By Renee Lajcak

Renee writes both for the page and for performance, adjusting her style for each. “For spoken word, I use shorter sentences, more repetition. On the page, you can be more abstract. For listeners, I keep it visual, ‘in your face’,” she says. Performing lets her shape how her audience experiences her stories through her stress and intonation; reading aloud is how she prefers to publish on this blog.

Tokyo, June 2017. This is the first leg of my 7-week, 7-country backpacking trip alone. Japan is a place of nostalgia because I lived here 30 years ago and have visited a few times. But this time I am 57 years old and that 13-hour flight was a killer. I only slept in fits and spurts. On top of that, the 13-hour time difference has turned night and day onto their heads. I am left with a severe case of jisaboke, or jet lag, which gets worse the older you are. I feel almost drunk with the jetlag. The fatigue produces an unfocussed spacey look in my eyes, and a Madonna-like idiotic grin graces my face for the entire 4 days I am here. Like a vampire wandering about looking for my coffin, I never quite wake up during the daylight hours.

I have 3 different groups of Japanese friends to visit in these 4 days, which is way too much to do considering my jet lag, but so it goes. Day 1 is getting my sea legs, solving practical problems with my phone and dredging up my Japanese language skills from a petrified segment of my brain. The plan for Day 2 is to visit a Japanese family I know. They want me to come to their apartment way on the other side of Tokyo and then take me to the National Noh Theater. Noh is believed to be the oldest performing art in the world. The play we will see is about 600 years old. I am acutely aware that this is a very special event, and likely quite expensive to boot. I am so appreciative of their thoughtfulness and desire to share their culture.

It’s all arranged but I’m left with one little unknown: I’m to be at their house by 2pm. So, do I eat before? Or will they be serving me a meal too? On the chance that there is no meal, I decide to go to a restaurant on the way to the train station. I find a small cafe with a sign in front that says “teishoku” lunch, which I can read with my limited Japanese. I know this is a set Japanese meal. It’s easy to order so I sit at the counter and have that. The set lunch is massive – miso soup, several veggie dishes, fried pork, rice, tea – and delicious. I roll out of there and onto the train.

The trip to the other side of this megalopolis of 14 million involves taking two trains. Buying the tickets and transferring with most of the signs in Japanese is complicated by my bleary state, but I get to the correct station and pat myself on the back for this accomplishment. At the station I am met by the grandmother Sachiko and the 3 grandkids, so getting to the house is easy. And what’s at the house? Lunch of course. A wonderful home-cooked meal of okonomiyaki (a rather heavy savory pancake) and soup. I manage to get most of the lunch down. But then dessert arrives. They have gone to a famous Western-style pastry shop to buy a variety of elegant individual cakes, some with shining glazed fruit on top, others with dainty sugar daisies. I know right away that this is a special treat by the way the kids are wriggling around.

They insist that I choose first. I select the chocolate cake topped with a glistening mirror glaze and garnished with a lacy wisp of chocolate tuile. (I’m praying the dark chocolate is packed with caffeine.) Despite its fabulous appearance and a dream of taste and texture, it is just too much. I nibble at it like an overfed rabbit.

On to the Noh Theater with Sachiko and her son-in-law Mune, which means a bus ride and another 2 trains to Shibuya, the entertainment and cultural center of Tokyo. The theater is exquisite with clean modern lines and natural, unpainted wood. There is even an interior traditional garden of Japanese maple trees and moss. Some women are formally dressed in silk

kimonos but to my relief others are in more casual dress, like myself. The wide amphitheater has an empty wooden stage holding up a traditional Japanese roof by substantial wooden pillars. The stage is connected to a long walkway with a sweeping curtain that serves as an entrance for the actors. There is a pine tree painted on the back wall of the stage, but no other props or set dressing. Each of our seats has a screen for translation into modern Japanese or English. Sachiko and Mune have been to many Noh plays, and so are very knowledgable and excited at this opportunity. I have never been to Noh and other than skimming a synopsis of the play in English, I have no idea what this experience will be like.

The play begins. The first part is supposed to be comedic but everything is in ancient Japanese. I am like a beginning English language learner forced to attend a Shakespearean play. Needless to say, the comedy goes over my head, but thankfully it only lasts 30 minutes. By contrast, the main drama moves forward with the lumbering speed of a tortoise. To my numb brain, it is achingly slow. There is no intermission, but many interminable, incomprehensible speeches by a famous 80-year-old actor in a plain brown kimono. There is a dance by someone in a mask, but the dance involves minuscule steps of maybe two inches. The combination of the molassesy pace, my severe jet lag along and the TWO large lunches has turned me into a zombie.

Remember how in the cartoons someone would prop open their eyes with toothpicks? Oh, for a couple of toothpicks!

The voices growl and shoot up in the air like howling dogs. The drums, hit at weird and seemingly random times, ring out like shots, waking me up from my torpor like a slap upside my head. The flautist grabs his flute and lets out one piercing shriek at other “random” times. I am a sickening mix of groggy and irritated, as if someone were waking me up every time I nod off. It feels like the most obnoxious snooze button ever.

I am extremely appreciative of the honor of being there and want to show it to my hosts. But my body is working against me. I try to read the English on my monitor and follow the plot but my head pounds and my vision blurs. Although the whole audience is sitting up ramrod straight, I prop my head up on my hand as if I am listening intently so that my friends can’t see me struggling to stay awake. I chew the inside of my cheeks until they are raw hoping the pain will help keep me conscious.

Finally. Finally! It’s over. The play is over.

There is one other foreigner in the whole auditorium and he is sitting next to me. After the applause dies down, he leans over and tells me how lucky I was to see such a great performance. He goes to Noh often and these tickets were very hard to get. I don’t know if he was just being friendly or if he was subtlely admonishing me for nearly falling asleep. It doesn’t matter. I don’t have the energy to feel guilty. I am just so relieved it is over. It is over.

After a long train ride, I arrive back at my homestay quite late. I crawl into bed and… I am wide awake.

© 2026 Renee Lajcak

Renee is a newly retired English language teacher who has taught in several Asian countries but now enjoys her woodsy backyard the best.  She loves the connections made through storytelling and teaching conversational English, but writing about memories allows her to go inward to contemplate the good, the bad and the ugly.  But mostly the good.