I had known from the beginning that I would eventually be moving out of the spacious, western style hotel that I had been staying in for my first three months in Tokyo complements of Yohji Yamamoto Inc,. Yokoyama-san from Human Resources, a young woman who could be very accommodating yet was coolly business like in her demeanor explained in her heavily accented English that she would take me wherever I wanted to look for an apartment. The hotel had been a great comfort so I was more than a little nervous about the change, but excited to finally be given a chance to decide my own fate. Up to that point I had politely accepted, as is prescribed by Japanese culture, all arrangements made for me.

I started combing the English speaking paper for rental advertisements. In the meantime I was asked to look at an apartment in a building owned by Yohji Yamamoto’s mother, Fumi Sensei. One Sunday (the company’s day off) Yokoyama-san accompanied me to Eifukucho, a suburb of Tokyo. As we were boarding our train at the station nearest work, she spoke excitedly about the apartment and emphasized that it was really close. For me the trains ride along the Inokashira line heading northwest of Tokyo seemed endless. The eight stations seemed to be a considerable distance apart, each station seeming further away than the last. After three months of walking just fifteen minutes to work, I had little patience for what now by comparison seemed like an interminable ride.

When we finally arrived at our destination the surroundings looked different, definitely suburban. The low-lying residential buildings were more spread out and there were no office buildings in site. The residential streets with no sidewalks and very tiny, manicured lawns seemed spotless compared to Tokyo. I felt out of place and far away from that to which I had become accustomed over the past three months.

Fumi Sensei’s building, which was four blocks from the train stop, was close to being finished but still under construction. The magnitude of the project was impressive. There were, I quickly estimated, about fifty apartments total, which helped confirm that Fumi Sensei was indeed a wealthy, powerful woman. I knew that her glass office door bore a label saying Chairperson, but up to that point I had assumed it was only a superficial title politely bestowed upon her for being the mother of the company’s president. Now, standing there on a pile of sand looking up at the five-story building soon to be filled with renters, I realized the fallacy in that judgment.

Since it was Sunday, and most likely a day off for the nowhere to be seen construction crew, we were unable to access any of the apartments. The deserted feel of the scene did not enhance my quickly dimming view. Yokoyama-san suggested I look inside the window at an apartment on the first floor since it would be identical to my own, and she left to look for a building manager. Peering through the dusty ground floor window I could barely make out a long, narrow room, approximately 15 feet long and seven feet wide. I forced a deep breath and looked again to verify that I had indeed seen the whole room. I felt a wave of panicked claustrophia. When Yokoyama-san returned alone, I said nothing, and hoped the “no way” over my head was not visible, as that would be considered very impolite. As we rode the eight stations back to Shibuya, which seemed even longer on the return, I barely spoke, grateful that silence between people in Japan is a social norm. Yokohama-san only once broke the silence once to mutter that she shouldn’t have shown me the apartment on a Sunday.

The next weekend, my initiative stoked by my wariness of the apartment at Eifukucho, I started looking elsewhere, by myself. Through the English speaking newspaper I quickly found and ad for an apartment that sounded promising and was just two train stops from work. The area around the station in Minato-ku was lush and filled with greenery, which except for the Municipal parks isn’t a common occurrence in Tokyo. It was early evening and someone had strung some Christmas lights on bushes in the area leading up to the apartment. There were wind chimes gently clanging and a sweet smell in the air. It gave the neighborhood a magical aura. I floated on delightful anticipation over to the apartment that in and of itself was not remarkable. It was a one story concrete building, very contemporary, very rectangular. I was not discouraged. From a discreet distance I managed to peer through a sliver of a window in the front door that had been covered by some sort of paper. I caught a glimpse of a moped and convinced myself that some hip, young urbanite lived there. To further augment the scenario I was creating, I scanned the neighborhood and noticed a tiny outdoor Laundromat with one empty chair. I pictured myself sitting there on Sundays reading the paper, drinking coffee, waiting for the wash to dry and occasionally chatting with a friendly and most fascinating neighbor. My brother Ralph in a phone call later that day pointed out with much sarcasm that I was single at 34 because those were the kinds of things I romanticized about. I was amused, but not deterred. I had found the Tokyo version of my dream home.

I charged into work on Monday and gleefully told Yokoyama-san that I had finally found the place I wanted to live – just two train stops away from Y’s and pretty economic. I really thought she was going to congratulate me. She didn’t. By the not so subtle expression of disapproval written on her face I could tell that something was very wrong. I turned and, with a deep sense of foreboding, walked away and up the stairs to the fourth floor, sat down at my desk, and tried to preoccupy myself with work.

Approximately an hour later I was called down to Fumi Sensei’s office. When I got there, her face, which was normally pink and cheery in my presence, looked very pale and distorted. She angrily through clenched teeth choked out “I will never touch you again”. I guessed that in her language that meant I was dead to her. I, all at once, was cut off from my surrogate Japanese mother who for three months had doted on me by providing reassuring words, weekend outings, elaborate homemade dinners and occasional culture defying hugs. My mind was frantically racing. “How could I make this better”? I cringed as I thought back to Monsieur Umetada’s warning given at my first orientation interview, “the most important thing at Y’s is to get along with Fumi Sensei”!

Within no time it seemed that everyone at Y’s knew about my predicament. I got pitied or disappointed looks from various co-workers who probably understood better than I did the implications of my actions. Normally polite, smiling peers wouldn’t acknowledge my presence. My partner, Kubo-san, just looked worried. He himself had said many times that it was “berry” important to get along with Fumi Sensei. I too late realized, unwittingly, in my clumsy, individualistic American way, had crossed an enormous social line and was now hanging by a thin silk thread.

Over the next few days spent in emotional isolation I vacillated between anxiety and anger. There was a litany of unanswered questions streaming through my brain. Hadn’t I been told that I could look for an apartment on my own? Was I actually being emotionally blackmailed into moving into Fumi Sensei’s apartment? Did I really have a choice if I wanted a future at Y’s? Comfort in my surroundings was my uppermost concern in any city, but especially Tokyo, concrete urbia, where life could be brutal and I knew no one besides the people at work. Full of self-recrimination at my own lack of conviction, disappointed to discover that my comfort in Tokyo was never mine to decide, and uncertain of my future at Y’s, I relented. My head fought my heart and won, though I didn’t feel any sense of victory.

The next day I walked into Yohji’s office and told him I would move into the apartment his mother had chosen for me.