# Storytellers By [Slapboxing Wit Your Shadow](https://paragraph.com/@slapboxing-wit-your-shadow) · 2023-05-14 --- It irritates me to hear people sling stories as their own personal research. As if this out pour of “facts” mixed in with wordplay was written in their study, among leather bond books, mahogany desks and shit. Adding to the annoy experience, most people aren’t good storytellers to begin with, eventhough the majority of us have done some form of it throughout our lives. The African proverb that I lifted from a Talib Kweli album, (just in case you don’t read the bibliography at the end) entitledn“Train of Thought”, was “If you talk, you can sing. If you can walk, you can dance.”. Notice, it doesn’t say shit about being GOOD at it, but you have the ability. Which leads to another quote that has been repeated so much, it’s origin has been lost: “Practice doesn’t make perfect. It makes improvements.” The last sequence of the “somebody had said one time…” quotes to tie this all up: “Don’t confuse movement with progress.” Which leads me to today’s Slapbox…”Why are you talking to me?”. Stories about Japan have begun to sound the same. I’m not sure if it’s the result of all gaijins have the same gripe about what isn’t fair in Japan or is it because Japanese society has gotten so easy to read. The one-shot critque of everything is “Don’t stand out while trying to do your best”, which sounds like two opposing concepts. This has, some how, worked as the foundation of every blog, vlog, post, Tok-Tik, and whatchamacallit about “Hashtag: Life In Japan”. These monologues will be passed around by burnouts or fanboys, depending on what search you’re conducting to validate your feels in either camp. Then, somehow, it makes it’s way to me in the form of a tourist, a “bambi brat”, or reinvented expat. Telling me, out of sheer empathy to share (deez nuts on your chin), that my approach to living in Japan is wrong. Not “Your opinion maybe skewed” or “Perhaps I should try…”, just flat out “That’s not what you’re suppose to think while you’re here.”. I get that many people have Japan on their travel list but that doesn’t mean that it won’t suck when you get here. In addition, if you wanna turn a blind eye to the things that do suck in order to have a flawless experience, bravo. You beat the system. On the flipside, if you found that my experience isnt’ the worst of it and you have an even darker, more unpleasant story, keep that shit to yourself. I’m not interested in finding out more bad moments in life, I got those like cam girls got dick pics in their DMs (or so I’ve been told). The point of a story isn’t so much about making yourself to be this griot or celebrating that your thesis checks out. Your story is to tell me about you. So, tell me how you feel with as many words as you have masks left over from COVID. Paint me a scene that gives every person in the background a face. Tell me about that one second where you found something new in the “same old ‘same old’”. Say that shit in Japanese…incorrectly. The Japanese person that steps out of the masses to let you know you’re saying it wrong, THAT’S your new friend. Exchange LINE information and write each other twice week. Stories that haven’t been told are like books that haven’t been read. They are still around for a reason, you have to open up to find out why. You remember those forgotten moment in a blink of an eye, why store it again just to spew out the fresh new one that’s a re-run from last week. Look…I agree with you, that mutha fucka should get kicked in their armpit for playing in your face like that. Now, what about your story about holding an umbrella over a stranger while it rain? Yeah, they said “Nah, I’m okay. Thanks”, but how did YOU feel to doing that? An act of kindness with nothing asked for in return. What was it like to agree that things don’t have to suck so badly and trying to help out in a small way? And tell me what you learned from the experience or ask what in that story stuck out to me. After all, “How’s it going?” will only give you a story you already heard. In which case, you don’t need to talk to me. --- *Originally published on [Slapboxing Wit Your Shadow](https://paragraph.com/@slapboxing-wit-your-shadow/storytellers)*