In order to tell my story, I should go back to my early twentieth year when my whole misery and tragedy began being unbearable. I just wanted to be true myself all the time and wanted to express myself freely. However, Japan did not allow me to express myself freely; I was restricted. The worst part was that Japan tried to manipulate me to become a useful citizen for the part of Japanese society like everybody else, with absolutely no concerns about my individuality and tried to make me believe that getting a good job is the most essential thing in one’s life. I never believe such shit though. However, my story begins after fate send me back to Japan and how I was sent to Mexico, where my best friends live and where I never thought that I would live. So many unexpected things have happened to my life since I began knocking about the world. My story is not a description of my hatred toward Japan; on the contrary, it is the confession of the man, who just wants to express himself in earnest and who simply wants to tell the truth from the depth of his heart. It is a story of the process of a man liberating himself from the place where he does not want to belong, so that he can start living his own life in his own sweet way. This book is for my fellow seekers who believe in life and individualism unconditionally and feel that life gives us full of surprises when one follows his destiny relentlessly. To be sure, life is fun to live!

I had always thought that if I could manage to escape from monotonous Japanese life, I would be definitely happy, and I always dreamt about my future friends who would accept me as I truly am and who would be willingly to welcome me with open arms all over the world. Escaping from Japan became my obsession. Finally, the day came for me to escape from my inferno when I was twenty-five years old. As soon as I stretched my legs to the wide world, I met a lot of interesting people who welcomed me with open arms as exactly as I dreamt about in my lonely nights in Japan. I was utterly overwhelmed with the suddenly changed circumstances, because so many people started congregating around me to participate in the joy of life like shining stars in heaven. At last, I have realized that I have the great gift from heaven for making wonderful friends in the world. Hamsun said, “Life is fun to live, and God always works for us in mysterious ways.” I believe in this from the bottom of my heart due to my extraordinary experiences. I could not find any single friend in Japan, but when I started knocking about the world, making friends became the easiest thing for me. In Japan I am hopelessly an outsider, decidedly a weird person, constantly humiliated and insulted, while in the broad world I am praised to the God’s blue sky, decidedly respected, and ardently accepted as a brother.

My tragedy was that as soon as I became true myself and started speaking freely and gave myself free rein to express my opinions about anything under the sun, I suddenly became an alien in my own country’s people’s eyes. They started pretending not to recognize me as a fellow countryman anymore. Japanese are obviously not ready to grasp what I am aiming at and sadly do not have a big heart enough to accept me as I truly am. They started whispering to each other after I showed my true colors to them, “He’s insane, to be sure as God’s sunrise, because he always talks about unfathomable things to ordinary Japanese like us. For instance, the importance of having a free spirit in one’s heart; Japanese people are herd animals as possessed swine running toward a disaster; one’s obligation to ponder over the meaning of life; and taking a job that one doesn’t believe in is the worst time waster that one can conceive. He wants to walk on streets leisurely and just sit at a café to enjoy looking at passersby every day; he reads a number of foreign books which only he can comprehend, but no Japanese dare to touch, etc.” They always reach the same conclusion among themselves, “Let him leave alone, because he’s been lost – he doesn’t belong to us or even to his own country.”  Thus, I had no choice; I became a wanderer who plays on muted strings with lonely tune and started talking to myself.

On the other hand, I had a great number of false friends in Japan. In order to pretend to be their friends, I was humiliated and insulted because I had to reduce myself to a nonentity like them. I obliged by talking about eternal nonsense such as: the latest Japanese TV shows, the latest mobile phones, the latest karaoke songs, the latest comic books, the latest Japanese pop singers, the latest video games, the unsatisfied situation of job environment, moneymaking, and so on and so forth. I cannot believe even now how I survived such afflictions every single day. I had to endure the worst humiliation that one can think of as I received insults. I felt that no human beings could suffer like me until I laid my eyes on Tropic of Cancer. It is still a miracle to me even now that I did not commit suicide. Perhaps, my mind was with God subconsciously – beyond loneliness in my own country.

I have been a stranger to my own country and my own country’s people since I was a child. I should confess that I hate Japan from my guts. On top of it all, I have never fitted into Japanese society and have not yet even started to function as a useful person there. To tell the truth, I have never agreed with the Japanese society system and the Japanese way of life. I always wanted to escape from Japan to see the world so that I could be free as a bird. From my childhood on, one thing was crystal clear to me as if it were God’s revelation: I definitely do not belong in Japan, and I just happened to be born in the wrong country. I am absolutely a lone wolf and constantly suffocated by loneliness, because I have no one to talk with about my true feelings and even a fraction of my feelings.

I had never had friends in my life until I decided to say good-bye to my own country to see the world. I am talking about real friends you can trust with all your heart, talk to about anything freely with a heart’s content, and can always count on when you desperately need some help. In all my life, I always believe that having real friends is the most wonderful gift that life can offer all of us. Unfortunately, I could not find any single friend, and it was even impossible for me to be able to meet a single individual in whom I am interested in Japan.