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The Key

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Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 12:29 am
A common side effect of war is dehumanization of the enemy. I think a lot of people know that or at the very least they understand it when they hear it, but what they don't understand is that it happens on a smaller scale all the time. Sometimes it's intentional, sometimes it's not. Sometimes we do it to the guy that works in the cubicle next to us who by all intents and purposes could be our brother, sometimes we do it to the immigrant family we've seen a few times down the street, and sometimes we do it to an entire group of people with a certain ethnic background based on something that a small subsection of those people did to us (cough cough, not that this is a problem in the U.S., no!).

Chip Duncan, author/photographer of the book, "Enough to Go Around: Searching for Hope in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Darfur," explores humanitarian efforts in war-torn areas. He caught my attention on a local news show this morning when the interviewers asked why he shot photos in places that seem so depressing. He said his goal in traveling with Non-Governmental Organizations is to photograph signs of hope in these cities - kites flying, music playing, children going to school, etc. The inspiration for this project came from the philosophy he developed when he had the opportunity to ask someone in Moscow what he did for fun. Growing up in the cold war, he'd had certain ideas about "soviet enemies," but as it turned out, the Russian did all the same stuff for fun as he did. At that point he really realized the long history we have of dehumanizing people we're in conflict with. I think "conflict" is the key word here, not just war. There are many pitfalls to what Duncan describes as "ignoring history and dehumanizing entire populations," and certainly I couldn't agree more that is the gravest form of it, but it does happen on many levels.

It really hits home because I know I have a problem humanizing many Japanese people around me - and I'm even in their culture, not my own. Not that I'm dehumanizing them, but I have trouble connecting to them on account of the language barrier. I can't read the social signs in Japanese and most of them can't give them to me in English. I think it's a sad reality, but it's important to address it if I want to solve the problem and build relationships in my Japanese community. It's even harder because to humanize people you need to know more personal things about them, which means not only must you go beyond public knowledge but you have to go beyond cliche personal things ("I have kids, I like steak, tra la la"), and people keep telling me that Japanese social conventions are very impersonal and out-rightly asking people about personal things like family and life satisfaction is pretty taboo. This may not be true, it may only be one of "those things people say," but it does make me nervous venturing toward that territory.

Conversely, I know I'm fairly proper with my acquaintances, and it could be better for me to just let loose, chat up a storm in bad Japanese, and not worry about "right" and "wrong." Furthermore, a lot of people have been commenting on my formal social exterior lately, and it makes me wonder if all of my relationships, U.S. included, wouldn't be better if people could relate to my humanity more easily. Could I be dehumanizing myself and creating barriers to myself in this way? Well, never mind, this isn't about me.

It makes perfect sense that humanizing others is the key to relationships so it's something that stands in your way no matter where you go, especially when it can be mentally categorized based on the fact that it coincides with a "different face" on people of other ethnic backgrounds or when you can hide behind a different language, or any other tangible difference that can obscure emotional and mental conceptions. The easiest solution I can come up with from the top of my head is to raise my awareness of tangible similarities in our lives. I know I've become closer to the people in my personal life in the States since I quit being awkward about hugging people, seeing as it's impossible to avoid reality of the human condition when you're touching it. I'm not about to go around hugging the teachers at school, but maybe there's something else I can do.
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Decisions

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Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 10:58 am
So, a parent just walked in the teacher's office and no one acknowledged her. My desk faces the door. She made a general question about finding a teacher and I was the only person within earshot...but she was looking more over my shoulder than at me (which in Japanese culture could very well mean she was talking to me). I was really really close to answering, my lips parted a few times, but in the end I was just too afraid the world would end if I violated the unspoken agreement that I'm not to get involved in external school affairs. Nemoto-sensei finally heard her and introduced himself.

I can't help but wonder if my life wouldn't be a lot less complicated if I spent less time worrying about the rules.
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Parent Teacher Conferences

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Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 09:50 am
Just when I thought I understood a cultural nuance, it gets taken to the next level.

I don't bow much. I'm trying to bow more. I have no problem bowing when someone really puts themselves out for me or when it fits nicely into an exit or entrance or a lull in conversation, but in general the rules for bowing are highly contextualized and no one really expects me to do it anyway because I'm foreign. I'll admit, even though I know some concrete occasions for bowing, it's still very unnatural. Not because I have a problem subjugating myself, but it's just a very active movement for someone as reserved as myself.

I thought I'd seen enough of Japanese life in the last four months so that I had a pretty good grasp on the multi-bow and other bowing scenarios...And then parent-teacher conferences came. Have you ever seen the SNL skit where Ricky Gervais claims to have copied the British office from a Japanese version of the show? Then he plays "footage" from the "Japanese version" (look it up). There are a couple of unfair stereotypes but by and large it's pretty accurate to Japanese office culture. One of the scenes features the "uber-multi" bow, where every is bowing so quickly and such a ridiculous number of times that it looks more like convulsing than bowing. I saw this and I laughed because I've seen some excessive bowing in my day and I thought it was a funny exhaggeration, but after parent-teacher conferences it's 8 times more hilarious. I haven't seen it used in any other context yet, but the relationship of self-deprication between teachers and parents proves that this skit is not exhaggerated! That's really culture right there lol A housewife walks into the teacher's office and the two of them begin bowing like rag dolls in a washing machine and for as open-minded and desensitized as I feel, being from a country as bold and proud as the U.S., it's pretty fascinating for me to see.

Parent-teacher conferences are interesting for more reasons than that though. They're held during the school day, with parents (almost entirely mothers) streaming into the teacher's office and sitting down to talk to the teachers of their children's homerooms. At first this seemed really inconvenient and kind of slanted against socioeconimcally disadvantaged families where both parents need to work full time, but it's true that most mothers in Japan only work part time and usually teachers encourage parents to schedule special meetings, sometimes late at night or even on the weekend (even though teachers are salaried). From what Batman says, I think their parent attendance rate for conferences is about the same as ours back home, and similarly it's always the smartest kids whose parents show up the most.

The parents don't go to talk to other teachers, seeing as there are 40 students per class and the other teachers probably don't know their children all too well, but the Japanese homeroom teacher is a different beast. Japanese homeroom teachers take a lot of interest in their students personal lives, and in many ways are more responsible for the student's social development than the parents. They're also equipped with a pipeline of information with all the teachers in one office, including teachers that supervise the students' club activities after school and on weekends. The responsibilities of teachers are very different from back home, the favorite example of one of my English-teaching foreign friends is the time someone in her neighborhood disapproved of a student spitting in the street, so they called the school, not the parents. Police also come to the school, not the parents, when the student gets in trouble. Furthermore, sometimes parents will come to the teacher saying, "The kid won't listen to me, please advise him." That's not to say that parents relinquish control over their child's upbringing, but the teacher carries a lot more influence, which is so different from what we have in the States.

It's been really useful for me as a learner, as well, listening to what words and polite phrases parents and teachers use for each other and what they do to honor and respect each other's responsibilties. It's even interesting to see how parents display their respect for the work place when they accidentally bump into a trash can or have to trouble the teacher for an extra chair. I can't understand everything they say, of course, but many times the teacher will ask the parents about the habits the teenager has at home, how she spends free time, how often she goes to cram school, and that kind of thing.

I don't know how else to describe it other than, "really interesting." Part of me is impressed that the teacher feels invested in those kinds of details, part of me feels like it's silly, and part of me is a little bothered when a father starts scolding a mother for being off by fifteen minutes when telling the teacher what time a student gets home from cram school. And of course, it's inevitable that showmanship and white lies end up surfacing in this kind of environment, I can't identify them of course, but there's no way they're not there, what with all the issues of saving face involved. There's a slight conflict in me because I can't decide if it's wonderful that everyone cares so much or that everyone is taking things a little too seriously for a teenager's well-being. Still, on the whole it suits Japanese culture just fine.
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Bowling, It Speaks Truths

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Thursday, November 26th, 2009 09:23 am
Clearly I'm past the initial infatuation stage with Japan because more and more my posts are about normal thoughts and they don't sound like diary entries. I think this is good. Looking over old blog entries from last year, I realized I like my writing better when it's conceptual.

So here I go with an entry about bowling as a medium for expressing different personalities.

It sounds corny and maybe a little obvious, but nonetheless it's interesting. Last night we had a "Teacher's Recreation Night" where we went bowling and then out for a big dinner with beer. It was nice because this was the first real teacher party I've had. I was a little nervous, because sometimes when I bowl I barely break 30, and other times I get more than 130 and you never know what kind of a day it will be. It didn't help that this time it was with the teachers, most of them being 40-50 year old men who don't speak English, and that my lane cluster was two 40-something bookish fellows, a boisterous 50 year old gym teacher, and our 60 year old Majestic Principal.

It all began with the gym teacher making jokes about waiting for everyone (he was the first one to arrive, you see) and then proceeding to talk about what people usually do wrong when they bowl (I took mental notes). The gym teacher was to be my partner during the pair game in the second round, so his knowledge made me nervous, and I felt a lot of pressure to live up to the average I'd told them before the tournmanet. Still, I was probably most nervous about the presence of the principal. He's like a noble king - he's stoic but not arrogant, strong but subtle, and he always glides in wearing a suit with his hands folded behind his back. I feel like his most natural environment would be the crowded ballroom from Cinderella.

And when we started all of our personalities popped out in our throws. The Principal was still in his suit because he'd come straight from school. He picked up the ball carefully and with great effort on account of his age. He took it back, and released it with such grace that I was almost moved to tears. He set it down on the lane in one smooth movement, like he was planting a flower with one hand, and it was the slowest ball I'd ever seen. Yet slow as it was, the speed stayed constant and straight, never wavering from the line he set it on. He didn't always get strikes or even spares, but never in my life have I seen such straight and consistent throws. It was as if someone was pulling it on a track from the other side, because you just couldn't imagine that perfect ball came from someone's hand.

When it was the gym teacher's turn, he threw the ball down and I was relieved to see that he could get some strikes and spares but in spite of his earlier lectures, he was mostly like me, pulling very medicore scores. Even though his points were mine, because we were a pair, I was glad he wasn't breaking 100 and I was glad he wasn't doing worse than I was. We always love the safety of similarity, don't we?

As for myself, my first four throws were gutters. I was nervous and horribly embarassed and the ball always went to the same spot in the gutter, just to the left of the leftmost pins. Truth be told, this was exactly what I'd been afraid of all week from the moment they asked me my bowling average. I used to be pretty decent, but for about the last 3 years I've developed the habit of turning my wrist at the last second and swinging the ball way left, and I haven't been able to fix it. After those wretched first throws, I finally got maybe 3 pins and I was disgusted that that was considered a triumph. It was unacceptable, so I sucked it up and concentrated like I've never concentrated before. I wasn't going to give my body any other options. At that point I managed to absolutely cement my wrist...and I got a strike. (WTF right?) In typical Me style, from there on out I'd usually get about 6-9 pins, every once in a while throwing a gutter or a strike depending on how confident I was feeling. If that's not a perfect display of my sensitive and self-conscious but aggressive personality, I'm not sure what is. And afterwords teachers kept coming up to me saying I had a beautiful throw, so you can take that as you will ;)

Of course one of the bookish men showed the controlled confidence in his bowling that he expresses to me every day working hard at his desk. The wonderfully sweet bookish teacher was largely mediocre but every once in a while he'd throw a strike and light up the room. On the other lanes, Batman threw some strong balls which was highly effective sometimes but other times not and I could tell I made him a little self-conscious when I came over to watch. Ichi-sensei was glowing with nerdy confidence, just like he does in the classroom, and of course it gave him a good score even if he was unpleasant to watch. The frumpy, glasses-clad, house-wife-looking lady who manages the science experiences and whom I never see because she doesn't have a desk in the teacher's office, well, she'd throw the ball down the lane and it would meander toward the gutter, and then halfway down it would curve around and make a perfect strike - definitely not what you'd expect.

I only had two regrets. The first was that Yama-chan was in another room so I couldn't watch his undoubtedly adorable take-backs. If his office demeanor is anything like his bowling, I'm sure he was taking pages out of Fred Flinstone's book for his throws. The second was that the adorable geography teacher joined us only after bowling was finished, because he's the one who usually runs around the office making a hilarious noises like a strangled bear when something goes wrong. Or right. Or when someone is eating soba. I'm sure he'd be very entertaining!

We went to a yakitori pub after and I made sure to sit with people I wanted to get to know, out of the reach of the ever-translating English teachers, and I practiced Japanese all night and made a lot of friends. I can't wait until our "Forget the Year," party in December!

Oh, Happy Thanksgiving, by the way :)
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The Dachshunds Here Have Even Shorter Legs With Even Longer Bodies

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Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 04:16 pm
On the walk to work, I found myself waiting at a stoplight. There were no cars in sight, just a woman and her dachshund waiting across the narrow street for the same reason. You just don’t cross on a red light in Japan.

The woman looked politely off into the distance like any proper Japanese person trying not to stare at a foreigner, but her dog had no such manners. Only six inches off the ground, the little brown eyes bore a hole into my soul.

He looked placid enough, a quite sort of eagerness – maybe something along the lines of, “I want to sniff you. I wonder if you’ll pet me. What exactly is that thing you’re holding?” At least that’s what I thought he was thinking、though I can never be sure. I find it hard to believe that he would recognize my otherness like I’m sure his owner did, but still his face looked like he did.

I began to wonder if his thoughts were identical to those of a dog in the States. The language difference is probably not so much between Japanese and U.S. dogs, but maybe their thoughts are influenced by how they’re treated culturally. My thoughts and the woman’s thoughts are probably very similar. We both have places to be, things to do, and feelings to feel, but our cultures determine our judgments about those places, things, and feelings.

I’ll probably never know what the dog was thinking, but I hope by the time I’m done here I can understand the woman a little better.
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You Do Not Piss Off The Dark Knight

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Thursday, October 1st, 2009 03:36 pm
I just came from my first real experience teaching with the teacher I call Batman. He’s the one I stayed with on my first night here. I formerly called him Mick-sensei, but after today, he’s officially earned the switch to Batman full-time. As it turns out, not only does he talk and move like Batman, but he's just as scary as Batman.

In the past we'd done fun little stupid lessons, but this was the first real lesson I taught with him. He started yelling, like crazy full out scary shouting (not a very Japanese things to do, mind you). I kind of understand where he was coming from, I was a little annoyed by the student as well. I asked a question and he just sat there. I asked it again. I asked it in a different way. I asked it in another different way. I waited. Nuuuuttthin'. He was thinking about it, and he looked remorseful, but instead of guessing a number 1-8 or saying, "I don't know," or even "ai donnto..uh...I dunnto noo," he just sat there. Seriously, it went on for several minutes. This is my number one complaint about Japanese students – the Deer-in-Headlights mentality.

In my own classroom, things would have been different, but I'm not there to react, just there to prompt. I need to leave the reactions up to the teacher and Batman seemed content to let the kid struggle and then he all out started shouting at him. This man has a SEVERE voice. And I felt bad, because this kid was like, portly and dweeby looking, the kind you think, "Damn, you'd better be smart because there's no other excuse for your awkwardness." Reflecting on it now, I really feel bad for him, even though it's kind of his own fault.

During the exchange, I was pretty much at a loss. I didn’t have to say or do anything, but it was still a problem because I didn't know what to do with my face. I was automatically so upset by the yelling that I couldn't wipe my face blank – I’m a sensitive person, to say the least. Instead I pinballed back and forth between sympathetic attention, concern, and pain. Mostly I kept coming back to pain, I think. When the kids tuned away from us to do an exercise, he turned to me and was like, "You may not have liked my yelling, I think. But I told them this already. I told them, 'never just sit there. always answer.' He should have known better. Even 'I don't know,' is fine." I assured Batman that I understood, because really I did. But I can't not feel awkward when things like that go down. I don't blame him, but I think maybe a different style could have been easier for everyone. The kid may have deserved it, but it didn’t help the classroom’s atmosphere and the kid definitely wasn’t going to speak again after that.

Now that the first time is over, I think it'll be easier for me, since I’ll know to expect this. At least it’s not a surprise, the man is quite consistent! Fortunately at the time I knew to expect awkward disciplinary things like that from all the JET trainings and it was just a matter of relaxing and letting him take care of it in his own way. The "Not My Business," approach is the #1 recommended attitude by the JET programme – mostly because it’s the only one that really works in nearly all situations in Japan.

Still. It was scary. I’d heard him go off before on students, but then it was about cleaning and failing test scores, so I guess I assumed there was more to the story. Not to mention, nobody was watching me at the time so it didn’t matter if I was a little startled. It does make you think though, even if you believe in the disciplinarian method; if you use it too often, people will tune you out as a windbag. I think you’re better off being gentle, so that when you really mean business, you can whip it out. Like the beloved parent who only needs to rumple an eyebrow and the kid knows it’s srs biznaz. If you set your standard at Batshit Crazy, there’s nowhere to go but down.

Still, don’t judge Batman too harshly. He’s the same man who helped me find a plane ticket on one of the best airlines in the world for almost half the price of a normal ticket, and when I couldn’t work out how to buy it on my own, he put it on his credit card and trusted me to pay him in cash without batting an eyelash.
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You Can Keep Your Sparkling Bishounen, I Brought My Own

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Thursday, October 1st, 2009 10:56 am
Yesterday’s international club ended up going well. As it turned out I saw the delinquent and all her friends hanging out outside the classroom, but when I arrived they said hello but instead of coming in with me, they left after I’d entered. I don’t know what to make of that, but I don’t really care because it meant only 8 first year girls and I sat and talked for a half an hour and it was great. They’re the ones who try and they’re the ones who have good attitudes. The more I think about it, the more I don’t think I was being sensitive or there was a language barrier. I think that girl’s just rude. She could have said the exact same thing to me and if she’d had a pained smile on while she said it, it would have been a completely different message.

You know, talking about these places and things and knowing none of you know anything about them is really strange. Though there is a rare one or two of you who have been to Japan, most of you only know what I've told you and what you've seen in pictures, and furthermore none of you have been in the City by the Sea. This is weird to me, so many of you are very close to me and have always known all of my business (I don’t keep secrets). So now that I live here, everything in my being says you should know my environment and you don’t. How can you not know about the world I live in? How can there be so many worlds going on at once that have almost no overlap with the next?

It's so weird to think about fall happening in Madison right now. What the heck, I've missed over 2 months of life in the USA. For a while, part of me was all hurt and sad and weird about the idea, but mostly I’m fine with it because I'm alive here too and where there’s life there’s Life. It's just weird to think about. I've never been so far away for so long. There is some nostalgic mourning now that it’s fall though. Don’t get me wrong, Japan has its own autumn traditions that I look forward to like eating nabe and looking at leaves from the shrines, and it even has some of the same traditions as we do, especially since the weather is almost identical here in Hokkaido as it is in Wisconsin. Overall though, I just feel like something is missing when I’m not getting pumpkin spice chai, walking ankle-deep through leaves on Lathrop, and seeing my mom in orange sweaters.

But I can still do something to help you gain perspective. First, look at all my pictures. Second, watch something. Be careful though, because there are a lot of outlandish descriptions of Japan and the more “authentic” you think something is, the less authentic it probably is. There is a strong element of ancient tradition here but mostly it’s like any other city on Earth. More or less, I think life here is like the anime Whisper of the Heart. This film is not too melodramatic (other than the occupational aspirations between the main characters) and not too media washed with the perfection of television. Even the clutter in the main character’s house is pretty realistic – since Japan is not very materialistic on the whole, almost nothing ever matches. I can't find a black carpet here, because NO MATTER WHAT you buy here, it only comes in pink, blue, flower, and kitty. Seriously, not even white or beige most the time. Anyway, still I'll admit that the mess in her house does go a bit overboard, so clearly that’s nowhere near the norm and that should be kept in mind too.

But the anime is not far off, because you really do meet people with random ass talents, and various old people really do want to share their skills with you, and there really are all sorts of unmarked businesses tucked around the city. (Theresa's boss is a master shamisen player, The Canadian's landlady is a local legend and his neighborhood is named after her, CR's favorite teacher can sing enka, Josh's neighbors are international travelers who are fluent in English, the 10th grade president of the International Club at my school is also a basketball god - though you'd never guess it by looking at him, and the bar around the corner from my house has been voted Best Yakitori in all of Japan for two years running).

It's a magical place in a very ordinary way.

And as I go through life here, it's wonderful, but not as mystical as you think it is when you're reading people's blogs and looking at pictures from their FB pages (or reading manga, for that matter). This is not me in an anime where we all get up and do some dance moves during class and where the ikemen going for a lay-up at the taikai festival sparkles as he slow-motion jumps over his opponents head. This is me trying to get kids to speak English instead of dream about rock concerts, and this is me watching kids play basketball in the gym.

And yet, isn't that how it always is? It’s not a “Japan-romanticism-problem” because everywhere you go things are always romanticized on TV. TV and movies and books make life look soooo damn cool, but you can be living the exact same life and because it's yours, you're like, "this is nice, but it's not THAT." But in reality, it is. It’s exactly that, just without the proper framing and foreshadowing. I wouldn’t give up the magic and inspiration of media in a million years, but I do recognize that it creates a perspective problem and it becomes difficult for us to respect or enjoy something unless it is perfectly lit and viewed from the right angle. The grass is always greener on the other side, right? Just try to remember that life really is romantic for everyone. I may be rockin’ it out in Japan, but other than a ton of learning and culture adjustment it’s not too much different from me rockin’ it out in the States.

Well, actually there is another way to solve the problem of romanticism. Rather than bring down the fantastical, you can embrace the everyday…And I am a master at this, since in my head I insert my own sparkles on the bishounen playing basketball.
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