A different world

One week left until the show. I think I'm ready, I hope everyone else will be too, because I really want this to be a performance I can be proud of. There were a lot of problems throughout the entire rehearsal period, but I'm still going to hope for the best. Even with all the issues, when I'm actually on stage playing my part I have so much fun... everything else fades away and I get to be crazy Capulet, the spinster woman stuck in a fantasy world that revolves around fluff like rainbows and romance novels. I was implicitly told by my director to overact because Capulet is just sooo over dramatic, so I really don't hold very much back. I jump around and flail my arms when I'm excited, I scream and cover my eyes when I'm scared... I'm absolutely ridiculous! When I was first cast as Capulet I couldn't stand her, she was just so obnoxious and I was not thrilled about having to play such an annoying character. I've changed my mind though, because while Capulet does live in a complete world of her own, she always sees the positive, dreamy side of things and I don't think that would be such a bad world to live in. In reality most people can't stand the real life Capulets, the ones who always seem to be happy and unaware of all the negativity and bad things in the world, but maybe... maybe the real reason is that we're jealous because we can't live in that world too.

The previous sentence just reminded me of something that I found out about when I first arrived in Japan, but had since forgotten to mention. The section of Tokyo I live in, Takashimadaira, is not very well known because it's small and on the outskirts of the city, but when people have heard about it there is normally one main reason why: suicide. Because of all the earthquakes in Japan, Tokyo in general has fairly low buildings, but Takashimadaira is a very residential area and for some reason it has unusually tall apartment complexes. As multiple people have explained to me, people would come from all over Tokyo to kill themselves in Takashimadaira by jumping off the tall buildings. To put an end to this incredibly awful problem, iron bars and grates were installed over all of the windows that line the open air corridors that people walk along to get into their apartments (and I'm assuming entry to the roof tops was blocked as well). As a result, all of the big apartments have an eerie prison like feel to them, and when I see the rows and rows of them as I ride by on the train I still get a little creeped out. I'm not sure if this is a well known fact outside of Japan (I forget whether I knew before hand), but Japan has an extremely high suicide rate, one of the highest in the entire world actually. I think there are a number of factors that play into why, but the majority of suicides are by middle aged business men, so it's pretty clear that the cultural attitudes and expectations regarding work values in Japan are pretty intense.

Sorry for the morbid subject matter, but living here forces me to think about things like this and I need this blog to help me make sense of my thoughts. Maybe living alone has actually caused me to think too much, to the point where I just over-analyze everything. Actually, I think I might have done that already, because my sister used to call me out on it. I was going to say that I could take my mind off such unpleasant thoughts by reading, but ironically, the book I just started is In Cold Blood, so perhaps not... Well either way, it's time for bed. I hope you all have a splendid week!