Fault Lines

Travel Guide

Tokyo with Emily Itami’s novel

This is a novel that shows you what it would be like to be a single mother living in a big yet anonymous city. The main character has insights others haven’t as she has also lived in the West so she can compare the two more effectively than most.

The city is huge and anonymous and you can easily be lonely here.

Thec city itself:

“I realize that to be a die-hard inhabitant of this city, you’re expected to smile demurely in the face of the almighty fault line that runs straight through it and place complete trust in whatever dinky gates we’ve come up with to protect ourselves, but there’s this unshakable image of a ten-meter tsunami wall being totaled by a wave that flashes through my mind every time I’m hurtling through an underground tunnel in a metal tin.”

Jobs:

“If I’d had a career, I could change jobs, apply for a promotion, do something. If I’d stayed in New York, I could have had it all, couldn’t I? But I am a Japanese Housewife, a proper, old-school job for life, and you only get to choose your colleague once.”

Mental health:

“Therapy isn’t really a thing in Tokyo; you do what you do, and if you really can’t take it anymore, you take the honorable way out and leave your shoes neatly paired at the edge of the bridge when you go.”