Letters from Tokyo #10: Not Quite Belonging

Part of it. But not quite.

A quiet reflection on building a life without fully belonging

Most people arrive in Japan expecting that, over time, they’ll learn the language, understand the culture, and eventually fit in.

That was never really my experience…

Not long after moving here, I set myself up with a satellite dish so I could follow the Premier League and BBC News.

Looking back, that probably mattered more than I realised at the time.

This was before smartphones, apps and social media, so not being able to keep up with the news felt strangely isolating.

I’ve never really had a football team — more of a neutral, steering clear of the tribalism that can come with it. But whenever Crystal Palace F.C. were playing, I’d feel it more. Knowing that a few miles from the stadium, my friends and family were just getting on with their day.

One night, I drifted off while the news was on.

The voices carried through — familiar accents, familiar rhythm, familiar cadence — and somehow that was enough. I was back in the living room in South East London. My mother moving about in the kitchen. My father upstairs, practising the tenor horn. The fire going.

Nothing unusual. Just home.

It felt completely real.

Then I woke up.

For a moment, I didn’t know where I was. It took a few seconds — longer than it should have — for the room to settle back into place.

That disorienting feeling didn’t last long. But it stayed with me.

I was here, even if I wasn’t.

The reality is, I don’t think I ever really tried to “fit in” here.

If anything, in those early days, I leaned into being from somewhere else. The football, the news — not as a statement, just something familiar to hold onto while everything else found its shape.

Over time, that didn’t really change. It just became less noticeable.

I probably drink more Earl Grey now than I ever did in the UK. In fact, I never really liked it — too perfumed. But my mum loved it. Before moving here, it was mostly green tea.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it. Looking back, it’s hard not to wonder if it meant something.

The further away something gets, the more clearly it seems to define itself. The further away from Britain I felt, the more of those small habits I seemed to hold onto.

At the same time, I never replaced it with anything else.

I don’t watch Japanese TV, and I have very little sense of what’s current here in terms of popular culture.

Nor do I have much of a sense of what’s current in the UK.

Friends and colleagues sometimes ask me about things happening there — news, weather, whatever’s in the headlines — and I usually have to remind them I haven’t lived there for over twenty years.

A lot changes in that time.

They nod, and the conversation moves on.

And if I’m honest, I’ve never really tried to fill in that gap.

I just carried on.

Day to day, life is straightforward enough. I take the rubbish out, stop and talk to neighbours when I’m walking the dogs. There was an older woman nearby I used to speak with quite often. That’s less frequent now she’s moved away, but the rhythm of it is still there.

It’s not distant. It’s not uncomfortable.

It just is.

And language sits somewhere in the middle of all this.

There are times when it flows easily enough — familiar phrases, familiar conversations — and then there are moments where everything disappears. Words that should come naturally just… don’t. The sentence breaks apart halfway through and the conversation stalls.

Sometimes people assume I can’t speak Japanese at all.

I’m not sure that bothers me as much as it used to. Maybe a little more, in some ways. After this long, it feels like it should be different. But it never quite settles into something consistent.

And if I’m honest, it was never my main driving force.

I’ve simply built a life here that works for me.

Work, routines, responsibilities — the usual things. In some ways, I’m part of the community. In others, I’m just living alongside it. That line has never been entirely clear, and I don’t spend much time trying to define it.

Sure, there are things you lose by not pushing further. Deeper connections, perhaps. A sense of being fully inside something.

But there’s something else you gain as well.

A kind of space.

These days, I don’t really think about “belonging” at all. I’m not trying to become Japanese, and I’m not particularly trying to hold onto being British either — even if parts of it have stayed with me more strongly than I expected.

I just live here.

That feeling from those early days — waking up, not quite sure where I was — doesn’t happen anymore.

But something of it remains.

Not confusion exactly. Just a quiet awareness that I never fully settled into one place or the other - I left the UK before the responsibilities of adulthood ever really took hold.

And maybe that was never the point.

It’s not quite belonging.
Not quite distance either.

Just something that settled over time.

Sincerely,

Ross Harrison - A Tokyo-based photographer documenting a more authentic Japan beyond social media posts and postcards.