From majority To minority To majority

From majority To minority To majority

or

From "see" To "seen" To "see"

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Inside Japan
I feel myself becoming arrogant

Outside Japan
I'm very conscious of my "position" in society;

"I'm a guest who was not invited"

"I'm in a weaker position in this society"

And "if 'something happens',
I am placed far behind local citizens"

Simply put
I pay much more attention to my own behaviour

But in Japan
I don't feel the need to do so

I care far less about the impressions I give to others

And nobody see me on the street, because ― externally, physically, biologically, on the surface level ― I'm just one of the crowd in this country

And
I started to view Japanese women slightly differently

They always look clean, decent, polite, attentive, soft
and somewhat quite nervous
even oppressed

They always seem acutely aware of
being seen
being evaluated
and being judged

In a way
this perspective solved many of my long-standing questions about men

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"Why does men's fashion always look horrible?"

"Why are men more rude, more violent, more noisy, oily, fatty, hairy, smelly?"

Or simply
"why are men such an unpleasant existence?"

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I used to think/write about these things in a joking way

But
after returning to Japan last December,
I started to realise that these are actually quite significant questions

They reveal something fundamental — an imbalance in society