I’m scared.

I have the luxury of time to not have a fight or flight response kick in straight away so I have decided to think this through rationally.

A lot of fear tends to be irrational so in my irrationality, I’ve chosen a very rational response. To think.

I have the weight of being a foreigner and in an incredibly minority group making up about 2% of the population of Japan. As a western foreigner, the percentage is even lower.

Since previously settling into HK, I haven’t thought of myself as any different to those that I am surrounded by for quite some time. In my early days there though, I felt very conspicuous.

Now I’m in Tokyo, I don’t usually notice it either since I think I’m use to not being the same as the majority however, there’s a lot less foreigners here and the pressure to do things right so as to not set a bad name for other foreigners (as we’re all seen as the one group and not divided by any other arbitrary measure) is big to me.

This group is singled out for doing things wrong.

I have heard stories of people who do things wrong and are then scolded by locals, sent angry letters from their landlords (written in Japanese so most have to get a colleague or a shop assistant to translate which further adds to the pressure of getting things right).

If a foreigner does something wrong, all foreigners are then seen as disobedient, disrespectful, ignorant, not trying to fit in, etc. This is not unique to Japan. It happens to minority groups in many countries including Australia, the US and England.

This is why I’m scared.

I want to do things right and not make it any more difficult for other foreigners.

To make sure I do this properly and not incur the wrath of my neighbours or building management, I have read the 24 page brochure from my local ward office multiple times.

I have analysed the pictures, checked out the various logos and even read the text as the brochure is produced in English too in order to make it easier for me to get this right.

I’m still scared.

Maybe it’s not so much scared, maybe it’s intimidated. It’s definitely nervousness.

To further help myself, I’ve tried a gradual method of desensitisation so I can see exactly how this is all done in my own building rather than just reading the brochure and hearing and reading horror stories from friends and colleagues.

Every morning before work, I have been going into what can only be the cleanest garbage room in the history of the world. The only one cleaner would be one that predates rubbish.

It should be simple but it’s overwhelmingly complex. There are warning signs, segregation based on various measures (some of which I understand, some are totally different to anything I’ve experienced before) and the threat of punishment is overwhelming.

The amount of recycling is quite impressive and once I’m familiar with it, I’ll be one of its biggest advocates and for sure, it will be one of the 974 things I like about Japan. I’m not there yet though.

I’m still scared but I am improving.

I have already pre-sorted based on the rules I’m familiar with but now I need to combine some of my recyclables and split others.

This week, I’m going to do it.

This week, I’m going to throw out my garbage.

* Thanks to Garbage for the title to this post.