What I Loved the Most About Japan

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A week ago, I landed back in the U.S. after 14 hours of flying and immediately sunk into a deep depression. Some of it was jet lag. Most of it was the horror of following along with Trump’s fascist reign of terror on my phone screen.

I am re-emerging from my cocoon of anxiety to get back to work. It is easy to feel like nothing else matters when the president is defying a unanimous Supreme Court order, crashing the economy on purpose, and kidnapping people off the streets. I have doomscrolled until my fingers cramp up and my eyes hurt. But to keep that up would immobilize me from doing anything about it.

Being in Japan for two weeks was a huge privilege. It was also a welcome reminder of the world outside American chaos. Western tourists have increasingly flocked to Japan over the past decade, often inspired by viral travel content on social media (I have something I’ve been working on pertaining to this phenomenon coming this summer, so stay tuned!). My desire to go to Japan predates Instagram, but my Explore page is a grid of these kinds of posts.

I wanted to share some of my respite with Spitfire News members. I love reading about what people learn when they travel, so behind the paywall is a glimpse into the trip I planned for almost two years and the Instagram versus reality of it all. For just $5, you’ll also make my reader-funded journalism possible.

• While I was away, I published four interviews with women whose nonfiction books speak to the misogyny of this moment: sexual violence investigations on campuses, abusive abortion bans, authoritarianism reflected in digital beauty standards, and how online harassment threatens democracy.

• Speaking of misogyny, I spoke to Ryan Broderick of Garbage Day about who killed the #MeToo movement on his podcast Panic World.

• And I chatted with Jacob Ward on The Rip Current about my Blake Lively investigation and critique of Gavin Newsom.

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