The perils of being normal on a school trip to Japan

It’s August and I have to return to college soon. Almost all of my focus this summer has gone towards preparing for the arrival of my son. The last thing I want to put on this blog, before I forget, is a testament about my time in Japan. I went there for three weeks as part of Hofstra’s Study Abroad program. I signed up for the trip with full knowledge that it was a bad time to leave. It would take up the first three weeks of my summer, my fiancée would miss me, and I would lose valuable time at my job, which I can only work full-time a few weeks out of the year. And yet, despite my petty concerns, the timing of the trip was a near-biblical level of perfection. Hardly a week before I left, I was baptized into the Catholic Church. My fiancée’s period was two days late when I departed, and on the official day two of the trip, she sent me a picture of her positive test. In hindsight, I am very grateful that I wasn’t in America for that! My trip gave her parents three weeks to calm down and nobody ended up harvesting my organs. However, the trip wasn’t exactly a vacation. I faced challenges and discrimination for my new religion at the hands of some miserable people. I was used to political discrimination, but religious discrimination is different, and so is the accompanying resolve you feel. I would like to believe that this was all to prepare me for my new life, now that I’ve been reborn. But it’s only been two months so I don’t fucking know. All I know is that something-or-other good came out of this.

I still go to Hofstra, so I have to be balanced in how I write about this. Basic disclaimer: the school did fine, the trip was fun, the professors did a great job. It was their first time doing the trip since COVID and they made it an incredible experience for their part. All of the negative parts of the trip were things that they couldn’t have realistically done very much about. The assignments were sometimes unclear, but it’s stressful to run a whole tour, so I don’t care. The only people at the school who I would really criticize are the Study Abroad Office. If you’re planning to sign up for one of their programs, just be aware that there’s a hidden $6,000 fee for the three credits, on top of the price of the trip. They will never mention this to you and they will lie to your families about it if asked. Maybe you can get them to admit it if you explicitly ask “is there a hidden $6,000 fee?”, but I asked pretty clearly if there were additional fees and they lied. Everyone else on the trip said the same thing. We were all blindsided. It’s fine if you’re rich but pretty annoying if you’re a new father, your parents are dead, and the cost of the trip was a one-time gift from your aunt. I had to pay the hidden fee with my entire tax return and now I’m in poverty. Woohoo. I don’t care if I get sanctioned for mentioning that blatant fraud; on everything else that was negative, it’s hard to blame the school itself. They tend to pin everything (like the arrangements) on the tour company and I have no reason not to believe them.

Japan is a beautiful country. It puts America to shame. I could rave about the scenery and food all day. The economy is functional. You know, basic shit. In order to keep us thinking critically, all of us students had to do two projects. One about a location in Japan and one about a “cultural or social issue.” The cultural issue is the one I spent most of my time on. There are only two social issues that I really care about, in any context: the mistreatment of God and the mistreatment of people deemed “autistic.” The latter was the one I wrote about. I could copy-and-paste that whole essay, but TL;DR Japan is very cruel towards anyone who is unique or introverted. They’re “cruel” in the traditional sense of telling kids they should kill themselves, and not “cruel” in the roundabout way of telling kids they have fake diseases and then gangstalking them forever. It’s easy to write about autism, as long as you pretend that it’s a real disorder (reminder: it’s not), because then you can turn it into a “disability rights” issue and attack it from literally any angle. Of course, the actual problem is that Asian societies just don’t have enough respect for individuality in general, but nobody wants to hear about that. It might even be racist. Don’t get me wrong, nobody forced me to write about autismphobia (autismism?). It’s just that I’ve been conditioned to walk on eggshells, and using the frame of the institution’s dominant religion is the easiest way to not accidentally say something offensive. Every college student can relate to that. But, the college assignments were not the meat and potatoes of the college trip. That would be the other students and the interactions I had with them. I left Japan with many new friends and memories that I’ll treasure for the rest of my life. But more importantly, I learned how to stand my ground and respond to hostility from evil people with whom I’m stranded in a foreign country with no backup, and I learned how to do so without abandoning my new Christian disposition.

For pretty much all of these stories, it doesn’t matter who was who. Everyone was either tolerant of God or hostile towards God. I’m not going to list a whole fucking cast of characters, with fake names or otherwise. The only person who needs to be singled out is, of course, the transgender person, but I’m not going to name her. I don’t think it’s “harassment” to merely write about the fact that I was forced to sleep in the same room as an unnamed trans-identified female. If it is then boo-hoo. (Frankly, we could be a little fucking grateful that I didn’t press charges!). Anyway, when we arrived in Japan, we were all getting along great. We went to a maid café together. The guided tour was hit or miss, but we had lots of free time to hang out and explore Japan. We all had a pretty similar sense of humor. Actually, I found it interesting how confident and outspoken some of my peers were, even making “offensive” jokes that would’ve gotten us canceled (and damn near did!). I had friends like that in middle school, but I was cut off for a few years and I guess I forgot that people offline could also be normal. Most people, I suspect, agree with my disdain for “structured” (sanitized, HR) social interaction. It helped that several of us were openly Christian; now, THAT was certainly novel to me. Was there a cultural shift, or did I just get lucky with this group? I didn’t have to listen through a laundry list of triggers and made-up mental illnesses before interacting with someone. One person had PTSD-driven boundaries and they were completely reasonable.

But, of course, that’s out of the six people I actually got along with. I was still friendly with the others, for now, but not as much. Being a Christian gave me an easy shortcut to see who was a good-natured person and who wasn’t. Not that all good people are Christian, but good people who aren’t tend to be friendly towards those who are. The people who recoil when religion is mentioned are usually the bad ones. Bad people are those who don’t care about others, and who are only interested in their own amusement. They’ll pretend to be good until they decide it’s more fun to cause drama, or until someone makes them uncomfortable and they can’t work through it. They know no response to discomfort except rage. It took approximately seven days for an incident to occur that would expose who my friends and enemies were. Of course, again, I was stranded in Japan and at the mercy of the university; if anyone was ill-natured and willing to make up lies about me, I could quickly find myself in an Among Us situation. Thank God, literally, that I wasn’t outnumbered.

After the first week, we traveled from Tokyo to Kyoto. Well, first we visited Hiroshima, and let me tell you, “Samson Option” Israel should not be allowed to have nukes! We would stay in Kyoto for five days before returning to Tokyo for the last week of the trip. The trek itself was put on a Sunday so that none of us could attend mass, which isn’t discrimination I guess. Some random “blueberry café” in Kyoto is where everything went to shit. This was also when I was forced to room with the female. I didn’t complain because it was only five days, but if I knew what was about to happen on day two, I would have. The gist of the fight was this: one of my friends, a well-meaning Christian, asked my lovely roommate (a Jewish woman) for her opinion on a “theory” he read, which said that the long-awaited Jewish messiah could be the Antichrist described in Revelations. Yes, he did ask that question in good faith, knowing she was Jewish. It genuinely was in good faith. It’s not a fucking crime to be awkward. We had all been getting along for the past week, so I guess he let his guard down a little and assumed she wouldn’t overreact. She overreacted. She began to lecture the entire table about how the Church has historically been “exclusive” towards Jews, and how we can practice our religion BUT we have to disavow that history. She called my friend the antisemite word. (By the way, I had noticed her on her phone earlier typing a wall of text in a Discord channel called “antisemitism-talk” because an older Japanese woman mentioned that she supports people in Gaza). I defended my friend, because this woman was essentially saying that the entire foundation of our religion (that Jesus is the messiah and that the messiah that Jews are waiting for is a false one) is bigotry. I spoke in the same lighthearted tone of voice that I had been using for the entire trip. Really, I was very nice. But she still shrank and quieted down as if I had just ripped her heart out. Most of the group was in that café and they all heard the conversation. This is where the divide was formed.

Right away, two other girls changed their tone towards me. One of them just straight up cursed me out for no apparent reason. She pretended to be mad at a joke I made about copying her assignments or something, but we had been together for a week, so I knew that wasn’t true. Of course, the real reason is that they were both LGBT and had overheard the conversation. All my friends went on a trip to Kyoto Tower which I couldn’t afford, so I was left by myself for a while. My roommate didn’t bother me that night. I was honestly terrified that my friends were going to throw me under the bus to save their own asses, which is what I was used to happening when I was an atheist. I later found out what was really going on: by the Holy Spirit, we were standing our ground! The girls all had a fucking sleepover in somebody’s hotel room because my roommate no longer “felt safe near me.” They gossiped all night and constructed a narrative about how I was the most dangerous one on the trip because I “actually believed in the theory and wasn’t just asking.” By the way, it really isn’t even a “theory.” It’s kind of just an undeniable fact that if the Jewish “messiah” actually came, he would be either the Antichrist or his lackey who’s described in some verses. How else would it possibly go? It’s weird to think about all this shit when I’m trying to vacation in a Shinto/Buddhist country, but there’s only one religion that provokes evil to make trouble.

Anyway, the girls proceeded to invite one of the fucking professors into their room (???) and put my friend and I on trial without either of us there to defend ourselves. This is where I think something strange happened; normally, if a situation escalated to that point, I would be totally fucked. “Checkmate.” Designated threat, marked for a bad grade and possible deportation. But I guess I made a different impression while arguing for my actual faith, from a position of wanting salvation for everyone instead of from wanting to hurt people who made me angry. I suppose I gained some trust, and people actually defended me! It was really only three people on the entire trip of ten who wanted my head. The professor, who was obviously going to do whatever she must to appease the group, didn’t sense enough of a consensus to justify action against me. I spoke in defense of a Christian against Jewish bigotry in a college environment… and I actually got away with it!?

The highlight of the entire trip for me was Osaka. We took a train there from Kyoto on the day before our return to the Tokyo hotel. This was the first time since the hotel meeting that my friends and I were alone together. We were at the Osaka World Expo. My roommate came with us but she went off on her own, so we were able to speak freely. We spent the entire day having fun, exploring a myriad of cultures (some good some Turkmenistan), making jokes with each other and laughing about how retarded that whole situation was. The fact that they thought they could get the professor involved, and she would just automatically punish me for expressing Christian thought, is both telling and laughable. We all laughed. Yes, there were some subversive people who wanted to make trouble and ruin the trip. But we had all been brought together to have fun and enjoy ourselves. Why would we choose anger over joy? At this point, we had also filled some other students in about the drama (since we were talking about it so much), and there were six of us now laughing about it. Only half of us were Christian, and we were also pretty split on whether it’s right to pretend that my catty 4’10” roommate is a man, but what we all agreed on is that we wanted to have fun. We didn’t want to sit in hotel rooms and gossip about people for merely saying that Christ is real. Even those who didn’t believe were put off by the insanity of those who were angered by Christ’s presence. (By the way, one of those angry people was a cradle “Catholic” who went on to try to convince me to not seek reconciliation or take the Eucharist because it’d be better to wait and attend Mass in Japanese. Like, just for the fun of it. She thought that was more important than the sacraments, and I overheard her describe her entire theology to my roommate as “my parents taught me to just be nice to people.” She tried this as though she was an authority on the religion AFTER she sided with a bigoted Jewish woman over a “fellow” Christian and attempted to persecute me. Just thought that was funny.) I got sunburned, but when we left Osaka, I knew that all of these people had my back. I invited them all to my wedding. Because I believed in Christ, He too had my back this time, when before I was utterly defenseless against the possessed. I was rewarded for being outspoken and truthful with people being able to see my heart.

So how did the rest of the trip proceed? I did my presentation on autism. People liked it, kinda. All the presentations were boring. The girl who cursed me out did a presentation on LGBT rights in Japan, and she unironically used Greek-style pedophilia as an argument for gay people having a rich history there. This same girl expressed suicidal ideation throughout the trip and lashed out at several people, so maybe this ideology doesn’t make people happy. Ironically, I think my presentation was actually more compelling to everyone (professors included) as a social justice issue, meaning I became the greatest leftist on the trip while also being the greatest danger to them. Other than that, I enjoyed the trip. I managed to have fun. There were some moments I’m not proud of (like when I thought my roommate had stolen my debit card because she purposely made a fucking JoJo face when I told her I lost it), but I got to confess and receive forgiveness for those. Actually, my very first confession was in Japan! The priest was African (not American judging by his accent) and was extraordinarily nice to me. I felt safe with him despite it being a crowded church with a mile-long line behind me and while having no idea if I was even confessing right.

More importantly, to pivot back to the other major theme of this blog: I did just fine as someone diagnosed with “autism” in a country that’s supposed to be unlivable for us. Why? Because autism isn’t real, and I grew out of it. I masked the offensive parts of my natural personality, simply stopped being a pussy about my social anxiety, and functioned as a totally normal person. Of course, Japanese people have low standards for White American tourists, but I did as well as any other tourist… when sober at least. My faith led to infinitely more problems than my so-called “disability,” and is also the thing that solved all of those problems, so tell me which of those things is a greater factor in determining life outcomes? Maybe I should’ve converted a lot sooner, because atheism leads to more problems than autism!

I’m back in America now. I can’t eat sushi anymore because my fiancée is pregnant. Well, I could eat it, but I’m abstaining in solidarity with her. If any of my friends from the trip are reading this, I hope you all come to the wedding, even though it will have been a while. I miss you guys! And if any of the people who tried to ruin the trip for me are reading this: WOMP WOMP! Love triumphs over hatred. Real love, that is, not enablement of every negative impulse we have. The priest told me to pray for you guys as part of my penance, and I did. I hope that one day you can join us on the winning side. The moral of the story is: don’t be afraid to be a good person. There are horror stories of people getting kicked out of school for affirming the most basic truths. But goodness has been on the rise again lately, thanks to the efforts of a shitload of people who were fighting before I came to this side. In most cases, you can get away with standing up for yourself and setting boundaries. There are enough good people around that you’ll find some who will defend you when your boundaries are called “threatening.” Usually. And I’m not saying we should be cruel towards sick people like the ones I encountered and who I was forced to sleep with. I tried very hard not to be cruel towards them. But we don’t have to roll over and pretend to be comfortable with them when they disrespect us, either. We don’t have to share in their misery. We can say “I don’t agree with that” when they talk about their hatred towards normal people, and they’ll pretend to feel threatened and they’ll complain about feeling excluded, but they can’t really do anything about it because we’re in the right. There’s never been a better time to be optimistic, and it’s thanks to the awkward people who were relentlessly punished for failing to appease and keep up with the demands of the miserable, until the world finally realized that we don’t want to be ruled by miserable people who hate everyone.