Checking in with Robert Jefferson in Kamakura, Japan

As published at SubStack, 5/9/24:

[Robert Jefferson on 11/23/23]

You’ve been in Japan for over 40 years. How did you end up there?

-This is my third time in Japan. I first arrived as a sergeant in the United States Air Force, working for the American Forces Radio and Television Service. I came to Tokyo in 1982 from the Portuguese Azores Islands. Prior to Portugal I worked under the Air Force European Broadcast Squadron. In Tokyo, my assignment was with the Air Force Pacific Broadcast Squadron, the Far East Network.

After two years I decided to go back to the states, but only as far as Honolulu, where I worked at two radio stations. I also spent two years in Philly at WHYY Radio.

When I asked to interview you, I had no idea how similar we are! Though you have a twin, I might just be your double! We’re college drop outs, dislike systems and are drawn towards the unknown, even the dangerous. Unlike you, I never wanted to be a war corresponsdence. Maybe it’s because I was born into a war, so I have one on you! We’re also from Philly, though I only arrived there as a young adult, and you were raised in Montgomery County. That’s like some distant jungle, man! You did teach for years at Temple University. Our takes on what’s happening also overlap quite a bit. Is it hopeless?

-Yes, and no. For a lot of people, those who cluelessly allowed themselves to be jabbed, even multiple times, have little hope of living a natural lifetime. They’ve shortened their time on this planet by minutes, hours, days, weeks or years. But if it wasn’t this gene therapy, it would have been fentanyl, other street drugs or alcohol that took them out well before “their time”. 

In 2020 I suddenly got clear vision (pun intended). I quit drinking alcohol when I noticed how similar what’s happening to the mass murder committed by Tony Fauci in the 1980s and 1990s during the HIV/AIDS culling. I wasn’t about to let that happen to me. I doff my hat to the many doctors and independent journalist who sounded the alarm starting in 2020 and tried, with some success, to warn us of the dangers of the experimental MRNA gene therapy. The work done by Professor Mark Crispin Miller, Jon Rappaport, Gary Null and so many others has saved thousand of lives. Millions of people are today dead who need not have had their lives cut short by capitalistic greed.

The United States of America is being robbed blind, its people killed off slowly and surely. In the next ten years or so, the USA will look and be totally different, and it won’t be a good place to be. I’m glad to see that you’ve returned to your birthplace. Vietnam is still hanging on despite the damage done to it mostly recently by its ignorant leaders’ decision to inject poison into the populace. 

In Tokyo a while back, I met an idol singer who had grown up in Indonesia, so had an English based education. Returning to Japan, she had to disguise her English proficiency to not show up her Japanese English teacher. As an idol singer, she also had to adopt a childish persona that was completely at odds with her real sophistication. Though every culture is about assuming fake appearances, I, as an outsider, think this is especially pronounced in Japan, and I speak as a great admirer of Japanese appearances! As a long time resident there, what do you make of the gap between Japanese appearance and reality?

-The gap in Japan between appearances and reality is a wide expanse that has to be measured carefully in nearly every encounter. That measurement is important to preserve what the natives here call “Wa,” or harmony in society. It makes for great, courteous service(s). But in personal relationships it has it hazards; one doesn’t know if anyone is being real or just putting up a facade for good looks and impressions.

After living in Japan a while, one can discern through experience whether appearances are real or fake. In the service industries, it really doesn’t matter so long as the service is good. We all know that service in Japan is some of the best in the world. Would that Americans could produce the same results, widely and consistently!

As for personal relationships, appearances and reality can be like negotiating one’s way through a heavily-laid minefield. Courtships that turn into relationships only do so—and only last—once one gets deep into the minefield as mentally intact as at the beginning. Many a divorce can be attributed to having stepped on an explosive device triggered by irreparably hurt feelings.

After 42 years here, and a number of relationships that never lasted longer than four years, I’ve found that living alone makes life so much easier… though I’ve left the door slightly ajar just in case. 

So after four decades, you’ve given up on marriage to a Japanese! What about friendships? Are Japanese ways so different? Many Japanese themselves, though, have given up intimacy. They do have the best sex dolls! In Tokyo, I saw a man singing alone at a karaoke parlor. Japanese friends told me it’s not unusual. In Donald Richie’s accounts from half a century ago, they were still intensely communal. What went wrong? Are they even lonelier than Americans?

-Friendships in Japan have been rewarding for me, but now that I’m nearly 64 years old I find the types of friendships I had in my 20s onwards are/were different than they are now. I guess it all boils down to not needing to be intimately involved with someone or groups now that I’m older, and no doubt more set in my ways.

Japanese society seems to have changed for the worse over the decades, from being very communal back in the early 80s to today, when people seem to want to be left alone, free of societal bonds, responsibilities and norms, e.g., family, neighborhood, work. There’s even the “Hikikomori”, people who shut themselves indoors, away from others—sometimes even family members. A lot went wrong. Lifetime employment is no more.  Families aren’t as tight as they used to be. Japan seems to have become quite “Americanized” in many ways that are  quite negative for society: namely, a plunging birthrate as young people aren’t dating (or having sex) as much as before, let alone marrying and having children. 

With soccer stars in Europe and baseball ones in the USA, Japanese have become much more visible in the West. Outstanding Japanese have moved to the US for decades, however, but scientists, academics and entrepreneurs aren't too visible. Do you see this exodus slowing down or reversed? There’s a nuisance streamer, Johnny Somali, who made the news recently. No country needs that guy, but are American immigrants welcomed in Japan?

-Regarding visibility of Japanese celebrities—sports stars vs. others—it’s true the former do get more of the spotlight than the latter. But whenever a Japanese national is honored with, say, a Nobel Prize, or the Palm d’Or, a big fuss is made of it for at least one news cycle. As Japan weakens further I foresee a continued outward exodus of brains to all points worldwide. Meanwhile, Japan needs immigrants/migrants to do the jobs that can’t be filled by a dwindling Japanese population. Therefore, all educated/trained foreigners, Americans included, are being welcomed with all kinds of special work/residency visas.

You’ve lived in Philly, Portugal, Turkey, Hawaii and Japan. I’ve also spent extended time in various countries. Further, we agree humanity’s immediate future isn’t exactly sunshiny. As everything worsens, I’d rather be Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Serbia, Albania or even Lebanon than the US! Are you in the right place for what’s ahead, and why? Philly ranks at the bottom of my list. Would you live there again for any reason?

-I agree, Philly ranks at the bottom of my list, too, as a place to live and I have no desire to ever even visit there again. I do have family member who still live in the suburbs north of Philly, in Montgomery County, and life seems to be far safer for them there than in the city.

Here in Japan, I think the government had done a good job of controlling immigration until they allowed thousands of Ukrainians to come ashore. Isn’t it odd that they would allow entry to people from the other side of the globe, caucasians from Eastern Europe, when they’ve never opened the border to fellow Asians from war-torn countries? A most sickening display of virtue signalling I’ve ever seen.

Still, I can only hope that I’m in the right place for what’s coming. I foresee an economic downturn on a global scale, that’s why I’ve done some stockpiling and really got into prepping about 15 years ago. I learned how to grow various kinds of food year-round. I have monthly expenses that can be reduced if necessary, but no debt.

The casualty and death tolls from the mRNA jabs are rising; AstraZeneca just pulled its poison off the market, but it’s too little too late. The killing fields in Ukraine and Palestine are covered with the dead of innocents. Myanmar’s killing fields are quite bloody, too. 

As long as Japan’s government can remain uninvolved in these global conflicts ,and stay true to its (imposed) pacifist constitution, I think this will be a good place to watch the foolish gladiators elsewhere do battle. I understand, as a military veteran, the importance of defensing one’s own borders. But what the USA has been doing for well over 100 years has to come to and end, either peacefully or violently. Where are the saner minds in government, and are there any left after the purges of the Obama years? We’ll see.

Continue to take good care of your health, Linh. In the last four years since I quit drinking I’ve never felt better, at least not since I quit once before in my late teens when I lived in Turkey.

If you like, I can send you my daily nutrient supplement list. What the heck, I’ll tack it on here: Oregano Oil, Glucosamine, Aged Black Garlic, Fish oil, Vitamin D3, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Bcomplex, Coq10, Alpha lipoic, Magnesium/calcium/zinc, Beta carotene, L-Carnatine, Benfotiamine, L-lysine, Curcumin, Natto extract, Resveratrol, Dandelion Tea, Pine needle Tea and Chaga Tea.

Gertrude Jekyll, “A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.”