K: So, lately I’ve been thinking about my relationship with my American citizenship and whether or not to go for Japanese citizenship. But… being the pansexual, polyamorous being that I am, I have a really hard time doing something that shuts a door. So, I know that may seem counterintuitive considering that I’m happily, monogamously married to… you, Chad. But… you have all of the attributes of all of the genders that I enjoy most for each gender. And… a lot of people may assume that autistic rigidity means that you have a really stable personality, but it’s the exact opposite because of your sensory sensitivity. That’s the first thing that you sort of adjust to and align to, and so, my experience of you is that you’re a very different person every day depending on your sensory sensitivities.
C: I feel like my personality is always firmly inside of me. And I share it with other people.
K: Yeah.
C: And if other people perceive it as changing, maybe the whole world has shifted, and I have stayed in the same place.
K: Yeah.
C: And I feel like if you call it a relationship with your citizenship, that America is like… jealous boyfriend that goes around telling all the other countries, “you better tell me what she does. You better tell me what – what the money is. You better tell me every move, or I will beat you up.” With like FACTA and such that we have to fill out.
K: Yeah.
C: Japan doesn’t do it, but a lot of European countries, for example – if you’re American, you just can’t have a bank account. Just flat out cannot have a bank account.
K: Yeah.
C: Because of the reporting requirements. I was reading the other day there’s something like 150 thousand accidental Americans in Europe, and those are people who have American citizenship but don’t realize it. And we had that happen to a friend of ours.
K: Yeah, we did.
C: Who applied for a job in California and thought he was gonna get a visa because he was from the U.K., and they told him, “actually, you’re an American citizen because, decades ago, your parents were here for a couple weeks while you were born.”
K: Yeah.
C: So, I feel like… America’s kind of abusive with its citizenship things.
K: So, for me, there are a lot of… pros and cons that come with being… an American. And some of the pros that come with being an American is I know what that means.
C: Yeah. There is familiarity there.
K: In the minutia of it.
C: Mhm.
K: Like, the minutia of being American means. And I can read every document presented to me.
C: That is a big one.
K: And… understand in fine… nuanced detail what that document means. And if I can’t, I know where to get the information so that I can.
C: Yes.
K: And I don’t have that ability in Japanese, so I guess… – wow, right here, you heard it live. Right here, I made the decision: I’m staying American because I’m illiterate in Japanese.
C: Wow.
K: Yeah. I just made the decision that quick. Because I was like, “wow. Okay.” Bye.
(laughter)
K: Just kidding. There’s still more podcast to have. So, for me, I have been working on my reding more than my speaking.
C: Mhm.
K: Because I don’t find that… spoken Japanese – I feel the level of my spoken Japanese is as good as it needs to get, and… that… the specific Japanese that I need I only use it once a year.
C: I feel similarly. I look up – if I know I’m going to talk about something unusual – I look up the words for it. As far as like basic Japanese, I can get along, but I’ve done a lot more reading than I have speaking. But I feel like, if people don’t know, Japan does not recognize dual citizenship. Which means that if you take Japanese citizenship, then they require you to denounce your other citizenship. And there’s a whole charade that Americans can go through to actually obtain dual citizenship, but fundamentally Japan says, “you’re either Japanese or only Japanese, or you are not Japanese.” The U.S. would have no problem with us taking Japanese citizenship on top of American citizenship.
K: That’s not true. In the United States, you cannot denounce your citizenship if you’re an American citizen, and they do not recognize dual citizenship.
C: They do recognize dual citizenship. Denouncing your citizenship is not enough to rid you of your citizenship, and that’s why I say there’s a charade you have to go through to actually get rid of your American citizenship. It’s thousands of dollars in filing fees, or if you’ve got over a certain amount of assets, it’s 15% of your assets.
K: Okay. So, you’ve looked into this more seriously than I have.
C: Yeah.
K: So, are you doing it? Are you taking the leap?
C: I go back and forth about it because the main thing that I’m not liking about the American citizenship right now is the tax burden because the U.S. is one of only two countries – the other one is Eretria – that requires citizens to file information on their income earned overseas, spent overseas, kept overseas while living overseas.
K: Yeah.
C: And Eretria, it is technically illegal to leave the country, and so I don’t feel they really count. Which I think that makes… the U.S. kind of the sole country that says, “you can leave, but you still have to give us all of your financial details even if they have nothing to do with the U.S. except for you being American.”
K: I feel like this is a more intense decision for our son because I don’t believe that the United States is safe for him as a black man, and I don’t think the United States will be safe for his children. And I feel like, with him being American, it kind of dangles that… Americanness out for his kids, and we don’t want our grandchildren to go to the United States.
C: Yeah.
K: And he doesn’t want his children to go to the United States, which is way more important than what I want. And… we don’t want that – that… titillation of… you know, America offers something better.
C: Right.
K: Because it doesn’t offer something better, or we’d be there. That’s my opinion. Y’all know I’m very much America: love it or leave it. Didn’t love it, so I left it. So… fight me. I don’t care.
C: Well, and I think for context, too, he – the last grade he attended in the U.S. was 5th grade.
K: Yeah.
C: So, he did go to an American university online, but anybody could do that. Except for, you know, North Koreans and Iranians, and a few other countries that are forbidden by the… terrorist things from going. Laws about terrorism.
K: You do not know what the current laws are now.
C: There’s like 7 countries that, every time I do anything with the U.S., I have to certify – like, sending money – I have to certify that I’m not sending money to anybody associated with one of those countries. So, that’s what I’m basing that on.
K: Okay.
C: But, for Rasta, he moved here when he was 12, and spent half of his time between 10 and 12 here.
K: And he doesn’t feel American.
C: Yeah.
K: He feels – but he also doesn’t feel Japanese.
C: Right.
K: So, he’s very much like our friend that was raised in Hong Kong that feels countryless.
C: Yes.
K: And Rasta’s kind of countryless, too, and I don’t know if… becoming a Japanese citizen would take care of that for him. Because I feel kind of bad that he doesn’t really have a country that he’s kind of – I don’t know. He – he doesn’t feel bad. He doesn’t have this existential angst and pain like, “I’m a countryless nomad, and homeless” and all of that. He feels like home is wherever we are.
C: Right.
K: And he feels that Japan is his home, and he feels that Nagoya is home. And he feels most strongly that his bed and his house is his home. Y’all know how much he loves his bed. We already talked about that. But… in terms of – I don’t know – in terms of his national identity, he… he doesn’t really have a fixed national identity that – that – because national identity is programmed into us from early on.
And, in the United States, I had a political science teacher do this – and I thought it was really cool, so I talk about it from time to time. He went up to the chalkboard, and he drew – he said, “I’m going to draw something on the chalkboard, and I want all of you to do what comes naturally.” And he drew an American flag. And all of us stood up and put our hands on our hearts. Like, 90% of us did, including me.
C: Mhm.
K: And started saying the pledge of allegiance. And he was like – and he just – he stopped us and applauded us and said, “well done. You have all been indoctrinated to look at this symbol and know that you should pledge your undying allegiance.” And it was the section on propaganda. He said the American flag is a piece of propaganda.
C: And he was fired the next day.
(laughter)
K: And he was never heard from again. But it is if you think about it.
C: Absolutely, yeah. I grew up saying it.
K: Yeah. It’s indoctrination, and in Japan, there’s the same type of indoctrination that goes on with… anything that creates uniformity is indoctrination.
C: Yeah.
K: And that’s just a scientific – scientific use of the word indoctrination is to create uniformity.
C: So, I wonder if it’s because I’m autistic or just because I’m me, but I don’t really feel like I have a national identity. Culturally, I’m American, and I know that. I grew up around American stuff, I know American references. I’m just saying I’ve never really felt like, “I’m American, and that’s what I am.” Even when I was enlisted in the air force before they, and I, discovered I still had asthma, and they medically separated me. I felt like it was a thing
K: Medically separated you. (laughs) Medically discharged you.
C: No. It’s different. So, if they medically discharge you, then you become a veteran, and you’re owed veterans benefits. If they medically separate you, it’s like you were never a member.
K: Oh. And that’s because you didn’t finish basic.
C: Correct. Because that’s where I discovered
K: I didn’t want people to be upset like they’d done something bad to you.
C: They didn’t – no – that’s
K: Because our Musick Notes are down.
C: I know they’re down. And they would totally go to Lackland Airforce Base and be like, “give Chad his discharge.”
K: (laughs)
C: But no, I was – I was at basic training for like three weeks, and then all the pollen came out, and I died, and they said, “you have asthma.” And I said, “I did when I was a kid.” And they said, “where did you live when you were a kid?” “Texas.” And they sent me back to Alaska, and I was fine. So.
K: Yeah. They’re like, “there’s too many places in the world you can’t go.”
C: Right.
K: So, that makes you useless.
C: Right. Severe ragweed allergy. But I – I didn’t feel like, “I’m doing this because I’m American.” I felt like I was doing it because it was a job.
K: You wanted to escape an abusive home.
C: Yeah. Exactly.
K: So… yeah. So…
C: So, I don’t feel… like I have an American identity. Just like… I feel like, okay, yeah, I’m a dude. I’m a man. But I don’t feel particularly attached to it. Like, if somebody says, “I don’t think you’re a man.” I’d be like, “great. You are entitled to your opinion.”
K: Mm.
C: Rather than, “how dare you insult my manness by denying it?” The way that I think a lot of Americans, if you told somebody, “you’re un-American” they would defend themselves against that.
K: Yeah.
C: Rather than say, “okay, if you don’t think so.”
K: So, I think I’m an unpatriotic American.
C: I know. You’ve said this since you moved. Before you moved, you were like, “I’m a patriotic American.”
K: No. I’m saying now I’m unpatriotic.
C: Right. Right.
K: But, for me, I was like seriously a patriotic American
C: That’s exactly what I’m saying is
K: I took my American duties seriously, and the constitution seriously, and anybody who… went against the constitution – they were un-American, and I know – I’ve read – I’ve actually read the constitution, and I actually had a mini-constitution I would carry around with me. You thought it was the freake – the most freakish thing about me besides me carrying around my mini-DSM V. Those were like my two guiding documents, and I was like, “I know that the constitution is a flawed document.”
C: Okay.
K: “I know that it’s flawed.”
C: And it’s a short document. At this point, your dissertation is almost ten times the length of the constitution.
K: Correct. But if you don’t point that out, and I say I’ve actually read the entire constitution, most people will think that it is a long ass document.
C: And how can they think of themselves as patriotic Americans?
K: Most people envision like Moby Dick. Have you read the constitution?
C: I have read the constitution, yes.
K: And I’ve read the Bill of Rights.
C: Wow. So, you were like, “ten amendments is enough, I’m going to skip the other 17”?
K: (laughs) You know I always like to inflate my stats. And so, if people – if people envision things because of what I say
C: (laughs)
K: And juke my stats for me, I have not told any falsehoods.
C: I’m not saying you’ve told falsehoods.
K: So, let everybody in on the joke
C: For those who are American, and don’t know, and for those who aren’t American and don’t know
K: Yeah, because we’re – we’re international.
C: Yes.
K: We’ve got people listening to us in the Maldives. They don’t know.
C: The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution are known as the Bill of Rights.
K: Yeah.
C: And there are 27 amendments currently in force in – sorry, 27 amendments to the U.S. constitution. Some of them are early amendments that were repealed by later amendments, but they’re still counted in the numbering of the amendments.
K: Yes. And so, we couldn’t get the Equal Rights Amendments amended because it has to be ratified by
C: You couldn’t get it – you couldn’t get it ratified because of my mother.
K: Yeah.
C: She was a campaigner against it. She and women like her.
K: Yeah. So, a lot of women didn’t want the Equal Rights Amendment which gave women equal rights. Which is so weird to me.
C: Yeah.
K: It’s really weird to me. Like, really? You don’t want equal rights? That’s odd. And I think they’re like, “no because if we get them, who knows who else will get them?” And so, it did also give equal rights to people with disability and people of color, and I think
C: My mom’s thing was she already had equal rights; they were just separate. She was separate but equal. Because women have different responsibilities than men and a whole thing – it was a whole religious thing.
K: Yeah. And we’ve already disproven separate but equal.
C: Yes.
K: That’s already been disproven.
C: Definitely.
K: In the United States, there was this whole thing and whole – a whole argument about separate but equal during discrimination.
C: Jim Crowe and such. Yeah.
K: Yeah. And so, when – when they were separating things for white people and non-white people, they were saying “separate but equal” is the big argument. And it – it wasn’t.
C: Yeah.
K: So, in looking at everything that’s imperfect, I feel like Japan is also imperfect, and I don’t understand Japanese politics.
C: Mhm.
K: I find them to be extremely confusing. And in 2020, I learned a lot about Japanese politics and only became more confused. Like, why would the Japanese government – the – so, I know that the Japanese government is fighting against “fascism” air quotes. Like, their big fight is against fascism. So… they don’t have any – like, the national government cannot tell the local government – it’s like in the United States, the separation between federal and state
C: Right.
K: There’s that same separation here in Japan, but even in like states of emergency – so… I’m confused. Like, the federal government cannot come out and tell the prefectural governors what to do, and the prefectural governors could not tell the city mayors what to do. And the city mayors could not tell the individual boards of education what to do, but the Federal Ministry of Education and Technology could tell the individual boards of education what to do. And I was, like, so confused. I don’t understand how they have sliced it up.
C: Okay. So, I’m going to go into a little bit of it, and I hope people will find this politically interesting.
K: Yeah, no, I don’t think anyone’s going to listen to this episode. I think this is boring the shit out of everyone, but this is what I’m thinking about
C: Hey.
K: And you’re just stuck with whatever I’m thinking about.
C: So, American law is based on English common law, which means that if a court decides something, then anybody under the jurisdiction of that court is bound by that decision. And future courts are reluctant to overturn it, which is called stare decisis – is the Latin for it. Japanese legal system, however, is based on the Napoleonic civil code. And so, when a court makes a decision, that decision doesn’t bind anybody except for the people directly involved in that decision.
K: Which I love.
C: Which means that, if the government doesn’t explicitly have a law granting it a power, then it can try to exert that power, but… anybody on the receiving end of it can take them to court and assert that they don’t have that power. And when that case is decided, no new power is created or destroyed because there’s no precedents.
K: Yeah, and the Japanese are loathe to go to court.
C: Yeah.
K: They do not want to go to court. They just really want everything settled… through mediation.
C: Yes.
K: And this is something, like, I try to explain to all of my American clients who are going through a divorce. That they are not going to get – that if they go before a judge, they are screwed.
C: Yes.
K: The judge is just going to say no to everything and go straight – you can actually google this, and you know we don’t google here, but this is something I’ve googled for clients to prove to them that I’m right. I have sat in my office, and I have googled the rules of what their settlement would be based on their salary, and they were shocked and appalled that, one, I could google their salary.
C: Right.
K: They didn’t know that was possible. And two, that I knew exactly how much child support and everything they would have to pay. And three, that they would get no visitation because visi – they don’t – the courts don’t decide visitation in Japan. It’s up to the custodial parent, and they don’t do shared custody.
C: Right.
K: They give custody to whichever parent who can spend the most time with the child. And so, that usually means the non-working spouse.
C: And depending on where you live, they may or may not make a non-binding recommendation, but that’s completely non-binding. You can just ignore it with no penalty.
K: Right. And so, I tell them that they’re much better off sticking to mediation
C: Yeah.
K: Giving more money to get visitation, and they’re like – they get really happy when they see how little the child support is.
C: Mm.
K: They get really happy when they see the spousal support is. I say, “if you do this. If you go to court, you will save a lot, a lot of money. But… you will lose your kids.”
C: Yes.
K: And so, it’s better – so, it’s basically… you just give them the amount of money they want to allow you. And here’s the other thing: if your spouse says that they’re willing to do therapy and whatever it takes to make the marriage work, the judge will not allow you to get a divorce.
C: I think we’re so used to no-fault divorce as Americans because it’s been, what, 40 or 50 years now since it was every state has no-fault divorce.
K: Yeah.
C: That we forget that it used to be, in the U.S., that you had to have it – like, a legal reason to get a divorce, and if you didn’t, you just couldn’t get divorced. Just nope. Can’t do it. And Japan is still that way.
K: So, I’m obsessed with if you ever want to divorce me, like, protecting your rights. And you have no protections against me. You’ve – you don’t protect yourself. I keep telling you, “babe, you should get a post-nup. Babe, you should get this, you should get that.” And you always get so hurt that I’m trying to protect you from me in case, like, you don’t know. You don’t know. I’m never going to cheat on you, that’s never gonna happen.
C: Right.
K: And I’m never gonna, like, physically assault you. That’s never going to happen.
C: I do know. I know who you are. I know your ethics. I know your morals. I know that if, like, you wanted to have another relationship, it would be something that you and I would talk about. We might fight about or whatever, but we’d come to an agreement where, at least, both of us understood what was going to happen even if we didn’t agree with it.
K: Yeah.
C: So, you’re never going to surprise me with something negative like that.
K: Yeah.
C: I think… the Japanese lawsuits thing – going back to that – there are many fewer civil – civil suits. Because let’s say in the United States, you’re like, “I’m going to sue them for a hundred million dollars for pronouncing my name wrong.” You just get a lawyer, you go down, and you file it. And here, in Japan, you say, “I’m going to sue them for a hundred million dollars for being the crap out of me at work.” Which they shouldn’t do. It’s against the law and all that. And they say
K: Recently made against the law.
C: Yeah.
K: There used to be – your manager used to be able to hit you.
C: And the court would say, “okay, you want a hundred million dollars. Please file thirty million dollars with the court.”
K: Yeah.
C: and so, that kind of filing fee, as a large percentage of the damages that you’re seeking, prevents… most large dollar value suits from going forward. The only one that I’m aware of was the inventor of the blue LED – which we’ve mentioned before – sued the company that he was working for, for cheating him out of a reward. He had asked them for a reward, like 50,000 dollars or so, and they said, “no, you get nothing.” So, he sued them and won two hundred million dollars. And used most of it to start a material science school.
K: So, for me… I go back and forth because I don’t like how emphatic United States is.
C: Mhm.
K: And I don’t like how unstable the political situation in the United States is. And when I was living in the Untied States, I always felt like California politics were really consistent.
C: Yeah.
K: And really stable. Whether there was a democrat or a republican as governor. That the state’s… that the way the state of California is set up is that it’s really – it’s one of the states that really has individual country sovereignty.
C: Right.
K: So, I paid attention to Santa Clara county – which you guys know I’ve talked about this ad nauseum.
C: And most of the cities are weak mayor cities rather than strong mayor cities, which is about the political organization, not about the mayors themselves. And I know when we were there, and Gray Davis was… recalled. And… Schwarzenegger took his place; it was hard to tell the difference.
K: There was no difference for us.
C: Right.
K: It didn’t change our lives at all.
C: And when Jerry Brown came back in power after being out – being not governor for decades – it didn’t really change much because it is a very inertia-driven system.
K: Nothing at all changes. The thing that changes the most – the people most affected by all of this is teachers.
C: Yes.
K: In California, the most impa – government employees are most impacted by gubernatorial changes in California. So, if you don’t work for the government, then you really – most people don’t notice
C: Right.
K: Any – any significant changes to their life. And I find the same living in Nagoya. Like, the prime minister changed, and I couldn’t tell you a single aspect of my life that’s been impacted other than how much I read Japanese news because I’m interested in what the new guy has to say, and what the new guy has to say is almost verbatim what Abe had to say. And I know he was Abe’s right-hand man
C: Yes.
K: They were closely aligned. There are a couple of differences, but the differences aren’t significant, and… when people are like – a few weeks back, one of our mutuals on Twitter was like, “why don’t newspapers say that a – that a governor is slow to think”
C: Mhm.
K: Because it’s well known that the Japanese – what the Japanese say is, “we’re slow to change because we’re long to ponder.”
C: Right.
K: And why aren’t we… allowed to use negative adjectives? And Abe really bullied the news – all of the newspapers into self-censorship. So, there isn’t any federal censorship in place
C: There is now. That was one – that was part of how he bullied them is Abe passed a state secrets law that, now individual reporters and the newspapers can be sued, jailed or fined
K: For saying something nasty – like someone’s slow to think is not part of it.
C: No, it’s not, but I think that he… used that as like the big stone to say, “look. Look what I’ve done. I could bully you further.”
K: Yeah, and so they did self-censorship in… and… here’s the thing: I look at the free press in the United States, and it has just gotten so… out of control. I juxtapose the two because
C: Yeah.
K: QAnon would not happen in Japan.
C: No. No.
K: But the belief that a political party is… a pedophile ring would not – it just would not happen. It would be against the law.
C: Yeah.
K: So, I go back and forth on that whole first amendment thing and how much free speech is too much.
C: Mhm.
K: Because, like… when does free speech become hate speech? And when does free speech… become so abused that it’s actually harmful to the people? And I believe that, like, flat earther and science deniers and… all of the way that Christianity is twisted and things that it’s claimed to be said in the Bible that is not actually said in the Bible – things that it’s claimed that Jesus Christ said – if you believe the New Testament- it’s just not in the New Testament. And people don’t differentiate between the New Testament, the Old Testament, the Torah, and the Quran
C: And the Apocrypha. Because I know your family’s Catholic
K: Yeah.
C: And so, they read the Apocrypha. My family did not.
K: And so, a lot of people just get it from Twitter
C: Yeah.
K: Or get it from Facebook and don’t even know what book their information’s coming from. And fight me on this. Like, pick up your Bible and find it. I doubt that any super religious people are listening to us. I doubt the Musick Notes are the super religious crowd
C: Right?
K: Because we’re like… that would be interesting. If you’re super religious and a Musick Note, tweet at us. Because I’m into that.
C: Maybe they’d be like, “we are super religious. We are super about it. We’re tolerant. We’re open.”
K: Yeah.
C: (laughs)
K: Maybe they’re practicing… like, their whole faith and being tolerant and loving. That would be awesome. I’m not being sarcastic. Because we are, like, global.
C: Yeah, and we have some religious followers who I know are religious. But they’re not, generally, of the authoritarian bent of religion.
K: And I think we’re in somewhere like 40 countries, now, which is super exciting.
C: That is. There’s only 195 countries in the world, so
K: Yeah
C: Pretty soon.
K: We’re in the top 50 percentile of podcasters – and we’re top 30 – we’re like top 50%, it’s not like we’re in the top 50 like 1 through 50. We’re in the top half of all podcasts.
C: Yeah.
K: And we’re… in the top 30 – we’re number 30 – we’re the 30th podcast in the top 100 podcasts about Japan.
C: In English.
K: Yeah in English on Playerfm’s chart.
C: Yeah.
K: I didn’t search through all the other charts. I was like, “I’m happy with this one.”
C: Yeah.
K: (laughs)
C: They each have their own way of making it.
K: Yeah, they do.
C: This one was not… was not cheating.
K: I was looking for something else, and then I came across us, and I was like, “what? We’re on the page?” I didn’t think we would be on the page.
C: Mhm.
K: So, I was surprised when we were on the page, and then I was like, “what number are we?” And I was like, “oh my gosh. We’re 30.”
C: Okay.
K: I was super excited.
C: It’s exciting for me, too.
K: Because I’ve wanted to be on the Playerfm page – the front page – for so long.
C: Yeah.
K: For podcasts about Japan. But I was looking for a different podcast about Japan because there’s one that’s about oshigatsu and oseishi. And
C: New Year’s things.
K: Yeah. So, oshigatsu is New Year’s, and oseishi is a traditional Japanese thing, and I – every year, I’m obsessed with how they’re changing… that New Year’s traditional food box.
C: Mmm.
K: And this year, it was like really changed and really different. And so, I wanted to see – so, I went to the Playerfm page to see, like… I wanted to get the podcast about that.
C: So, you went to Playerfm, and on the first, I went to the grocery store.
K: Okay.
C: Which is not a website, it’s an actual place. And I went to the bakery at the grocery store because you – you wanted some bread.
K: I wanted bread on the 1st?
C: Yeah.
K: Wow.
C: I also enjoy some bread.
K: I sent you to the grocery store on the 1st? That’s scary.
C: Well because the 30th was the busiest day.
K: Yeah.
C: And then they had more stuff on the 31st, but the 1st was not every busy. But they had just bags ready, like all bagged up, of all the bread you would need for your New Year’s celebration.
K: Yeah?
C: Yeah. For like… 15 dollars or something.
K: Yeah because it’s – it’s a specific thing depending on… which religion you are, and… they’re – like – the… when we first came to Japan, oseishi was a serious thing.
C: Yeah.
K: Like, the – at least the people that I did oseishi with – each food in each layer of the box you ate at sunrise on New Year’s Day after going to the shrine
C: Mhm.
K: Had a significant meaning. Like, the lobster was for long life for all of the aged, roe – like, I thought it was funny because roe is for fertility, and I have a hysterectomy. But they were like, “no. It’s for the fertility of your offspring if you have a hysterectomy.” And I’m like, “wow, y’all are reaching.”
C: Okay.
K: Like, if I don’t eat this roe, my son won’t be fertile this year.
C: And maybe if you don’t have any offspring, it’s for your neighbors.
K: Yeah.
C: Like, imagine getting pregnant because your neighbors ate roe. Dammit.
K: I was like, “my son is 8.” They’re like, “well, his future fertility.” And they broke down every single dish.
C: Mhm.
K: And its meaning to me. And now it’s gone by the wayside, and there was a point in time when I knew what every single dish stood for, and I knew the proper order to eat them, and I was like huge into the tradition. And the Shinto tradition
C: Yeah.
K: Of New Year’s. So, I find it really interesting, and that’s how I found out – long story short, too late – that’s how I found out that we’re number 30 in Japan.
C: Interesting.
K: Yeah. And the oseishi one was – I can’t remember the name of it. Which is why I always have to go to Playerfm. They were like number 20, and I was surprised. I thought they would be in the top 10. But they’re like down into deep Japan stuff.
C: So, do you think if I took Japanese citizenship, our rank would go u?
K: No. They talk strictly about only Japanese things.
C: Oh, okay. I was just thinking, you know, I’d be Japanese talking about Japan in English. But I think that I would have the same feelings about Japanese citizenship – which I do seriously consider whether to take it.
K: But you wouldn’t be talking only about Japanese things
C: No, I wouldn’t.
K: So, you’d be a Japanese person doing exactly what we’re doing now.
C: Exactly. And I think I would feel the same way about that citizenship that I feel about American citizenship if I took it. Well, yeah, legally I’m a Japanese citizen, but… it doesn’t really mean anything except in the legal sense.
K: I have a couple of black friends that are – that are Japanese that got Japanese citizenship, and they were like so for real. It means something.
C: Mhm.
K: It – it’s a protest. It’s, like, it’s so – it’s deep. It’s deep with them. And I think that they’re… very influential in my thinking when it comes to Japanese citizenship. One of them has a YouTube channel, and… I don’t have their permission to give them a shoutout, so I’m not because I haven’t gotten their permission to represent them in the way I’m going to represent them.
C: Yeah.
K: But their… they – they’re really big on “don’t tell yourself no.” And you know that’s a big thing that I have, too.
C: Yeah.
K: Is, like, don’t tell yourself no, don’t say no for somebody else – assume the yes.
C: Right.
K: And go in and be polite and be respectful and assume the yes. And they have a whole channel on that and how, by assuming the yes, they own three homes in Japan – they’re very prosperous in Japan in a way that they don’t feel they could have prospered – and their offspring are very prosperous in Japan in a way that they don’t feel that they would have been able to prosper. And so… they’re telling me, like, “have your son become Japanese. Become Japanese, and you will prosper.” But I’m like, “I’m already prospering. I don’t have to do anything else.”
C: See, I do feel a lot more strongly that it would benefit our son than that it would benefit me, personally. But I think that this is an instance where me being… like, a white, American dude comes into play
K: Okay.
C: Because it’s not very high stakes for me. It’s like, do I give up my American citizenship and get rid of some annoying paperwork in exchange for having to fill out some annoying paperwork if I go back to the U.S. – do I take Japanese citizenship to get the right to vote but not really change anything else unless the world changes. Like, the whole… bruhaha and just, like, discrimination about the border control for Covid and such. So, I feel like… that’s just
K: As long as we don’t leave Japan, the border stuff doesn’t affect us.
C: That’s what I’m saying. The stakes feel very low for me.
K: We have like no plan to leave Japan in 2021 at least.
C: Right.
K: Like, I think the earliest we’d probably be leaving Japan is 2023 or 2024. I’m not sure.
C: Yeah, it… it’s gonna depend on different factors and vaccines and all kinds of things.
K: Yeah.
C: That we just don’t know yet. So, I feel like… I don’t know. I think about taking it, I think eventually I probably will. But it doesn’t seem like a big deal. And I think for a lot of people, that would be very off-putting. Like, if you’re going to become a citizen of another country, shouldn’t you feel strongly and proud of your new country?
K: I think that’s what makes me kind of lazy about it.
C: Mhm.
K: Because I’m a permanent resident, and then if you get it – because I always thought that you’d be the one to go for it
C: Right.
K: And then you do it, and then I’m married to a Japanese citizen, and then at that point it feels like what’s the point?
C: Mhm.
K: I don’t know. I think I would feel more strongly about it if Rasta was a Japanese citizen. Because I am obsessed about being with that kid.
C: Yeah.
K: I’m really obsessive about him, and I think if he did it, I’d wanna do it just so I’d be the same – always be allowed to be in the same country as him. Because being separated from him is like – being separated from him or you
C: Yeah.
K: Is the two most painful things I can imagine.
C: And Japanese politics are fairly right-wing, but being right-wing in Japan means something different than being right-wing in the U.S. – like, in Japan, having a social safety net is seen as being right-wing.
K: So, if Rasta became Japanese, would you want to become more Japanese?
C: I don’t think that that would actually affect my decision because I’m a permanent resident and, unless you commit crimes, they don’t revoke that. And I don’t commit the sort of crimes that are…
K: You don’t commit crimes. Don’t be like, “I don’t commit the sort of crimes” – you don’t jaywalk. Like, what crimes are you committing?
C: (laughs)
K: Big baller shot caller over here, making people
C: Thought crimes.
K: Making people offers they can’t refuse.
C: Thought crimes.
K: Like, what thought crimes? We don’t believe in thought crimes.
C: Well, I can’t tell you because then you might be like, “I found out I do believe in thought crimes.”
K: What?
C: I don’t know.
K: Are you saying that you have a thought that if you said it to me, I would be like, “you thinking that thought is a crime.”
C: No, I don’t think so.
K: Because I’m trying to think of – what could you possibly – you could be thinking of horrible things, and I would not think that they were a crime. I think that everybody’s thoughts are their own, private domain.
C: No. The worst thing I’ve ever done here in Japan is that I had to write a letter of apology because I was two weeks late paying my health insurance one month.
K: Yeah.
C: So… yeah. I don’t do anything
K: And they know we love those letters of apology.
C: Yes.
K: You don’t have to write them, but we’re always ready. So, if everybody’s wondering why am I thinking about this now – hello, it’s tax season. It’s like the time for us to be thinking about our taxes.
C: Yes.
K: And that is heavily on my mind. And whenever I think about taxes, I have to file taxes in the U.S., I think, “do I really want to be a U.S. citizen anymore?” Like, do I want to continue doing this?
C: Because, for 15 years, we’ve been filing taxes saying we owe no money because we haven’t made enough
K: Because we’re broke asses.
C: Yeah, we haven’t made enough to surpass the threshold. And then once we do make enough to surpass the threshold, after you take account of the Japanese taxes that are higher than the American taxes, we still don’t owe any American taxes. It’s literally impossible to owe America taxes.
K: And every – every once in a while, they like to get a wild hair up and send us a bill for a million dollars.
C: That was California, not the federal.
K: Just like, okay California. You tried it. So, we’re no longer residents of California. We’re residents of Oregon.
C: We’re not residents of either one. We are
K: We have an address in Oregon.
C: Yes, but that’s not considered a tax residence because it’s a forwarding address.
K: Yeah.
C: There’s no way to live there or anything. And California
K: We have not started a fan P.O. box because y’all haven’t wanted to send us anything.
C: Yeah.
K: (laughs) So, if you want us to start a P.O. box for y’all to send us gifts – we like gifts – then let us know. Don’t send spam. Like, physical cans of spam. Don’t send meat. Can’t send canned meat.
C: Yeah. We can go buy spam locally, so
K: Yeah. And you – sending canned meat is against the law.
C: Yeah. And we know this because we tried to send – we did send ourselves some cream of chicken soup, and the shipping place sent us a note that… “we are not sure that Japanese customs will allow this in because there are very strict rules about potted meat.” We were like, “ugh…”
K: It’s very generous that you’re calling this potted meat.
C: Okay?
K: Whatever.
C: Like, a chicken accidentally dropped a feather in that soup.
K: Yeah. It’s not… there’s no chicken in it. And so, everybody knows that – because of my blood disorders – that I have to eat chicken. I – I want to be vegan for the climate crisis because I do think being vegan is great, but I can’t be vegan because of my blood disorder, so, you know, fight me. I’m going to do what I need to stay alive.
C: Yes. And I fully support you doing that. I fully appreciate you doing that.
K: Yeah. So, I don’t know if y’all liked this or not. I don’t know if this was interesting. I wonder if anybody listened all the way to the end. I always wonder – like, is this a boring episode? Because it’s just whatever I’m thinking about. And, you know
C: But we’ve been doing this for more than a year now.
K: We’ve been doing this for several years now.
C: No. We’re
K: Yeah. It’s several years.
C: We’re not even at 100 episodes yet. We’re coming up on 100. And 106 will be 2 years.
K: Okay. So, we’ve been doing this for over a year.
C: Yeah, we’ve been doing it like… 20 months.
K: So, in May of this year, it’ll be 2 years.
C: That’s correct. Yes.
K: So – oh it would be so juicy if we were in the top 20, but I don’t think we’re ever gonna break… 20.
C: I don’t know. This is a very compelling
K: Those 10 in between are very competitive. In between where we are now and the top 20.
C: But there’s a very compelling conversation, so
K: Yeah, I don’t know.
C: (laughs)
K: A girl can have dreams, though. A girl
C: A Kisstopher.
K: A mouse. A house. It’s weird because, today I feel like a girl. And then when I said girl, I was like, “but then there’s a little boy in me that wants – that wants it too.” Being agendered’s a trip because I’m kinda gender fluid, and I’m kinda agendered, and I’m kinda habituated. And I kinda think gender’s made up. I don’t believe in gender. And so, I feel like, eh. Most of my life, they’ve called me a girl, so I guess I’ll go with that.
C: So, you’re like, “I guess I’m a citizen of girl country, but I don’t feel strongly about it.”
K: Yeah. Like, eh. Everything’s a shrug. I don’t know.
C: Yeah.
K: So, I guess today I’m just questioning everything. There we go. Today, I’m questioning.
C: Okay.
K: Yeah. Questioning my citizenship, questioning my gender. But I’m not questioning my sexuality because I am Chad-sexual.
C: Yes.
K: Specifically you. Not
C: I understand.
K: Yeah. The Chad before my eyes.
C: Yes.
K: Yeah. (laughs) On that happy note, we hope that you follow us on over to the take two. We’re still going to be talking about writing stuff, and we’re going to be talking about all of the different pitches, and how to get your… book out there if you’re a writer. And… thank you for listening this week. We’re seriously, seriously honored that y’all give us your ear every week as always. And hope that you follow us on over to the take two, and if not, we’ll talk to you next week.
C: Bye.
K: Bye.
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