Character X takes a journey

Back in 2016, I worked in the mountains of Hokkaido at Hoshino Resorts.

It’s an upscale hotel built for lovers of the outdoors.

And outdoors it was. There were 4 lone buildings in a sea of snow surrounded by pure mountain.

I was cooped up in the reservation center along with a few others who handled calls & emails from English speakers.

It’s weird working in an environment where everyone speaks Japanese around you, but you have to relay that info in English in record time.

There wasn’t a lot of room for mistakes, but I made ‘em!

After close to 6 months, I decided to head back to the US to recoup and reflect on my 3 years abroad (I left in 2013 for a study abroad trip).

I had graduated uni while I was living in Japan and I still hadn’t gotten my feet under me career-wise.

The high-pressure, fast-paced environment of the reservation center had riddled me with so much stress, I was straining my voice.

My family looked at me bewildered and utterly confused as to why I sounded like the Hulk had my lungs in his grip.

But that soon faded.

And in its place spawned a wild ride for a year and half of me starting this newsletter, writing my first novels, and creating the “Raw Japan” brand.

There have been failures, as many of you know.

And cool experiments.

But through it all, writing books and creating art (videos and now NFTs) has been my main source of joy.

So I’m going to focus on that from now on.

And although I live in Japan, and most of my content until now has been about Japan, that doesn’t mean it’ll be that way forever.

I don’t want to restrain myself to one topic because I’m a curious person.

And I naturally like to explore things that pique my curiosity.

So with that in mind, we shall continue the polls to see what you want to read and watch and collect from me.

Here’s one answer from the poll about ‘What products do you want to see from me?’

This helps a lot.

I’m not here to create in a vacuum. Whether it’s positive or critical, your feedback helps me move forward.

OK, that’s a good place to stop.

Here’s the next poll. Let me know what you think.

Peace,

Brandon “characters are the juice“ Chin