to come, there have always been a steady stream of those who are only passing through. This particularly hit home this weekend when I realized one of my acquaintances was leaving the country in only two months time.

This coupled with the fact that only a few weeks ago, another close friend recently announced her departure, really made me think about the transient nature of living in a big city. In fact, often the first question asked of a newcomer to this city is “how long have you been here?” quickly followed by “how long are you staying?” I even have some friends with a rather strict “longer than two years” policy for making new friends. Effectively, as these people are invested in staying in Japan for another three to five years, they are not really interested in meeting and/or befriending people who will only be around for a short period of time.

It really drove home to me the idea of making an extra effort to catch up with my friends, whether it was on the mountain during winter, or for a long weekend brunch in the city. This weekend we also had the chance to meet some newcomers to Tokyo, people who were already, after only three weeks here, totally enamored with the city. While they are on short-term contracts here, they clearly want this experience to become a long-term opportunity. I have found Japan has this addictive effect on people (the more you experience here, the more you want to experience) and who knows, perhaps these new friends will make the transition, becoming used to the Tokyo Time Warp and in the end become longer term residents here. After all, nobody in Japan can claim to have too many friends, right?!