Photo by Damon Garrett
Where are you this July 4th?
It’s July 4th.
I’ve got a red hot cup a coffee in my hand, and I’m stuffing socks in a backpack, getting ready to race out the door for a 7 a.m. slow train to Kyoto.
July 4th has been a bizarre holiday for me in the past five years—celebrated anywhere but “home,” if we define home in terms of birthplace.
It has reinforced that strange connection to Americans I feel when abroad, and the distance I sometimes feel from them when I’m at home. One of those traveling paradoxes I just can’t put my finger on?
In any case, today, I’ll celebrate it at a friend’s house in Kobe, with one fellow American, a Canadian, an Australian, several bottles of wine, and the dangerous, looming potential for karaoke.
And you?
Thanks for keeping up with us here at Abroad; we love your comments and your insight. Happy July 4th!
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4 Comments... join the discussion!
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Last year, I bought some fireworks from a Chinese vendors and set them off in the dead of night with a fellow American on a deserted beach in Thai Muang.
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in Fukuoka ATM and for the first time in my life, july4 was just another day. not sure what to think about that though
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I spent last year’s 4th of July lighting off cheap fireworks by the Kamigamo river with my friend’s Andrew and Kana and for the first time in a long time…. I felt very patriotic.
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