Capsule Hotels (I Chose To Be Japanese), By Alex Johnston

Alex on Capsule Hotels:

"I Chose To Be Japanese"

Whether you end up studying in Japan someday, or you never even get there, the odds you'll ever end up in a Capsule Hotel are STILL slim to none.

Doesn't matter if you're a student studying abroad in a remote rural village in the boonies of Wakayama.

Or a clueless, jet-lagged-out tourist at Akihabara, or a bored salaryman on a brief business trip in Roppongi Hills. Only very few will ever seek out sanctuary in a Capsule Hotel.

So, I won't bore you with "The Modern History of Compact Lodgings in Japan, and the Cultural Roles They've played in Shaping Japanese Society."

But, some of you may end up in a Capsule. At the end of a drunken dreary night, in Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo. An accident so you think, but really every moment in Japan had led you there fatigued, finally.

Inside the plastic-molded coccoon you fight back down the creeping of claustrophobia.

Barely roomier than a coffin, like being buried alive--only you're being born again.

When you flick off the mini track-light, a darkness so thick and imposing it doesn't stop, it envelopes you.

And then you can become someone else..

I chose to become Japanese.