…For Christmas comes but once a year.

Recently I’ve had to make a very difficult decision, one that has brought me little joy. Do I return home for Christmas and the new year, or do I see through my favourite time of year on my own, on the other side of the world? Choosing the latter would make this my second ever Christmas away from home, and my first ever Christmas entirely alone. No bacon sandwiches and prosecco for breakfast, no afternoon snoozing on a toasty sofa, no reasoning with myself to have one more beer ‘because it’s Christmas’ (‘It’s five o’clock somewhere!). Well, maybe a bit of that. Choosing the former would mean an arduous, expensive and thoroughly worthwhile holiday in Rushden, Brixworth and ‘Faaampton. A quandry, for sure, but let’s ground ourselves first.

I have recently enjoyed lengthy soujourns in Malaysia and Thailand. Malaysia has much going for it; excellent, albeit diabetes-inducing, food, the kindest people and incredible natural beauty.

• It’s a dusky leaf monkey and, well, d’awwww… (Dusky Leaf Monkey – Facts, Diet, Habitat & Pictures on Animalia.bio)

Malaysia also has its downsides, such as exorbitant drink prices (like London, but in South East Asia, which frankly isn’t acceptable), an arbitrarily awkward and often broken train system (I’m looking at you Kuala Lumpur) and it can be a pedestrian’s worst nightmare when it comes to roads and walkways (again, Kuala Lumpur specifically. Penang and Langkawi were a’ight). 

It’s a fascinating country. One where you can walk a single stretch of (challenging) road and encounter a masjid, a Taoist temple, a Buddhist temple, an Anglican church and a gurdwara in the course of a few minutes. Due to the many and varied communities, English is generally the go-to language, making it easier to navigate for those of us fortunate enough to be born in an English-speaking country. It is a muslim nation, hence the hefty taxation applied to the sinful sauce (sin tax era = syntax error), resounding calls to prayer and abundance of delicious curries, breads and fried goodness. And the people! So helpful and friendly; I was given lifts when the daily hammering rain made my journey difficult, taken to my favourite of all things, a free buffet, and given assistance countless times, which more than made up for any shortcomings. It was nice to spend time in a mostly booze-free environment too. Fresh fruit smoothies at dusk and waking up clear of head and free of regret? More of that please.

Thailand, specifically Chiang Mai, was a joy. I met a group of beautiful, wonderful people at the guest house in which I was staying, and we bonded over morning yoga, coffee in the courtyard and piles of delicious scran. It was the kind of experience that makes you ponder the possibility of divine forces at play, a once-in-a-lifetime union, entirely by chance, that leaves you simultaneously with a heart full of gratitude and, upon leaving, a friend-shaped hole in your soul (our soul?). 

Which was fortunate, because without them, Chiang Mai would have sent me off the rails. Cheap booze? Check. An ever-flowing river of English-speaking party people? Check. Confidence-boosting compliments received daily from the various ladies outside the massage parlours on Loi Kroh road? Check (apparently I’m quite the catch). Gorgeous countryside on the doorstep? Check. However, there is a tragic and infuriating hollowness to facets of the city’s ‘culture’.

I am always of the mindset that people have the liberty to do what they please, when they please, as long as it does no harm, however seeing the elderly men sitting with beautiful young Thai women, simultaneously enjoying an evening of boozy fun, whilst also ‘fluffing the pillow’ at tremendous cost in anticipation of the inevitable grunting, spluttering conclusion leaves me feeling jaded. How easy it would perhaps be, when advancing in years, finding yourself bereft of kith and kin, to slip into such habits. In addition, having spent a weekend bar-hopping and meeting several typical Thailand-loving ‘revellers’ (Hugh, Hugh and Hugh I think they were called) face-to-face, it’s safe to say that many of them are rather tedious individuals, to my mind. No doubt they found me similarly tedious, however it has reinforced an extra caveat to my long-held mindset. Do what you please, when you please, but do it far away from me, you absolute helmet. 

Thailand is a beautiful country with genuinely lovely people and it’s unfortunate that they have suffered various misfortunes that have led them to the position of relying so heavily on tourism. I was there in 2013 and, sadly, little seems to have changed in terms of the socio-economic disparity in those ten years. 

So, heart laden with positive love and negative opinions (ugh, opinions, and on the internet too, base communication at its lowest), I hopped on a flight to Japan with a full, yet fleeting, itinerary. Osaka – Tokyo – Sapporo – back to Vietnam early December.

By the grace of the gods of Japanese immigration, I was granted a visa once again, just under a month ago, despite arguably taking the proverbial with my repeated and extended stays.

As this missive grows in length, your attention likely diminishes (listen to him whine, oh, woe is he) so I’ll cover my various and oft-wayward antics in a different post. 

Back to the main question. 

Christmas comes but once year…

Skip to the end, I eventually made it back to Sapporo and immediately upon exiting the central train station to a welcome party of howling Arctic winds and streets damp with fresh-fallen rain, I felt my heart swell with contentment once again. Having left my Chiang Mai posse (Crew? Cru-dem? Coterie?)  and found little in the way of genuine (if intangible) warmth in either Osaka or Tokyo, I was feeling a little lost. An Instagram post announcing my long-anticipated return garnered numerous responses from Sapporeans that I have come to call friends*. I felt ‘at home’ again. Second home, of course, but it’s nice to feel welcome.

So, drum roll please (as if the outcome wasn’t already blindingly obvious), I have decided to stay in Sapporo for Christmas and the new year. I will be sad beyond belief for the duration, and I may shed a wee tear in the morning at being away from home, and I will miss my friends, who, despite my lengthy absence perhaps suggesting otherwise, I love unequivocally and beyond measure. 

Fortunately, Christmas isn’t much of a family affair over here. It’s more of a ‘date night’ kind of event, which means all the lonely folk head to their favourite bar to wash away their solitude and chat into the night until the owner finally yet politely turfs them out into the snow. Who knows, maybe in the next few weeks I’ll meet some dreamy miracle with which to spend the day. Failing that, and fortunately enough, it just so happens that whiling away the hours with a bevy of strangers over a beverage or three is one of my favourite past times, so it’s win-win really.

At Christmas play and make good cheer indeed.

Max
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*It’s an awkward, rarely awarded designation for the people I meet, and one I possibly, like most things, overthink. At what point does one go from ‘acquaintance’ to ‘friend’? In the UK, it’s fairly cut and dry and it’s a system I’m well familiar with. Have you exchanged contact details? Have you spoken at length about various topics of genuine interest? Do you meet up from time to time for shenanigans? Yes? Done. There are slightly more challenging ‘rules’ of engagement here (quelle surprise!) For one, people don’t generally do socialising at home. Socialising is mostly done in public places; bars, restaurants and the like. This works out well for me in some respects, as I can plonk myself right in the midst of the fun and games. But this also means that you miss out on that most sacred of all bonding sites; the kitchen at a house party at 3am. Many, if not most, of my longest lasting friendships have been consecrated in the hours after kicking-out time, in a house the location of which I wasn’t quite sure of at the time. Another layer of complexity being the ‘zones’ of closeness. You have yourself (at least I hope you do) then, in ever expanding and ever more distant circles, you have your family, then your close friends, then your colleagues, then the rest of the world. A pretty familiar setup across the globe, however here there is a level of ingrained inflexibility when it comes to bending the rules here. Add to this the inherent difficulty in conducting this intricate, merry dance in bloody Japanese and, well, you can see why I might be prone to ponderin’.