Narrative and Photographs by Suzanne Kamata
I was already living in Japan when Taylor Swift was born, so she was never part of my American cultural experience. I didn’t hear her songs on the radio, didn’t see her face on the cover of magazines, and because I never clicked on links about her, she never entered my online bubble.
I had a vague awareness that she was a Country and Western singer, but I’d always been more inclined to listen to “alternative” music (Kate Bush, Siouxsie Sioux, Sinead O’Connor, Bjork, and so on).
At some point, my students at a small teacher’s college in Western Japan began to mention her as their favourite singer in their self-introductions. When they asked me what musicians I liked, I struggled to come up with someone they had heard of. Finding a favorite Taylor Swift song seemed like a good way to connect.
I learned a little bit more about her: she enjoys baking and knitting; she loves cats. Every time she visits a city, its economy improves. She gives generous bonuses to the people who work for her and supports LGBTQI rights. She has inspired girls all over the world. She seems like a genuinely nice person.
My son listened to her music, and after he shared one of his playlists with me, I had “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” on my phone. I liked it. It was catchy and relatable, easy to sing along to. But I didn’t really become a fan until she released Folklore during the pandemic. A friend whose musical taste I trusted raved about it on Facebook, so I downloaded the album. I listened to it as I drove to my office where I sat alone at my desk all day, uploading material for virtual classes. I became enamored with her storytelling, evident in songs such as “Betty,” about a teenage love triangle, and “The Last Great American Dynasty,” which exudes Great Gatsby vibes.
Last July, I learned that Taylor Swift would be performing four shows in Tokyo. A lottery would determine who would get tickets. I had never been to a big concert in an arena—well, not since I saw the Bee Gees in Detroit, when I was in junior high school, and that was before artists began incorporating mapping and other bells and whistles. I thought it would be fun. An extravaganza. I asked my husband if he wanted to go to a Taylor Swift concert with me.
“There’s no way you’ll be able to get tickets,” he said.
I entered the lottery anyway. Lo and behold, I “won” two tickets for Thursday, February 8, the second of four shows. As the date was months away, I didn’t count on anything. A lot could happen. And it did!
A week before the concert, I got an emergency text from my sister-in-law telling me that my elderly mother had fallen down and broken her hip. She was in the hospital, about to have surgery. The last time something like that had happened (to my father), I had rushed back to America. But my dad told me that everything was under control, and my mother made it through surgery without any complications, so I decided to put off my return home.
Then, three days before the start of the concerts, a rare snowstorm hit Tokyo, shutting down transportation. Since my husband and I live in distant Shikoku, we were planning to take a plane on the day of the show, arriving just a few hours in advance. If the snow continued, we wouldn’t make it.
“It’ll melt,” my husband assured me.
He was right. By Thursday, most of the snow was gone.
We made it to Haneda Airport, checked into our hotel in Ueno, had some sushi, and took the train to Tokyo Dome. Two hours before start time, a crowd had already gathered. Young women in spangled dresses, tiaras, and cowgirl hats, speaking various languages, posed for photos and exchanged friendship bracelets. Hundreds of people were queued up to buy merchandise related to the Eras Tour. Although my husband and I waited in line for almost an hour, when it became clear that we risked missing the beginning of the performance, we left and went to find our seats, which were high up in the rafters.
Slowly, the seats began to fill. By the time the lights dimmed, the place was packed. The music began, and dancers came onto the stage holding what looked like Japanese fans. Cheers surged. To my left, an earnest young woman, who was apparently attending alone, recorded nearly the entire show on her phone. A white-haired Japanese man, also on his own, sat just in front of me. Several young women in short dresses stood behind us, singing and dancing along to the songs that they knew. Whenever Taylor disappeared for a set or costume change, they would squeal in delight at her reappearance on stage: “Yabai, yabai, yabai[1]!”
For three hours and twenty minutes, as Taylor went through her set of 47 songs, ranging across her career, the arena was filled with joy.
Occasionally, my husband would lean over and ask, “Do you know this one?”
I confess that I didn’t know all of the songs—especially those from her early albums. I danced along anyway.
After the concert, my social media feeds were abuzz with reactions from other friends who had been there, or who’d attended the performance the night before. It felt as we had been part of something huge—and happy.
Meanwhile, back in the United States, rumors were circulating that Taylor Swift was part of some Deep State government plot to re-elect President Joe Biden in November. NFL fans were complaining that she got too much onscreen attention when she attended her boyfriend’s games (to cheer him on). Others slut-shamed her for having had too many boyfriends or attacked her for polluting with her private plane.
I was glad that none of that vitriol had reached Japan.
My husband and I went back to Tokyo Dome the next evening, during the concert, to buy T-shirts. At that time, the line for merchandise was blessedly short. We saw people sitting on benches outside the arena, or with their ears pressed to the walls, taking in as much as they could. It was strangely moving.
When I got back home, I downloaded two more of her albums. I’ve been listening to them non-stop ever since.
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[1] Great, great, great!
Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
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