Several weekends ago I had to elevate my Culture Shock Threat Advisory code to at least an orange, if not almost a burnt umber.
"Why?" you ask.
The answer: My gaijin rite of passage - being the Monkey.
It is apparently something all of us (including the hafu, meaning "half-Japanese") gaijin have to go through at some time or another. In my previous Tokyo stint, I never had that much interaction with large groups of Japanese or, really, any Japanese I wasn't related to somehow, so I was never forced to experience this particularly trying and uncomfortable gaijin rite.
Allow me to set the scene and give the background for the story...
Since moving to
About a month ago, B went so far as to invite me to attend an ikebana show with her, followed by lunch, and observing her pastry class. I agreed readily because 1) the ikebana show would be free (she had an extra ticket), 2) B is nice enough, and 3) she asked. So, that weekend many weeks ago, I went with B to the ikebana show - we'll call it "B Outing #1." The flower displays were very impressive and the place where the flowers were exhibited was even more impressive (Meguro Ga Joen). Not only did I get to see beautiful flowers as well as traditional Japanese rooms (okay, REALLY NICE traditional Japanese rooms), but I also got my first glimpse of B's rather intense personality. Again, she's nice, just very, um, energetic and, shall we say, enthusiastic (read: a little spazzy). When we first arrived at the exhibition, she literally (no Californexaggeration here) grabbed my hand, pulled me through the extremely crowded gift shop area, and ambushed the ikebana artist. B said hello, thank you for the tickets (they are acquaintances). He asked her if she got the tickets. She said yes. (Was this not obvious by the fact that we were in the exhibit area or was he just completely not paying attention to what she was saying?) He then, just as intensely, took off to the autograph table spurring B once again into action. She went for the calendars and postcards like a starving woman at a Sizzler's, hastily selected a packet of postcards for me (a gift, very nice of her) and a book for her, then took off for the autograph table. Her path was quickly checked by one of the saleswomen who kindly instructed her to first pay for the items before getting them autographed. B made a sharp 180 and a swift march down the packed aisle for the cashier. I was still standing by the calendars, confused and awed by her sudden movements.
Having paid for the items, B's determination turned again to the autograph table. She hooked me on the way back and we were 2nd and 3rd in line, respectively. When the artist came back to the table, he obligingly signed all of B's postcards and book and one of my cards. To be honest, I didn't want him to ruin all my pretty postcards - I had no idea who this guy was!! After getting our items signed, we were able to start perusing the ikebana exhibits at a less-than-leisurely-but-still-not-toooo-fast pace. B kept us moving though, because we had a schedule to adhere to.
So, after the exhibition, we ate lunch and then went on to her pastry class. I had assumed (you know what they say when you assume...) that the class would last a maximum of about 2 hours, right...
FOUR hours later, we were on our way home. During the class, I had stood around and watched B and a group of other women learn how to make Japanese-style cheesecake. B used this opportunity to try to translate what the teacher was saying from Japanese into French. It was a noble and kind attempt, but really more distracting than anything else considering I was trying to practice Japanese by listening to what he was saying and also the fact that her vocabulary doesn't include enough cooking words to fully accomplish the translation and it was mostly communicated with hand gestures.
I started to get a sneaking suspicion over the course of the class that I was a bit of a "Show and Tell" item for her. Basically, she was saying: "Look, everyone, I have a gaijin friend. She lives in my building. She speaks French. And I speak French with her." She made sure to tell everyone all this information. I understand the novelty that I am to her, so I didn't begrudge her this. No one else really made that big a deal of me, except the teacher/pastry chef who kept smiling awkwardly at me when he stood next to me observing the students at their stations. Anyway, evening over, B and I headed home, cheesecake samples in hand and me ready to get down to some Japanese studying.
Fast forward one week, to "B Outing #2." This time, A had invited me to go with her on a Saturday night to eat okonomiyaki (a sort of cabbage-egg pancake - it tastes a lot better than it sounds) with some of her French classmates at her friend's restaurant. Again, I agreed to this for several reasons: 1) She asked and I thought that was nice, 2) I don't remember having ever tried okonomiyaki, and 3) It would be easier to assure that my meal was vegetarian because she had the restaurant hookup. So, B and I met at Ikebukuro station Saturday evening and made our way to the train station where her friend's restaurant is located. After exiting the station, where her French classmates were waiting, she didn't really introduce me, just said hello to everyone and let's go. Everyone was, of course, staring at me, like, "Who is this chick?" So I introduced myself. Then we followed after B to the restaurant. Once in the restaurant, the Monkey business began...
"But, Miki, what is Monkey business?" you might be wondering. This is basically the term that I came up with during my Post-Traumatic Monkey Distress Disorder (PTMDD) breakdown. It's full meaning will become more clear as my story continues and I'll give you a full definition at the end.
Meanwhile, back in Apartment 4D...
Oh, wait, wrong story...
Meanwhile, back at the okonomiyaki resto...
We sat down at a table with a griddle built in to it - we were going to prepare our own food. This was great, because I'd be sure that nothing non-veg would go in my food. The people at my table were very cool with me setting aside my own little corner at the table and the restaurant people didn't even act like I was a complete freak when I asked for my own spatula. So far so good.
Then, after the food was ordered, we finally had a chance to just sit and talk. B began speaking in French. Fine with me, except pretty much no one else understood what we were talking about. Despite the fact that nearly all of the group had studied French for several years, most of them don't really have a practical knowledge of it. I know that if I'd never lived in France, I'd be in the same position, so I understood where they were coming from. Plus, we were spread out across 2 tables and the restaurant was crowded and loud. Not only could they not understand me, but I couldn't really understand them because of their accents and vocabulary, etc. I'm pretty good with French on my own and in conversation with other speakers of my level or higher, but it's really hard to speak to people at a lower level of a language other than your own because it's hard to know how to adjust your own vocabulary and grammar, etc. I felt bad that I wasn't fluent enough at French to make this adjustment and they were embarrassed that I couldn't understand them. So, what's the logical thing to do? Switch languages, right? So, I did - to Japanese. Am I not in Japan for the sole purpose of learning the language? So I tried my hand at some beginner Japanese, knowing that although I wouldn't be able to contribute much witty repartee, they'd at least be able to understand what little I did say and I'd at least be able to follow some of their conversation among themselves.
B, however, would have none of it. She kept speaking to me in French, even though it was clear that I was basically the only one who understood her. I kept trying to respond either in Japanese or English (much more widely understood, if not spoken, than French). Not only did B refuse to speak in Japanese, but she also acted soooo surprised that I could say simple sentences along the lines of: "I like eggs," "I do not like radish," "Could I have some water please?," and so on and so on. Again, I cannot say this enough, B is very nice and I have no doubt that she was being genuine in her behavior and friendliness toward me. However, I did start to become a little uncomfortable that she refused to speak in any language other than French and insulted that she would be sooooo surprised that I had managed these AMAZING feats of grammar and vocabulary. I know I may look as Latina as they come, but I've got the red passport to prove my citizenship and the embarrassing yochien (Japanese kindergarten) pictures to prove that I am half-Japanese and have had exposure to the language my whole life AND the receipts to prove that I am currently attending Japanese school five days a week and had been, at that time, for a month! I knew that B wanted to be able to show off her French skills and her gaijin neighbor to her friends, but I was starting to feel that I'd been brought along as the entertainment rather than as a guest and a friend. I was questioned the entire night about why was I in Japan, why did I want to learn Japanese, how do you say this in English, how do you say that in French, how do you say this in French, how do you say that in English, etc. Basically, it felt like I was there to give a free language lesson. Do you hear the monkey howls yet? Or, in French, les howls? I barely found out anything about anyone else other than their language backgrounds. But, whatever, I kept my cool and just kept switching between French, English, and Japanese - needless to say, by the end of the night, my brain was as fried as the okonomiyaki.
Over the course of the meal, I ate the following:
Potato slices - shared with full table
Eggplant - shared with full table
Monja - veg version, ate by myself
Okonomiyaki - veg version, ate by myself
1 Coke
1 Oolong tea
Here's what the rest of the people ate/drank:
Potato slices - shared with full table
Eggplant and octopus - shared with full table
Monja - regular version
Monja - they liked my version so much, they ordered a round for themselves
Okonomiyaki - the house special, made by the chef, a couple of servings each
Kim chee hot pot - name is self-explanatory, but, FYI, the pots were big enough for each person to have several servings
Several rounds of beer
Several rounds of Coke
Clearly, I ate significantly less and significantly cheaper than everyone else. I assumed that my meal would probably cost around $25 bucks. When the end of the
meal arrived, everyone talked of moving on to another restaurant for dessert. B disappeared for a moment and then came back. No one mentioned anything about money. I didn't know what was going on, but I figured I'd be able to pay B at some point and I didn't want to make waves in case there was some custom going on here that I didn't know about - ha! If only I knew what was to come...
We got to the next place only to find it closed. It was here, while standing in a circle, that B announced it was time to settle the bill. She started to do calculations in her head and out loud, dividing the amount (total, and therefore breakdown, yet unknown) equally by nine. I tried to discreetly interrupt her to ask her how much mine would be since I had eaten 2 fewer courses (not to mention several fewer animals and beers).
EEEEERRRRREREREREREERE!!!!!! It was like that nightmare where you walk into a party and the music stops and everyone turns to stare at you.
Except the look on their faces and then the embarrassed looks away from me were very real. Clearly, I had just stepped squarely into my second "Oh Sh%&!" pile. B hesitated, then said, oh yeah, and told me to pay 2000 yen and everyone else 2200 yen. 200 yen difference. That's less than $2. I felt humiliated. My cheeks started to burn. I felt like a complete ass for 1) having broken the obvious - though previously unknown to me - custom of splitting everything evenly (they don't teach this at kindergarten!), 2) like a cheapskate because it looked like I was making a big deal about 200 yen, and 3) ripped off (!!) for paying only $2 less than the other eight people who easily ate and drank twice as much as me!
I don't know if there'd been some discussion prior to the meal or during the meal in Japanese, but I was definitely not expecting for their meals to be so cheap. What they ate should have normally cost at least $50 a person, if not more, in any other restaurant. I thought we might get some discount, but obviously not that much. So, you can understand why I wouldn't have wanted to pay $40-50 for some cabbage and a coke. In any case, B never told me how this was all going to work, so I just assumed that we'd pay her for what we'd eaten. Baka gaijin, as they say.
The next day, as I recounted this story to my dad - at which time I started to cry from embarrassment, frustration, and a sense of having been used (and, salt to my unemployed and poor-ish wound, having paid to be used!!), I verbalized how I felt by saying, "I'm not some monkey to be carted out to entertain and amuse the locals!" My dad attempted to comfort me by saying that, at least, I was a prized monkey! That I should be happy that at least I'm a monkey that B wants to show off! He pointed out, correctly, that if I were Chinese or Filipino, I wouldn't be nearly as prized - us Western monkeys are much more interesting. I said I don't care how prized or odd or freakish or entertaining a monkey I may seem to them, I am NOT a monkey and refuse to be one - unless I'm getting paid! At least in that situation, there's no presumption of friendship. There's no false sense of inclusion, at least in the activity. (I know it won't happen - correction - societally, that's just how it works here. **See Tangent on Cultural Differences below.) A lot of gaijin do this. They agree to go out for a meal or an event, speak English, make corrections, listen politely and speak slowly, etc. All in exchange for a free night out or some serious cash - in the second circumstance, the girl is probably a "hostess." Personally, I'd rather not resort to this, but, at the same time, I'd rather knowingly agree to this than be tricked into it, whether intentionally or not.
**Tangent on Cultural Differences: No matter how long you've been in Japan, no matter how much you've absorbed the culture or embedded yourself in it, no matter how linguistically and culturally fluent you become, no matter if you're half- or full-Japanese so therefore have a knowledge of Japanese culture but were raised outside of Japan, you will never be considered nihonjin (full-on Japanese). I, and others like me, can attest to this being a statement of fact. This does not mean that gaijin or hafu are not socially included, but rather, societally excluded. For some people, this is a problem, for others it is not. This works out for the best for many/most gaijin because it's what excuses us when we make faux pas. Japanese people don't expect us to know, or ever figure out, most of the subtleties and nuances of being Japanese (of course, particularly at the beginning, but still, interestingly, even after living here for 20 years, for example). It's also noteworthy that the word "gaijin" translates in meaning to be "non-Japanese" (and non-Asian), rather than simply "foreigner." For example, some Japanese people when they are not in Japan, still refer to non-Asian, non-Japanese people as gaijin. Asians who are not Japanese, are referred to as chukokujin (person from China) or kankokujin (person from Korea), etc.
Another way of thinking about this/these differences is how it is completely normal and rather easy to be "hyphenated" in places like the States or Canada. It's commonplace to be Japanese-American, Chinese-American, British-American, Indian-American, etc. It's easy to embrace your ethnic background and your national identity all at once. This does not happen in Japan. That's not to say that this is a good thing or a bad thing, it just is. And it is the way it is in America, and that's not good or bad either. It just is. I can be Japanese-American in America, but here I'm hafu or American. Hyphens don't happen here; it's just not a concept that exists in Japan. Japan does not have the immigration and, thus, ethnic diversity that places like the States have. So, it's no surprise that there's not a lot of incorporation/absorption of other ethnicities into mainstream Japanese culture or society. However, while one may be able to intellectually understand this, that doesn't preclude an emotional reaction that just doesn't care what your brain says.
And I do claim some extra insight into this situation because of my hyphenation. Thanks, Mom and Dad! :) I've gotten the inside scoop, behind-the-scenes look, backstage pass my whole life. I know what it's like from both sides of the aisle, if not from personal opinion (e.g. I'm not nihonjin, remember), then from personally witnessing these opinions or having them expressed to me. I have heard talk and conversation and been privy to discussions that wouldn't happen, or wouldn't happen in English, if there were gaijin friends around. I also claim extra insight into the Culture Shock phenomenom and the living-abroad-and-what-that-does-to-your-brain/emotions phenomenon and, more specifically, the experience of living in Japan as a non-nihonjin, because of my background of having lived in several countries throughout my life, both with my family, but more often, on my own. This is my umpteenth time around on this ride, and, yes, it gets easier every time and, yes, I do learn more every time and when stuff like this happens, at least I can usually pinpoint the cause now, but that still doesn't make the experience "Oh Sh%$!"-proof. Besides, who would want that? What would be the fun or the adventure in that? If there were no risk (really, guarantee) of Culture Shock, then that would mean there is no difference in culture, and that would be a terrible thing. Disastrous. Sad. Highly lamentable. Really sucky. Truly, the end of the world.
I used the word "socially" above, but I misspoke. Socially, the Japanese are more than happy to include whoever. I have several Japanese friends who don't think of me as a freak or a show-and-tell item. We're just friends, it's great. They're great! I'm just Miki and they're just who they are. So, I'm not disparaging any unfriendliness in terms of the Japanese people and/or culture. It is, in fact, much easier, in my experience, to get to know and become friends with locals in Tokyo than it was to do the same in Paris. Actually, it's always more difficult to befriend locals rather than transplants or newbies because locals have already got their lives set up - they've got their family and/or circle of friends, they may or may not be complacent about this, etc. However, for some reason, I found it (and heard the same from others, even those with French boyfriends) a lot harder to make friends with French people than I have found it to be with Japanese people. I don't think it's any surprise that the people I did/have become friends with in each place were themselves rather internationally-minded. I won't speak to my time in Belgium; you all know my opinion on that experience.
Anyway, it's been a while since this all went down. I'm not pissed off at B or myself about it anymore and I learned a lot of valuable lessons about hanging out with Japanese people of a "certain age" and up (this kind of thing doesn't happen with younger Japanese people, friends my age, as they're a lot more used to seeing gaijin around Shibuya and sometimes talking with or working with gaijin) all in one go - kind of like removing the proverbial bandaid. B hasn't asked me to do anything else and I don't plan to accept if she asks again. She's great on a one-on-one basis around the building, but going out with her in groups or around other people is no longer an option.
Like I said, prized or not...
6 comments:
Superb entry my friend. You explain well the type of situations that foreigners are sometimes put in in Japan.
BTW: Purple silk shirts - you do have a bad image of Buffy, girl.
Think long flowing leather coats - and tight white T's. Um. Ya. That's Spike I'm picturing in the tight white T not Buffy. Though she does have a kicking black leather coat in season 6. Right. I'll stop there. I could discuss Buffy's wardrobe for hours. I never have but I bet I could.
Large.
In all honesty though this is no different to situations I have come across in the past in other parts of the world (I appreciate too that you all think I am honour bound to “defend” anything related to Japan, but hear me out).
I agree that you were brought out because you are different, and your difference is that you are (half-)gaijin and you speak French.
I am reminded of my whiter-than-white English friend who shall remain nameless, but let us for the sake of brevity call her Alice – she lived in her own little wonderland, god bless.
She, like Akemi, is very intense. Also, she was very fixated on being worldly and having foreign friends and talking about how different people from around the world were. She is now studying in a foreign country in Europe having gone to study in America. Every email I get points out how crazy it is to have bank accounts in different countries, how diverse the ethnic make up of her flat is and that her boyfriend is Polish – she is extremely proud of that.
When we were both in England I would be carted-out in front of her friends sometimes and the first thing I would be introduced with were my origins and my ployglottery. This was very annoying because I would then have to perform in the monkey-like fashion you describe.
As well as being trotted out for being of “interesting” origin, I have also at various times been trotted out for being a nerd or having travelled a lot. I have been trotted out at work for being from a certain university, or speaking certain languages. Girls have dated me and I think some of their major initial motivations have been the things that make me different. These situations have taken place in England, in America, around Europe, in Africa and yes, in Japan. Such is life.
Human Beings are interested in differences. My frequent visitors who come to this country do not take photos of the 99% of people wearing jeans – they, like me, have a photo of a Japanese Girl wearing a Yukata ordering a KFC. They do not pay attention to the 99% of people who don’t care about politics – they love the Black right wing vans that are parked outside Shinjuku Higashi-guchi. They come for temples, and Akihabara and are fascinated that McDonald’s sells a Terikyaki and an Ebi Burger, not that it sells Big Macs.
People stare at other people who they do recognise in a group – often they whisper about them and ask “Do you know who that is?” to each other, often formulating some opinion of them based on their dress and body language before they have even met. I think this is called “human nature”.
I fully agree with you about how it makes you feel when it happens – pretty crappy, right? It isn’t nice when you don’t feel valued for being yourself for any reason.
Your point about “dumbing down” your language skills are interesting. My experience here is that it is nothing to do with fluency per say. The main factor is clarity of expression. The reason my Japanese colleagues understand some native-English-speaking gaijin very well and not others is a combination of accent, vocabulary and mode of expression. Using “merely”, “though, “you know what”, “at the end of the day”, “apples for apples”, speaking with a drawl and anything extraneous to the conveyance of meaning is not helping things. I despair at the number of times daily I have to translate from English to English so people can understand what’s going on.
It might also be partly to do with how one learns the language. I learnt French initially at school with stupid 11-year old kids so I spend a while “je m’appelle”-ing and “je vourdrais-ing”. So, all I have to do is think back to how I spoke in that period. Your French was learnt in an immersive style while in France so it is naturally difficult to distinguish what is basic French and what isn’t.
I loved your point about Akemi replying in French to your English/Japanese. This made me smile because in the general experience (of almost everyone I have met when talking about the subject) it has only been the French themselves who reply to you in English when you try and speak to them in French. How ironic! Maybe Akemi was a reverse-Galloise!
I can understand why you wouldn't have wanted to pay $40-50 for some cabbage and a coke!! ($40-50 for some cabbage and coke is more reasonable!) I can really feel how embarrassed you must have felt during the cost-splitting. We had a party at work here for someone’s leaving do – well, we had two back-to-back parties. One was free, the other was also in a restaurant we would have to pay for and jointly held with another department who were not at the first meal. Hopefully you get the picture – they were hungry, we were not, but the next day the bill came round for 5000yen split fairly.
Being British, I tried to drink that much beer on the night to try and justify the expected higher cost. But essentially I had two choices – go and pay or not go. Indeed, some colleagues, both Japanese and Gaijin, did not attend the second party for this reason.
I did not eat or drink 5000yen’s worth of stuff. I was regaled with bad English and intense scrutiny on the most favoured of conversations – who is the most attractive girl in the office? (she was sat behind me and spent 4 years in Britain (i.e. very fluent) so this was even more embarrassing!). But I did spend the evening as the only gaijin with 30 Japanese colleagues and it was really, really, fun. The price for this was 5000yen. Just like, when I moved here, I sometimes ordered things I could not eat – maybe 1 in every 10 meals. I had to buy 11 meals at 1000 yen each to get 10 I could eat. So the cost of each edible meal was not 1000yen but 1100yen. I had to sink the cost. It is something I have had to accept – pay whatever I am told to pay until I am in a position where I can influence this (if ever). So, I continue to subsidise junior colleagues on office outings (as is the tradition here – people pay by their salary band level) and order weird things in Izakayas that I don’t want and have to pay for.
The custom here is that you split the bill. In England we have a rounds system in pubs and bars that is strictly adhered to, regardless of any fairness of outgoing. In England, people often finish their beer and then will look at the outstanding person and say “It’s your round” or ask a more general question like “Who’s round is it?” (knowing full well the answer). I have encountered the same experience in Germany and all the Scandavian countries. If you chose to have a half-pint when someone else is buying that’s your problem. When you ask me what I want, I will drink what I want to, within reason.
I am interested in your further thoughts on this comment “There's no false sense of inclusion, at least in the activity (I know it won't happen socially, that's just how it works here)”. I agree with it to an extent. But, there are reasons for this exclusion that I think are perfectly reasonable. One is that gaijin stand out so much here. Yes they look different, but there is more to it than that. They act differently too. They take up more personal space – both size wise and in body language. They have to ask questions about everything - questions that often sound a little ignorant. They grimace at the thoughts of certain foods – not that they don’t like them, but they act like it is impossible to imagine any human being could possibly eat them (and therefore a bad reflection on the culture). They get embarrassed at Karaoke. They don’t bow with dignity – they think the whole thing is weird (once again, not different, but strange). They do not respect the way things are done here. If I had to organise an outing and had to chose which people to invite, I wouldn’t invite someone who acted like this and made my friends uncomfortable, however nice they were (or thought they were). The problem is that many gaijin do not even realise that they are doing this. By themselves I don’t think one thing would be important but the simple fact is that most gaijin do most or all of these. How do I know this? I asked my Japanese colleagues (today, in response to your writing) who work in my (“foreign”) company why they accept certain foreigners (very very few) and not others. [Incidentally, Japanese language skill appears to have nothing to do with it (although a willingness to learn and to speak what you know does).
In conclusion I think your experience made you realise some of the things you are prepared to tolerate in this country (and hopefully anywhere else in the world) and some of the things you are not. A very valuable lesson.
As always, an interesting and thought-provoking post. (Btw it was 2917 words not including the title!! )
Mac- Hmm... wow, I have a lot to say in response to your comment. I've revised my post to make its meaning a bit clearer as it seems that you grossly missed my point and I'm sure that there are others who would have read it as you did.
The first thing that bothered me about some of your comment is that you come off (to me) as somewhat condescending in it - like you know better and more than I do and aren't I smart to have finally figured these valuable lessons out. Was that your intent? Did your words and tone just come out wrong? Did I read it wrong? What’s the deal?
As for my French learning background, I guess we've never talked about it much, but I went through a pretty similar process that you did. I started at 13, then I continued through my first 2 years at university in addition to living in Paris twice and Brussels once. What I meant in the mental fatigue department is that it's just that - mentally fatiguing to spend several hours switching between languages with not one person there able to speak all three with complete fluency therefore requiring that we mix all three at various levels of fluency (e.g. no knowledge of one of the languages at all to full fluency) with me being the primary language moderator.
Re: gaijin inclusion, I hope that my tangent addendum will help clear up what I meant. I definitely used the wrong word with "socially" and have replaced it with "societally," as this much more accurately represents my meaning.
Re: Being the freak and/or token who’s trotted out for friends and/or acquaintances. I've also had that experience in other places, most significantly at home in Orange County. The fact that we're all considered spectacles at some time or another wasn't my point. My point was that in this case, Akemi's primary motivation for bringing me along was to be the show-and-tell item, the evening entertainment. In most other circumstances that I've experienced with this, I was someone's friend who happened to look completely not at all like what my ethnic make-up is, so, hey, everyone, isn't that freaky/interesting?!? "Can you guess what she is? You think she's Mexican, huh? Nope! You'll never guess!" Or something along these lines, right? Or I was the friend who happened to have gone to American University or the friend who… blah blah blah. The point is that I was the friend who happened to be something, not the something that happened to be available for bar mitzvahs and shows at Caesar’s Palace. There's a difference between showing genuine interest in a person and that person's background happening to include travel or some other unique history, and showing interest in a person only because of something that hasn't got anything to do with them but which the person doing the trotting out just happens to find highly entertaining and amusing and diverting. It's like people (mainly guys) who have Asian fetishes - they don't care what the girl is like, just that she's Asian. Having never experienced the Asian fetish phenomenon myself (due to my "you’ll never guess" look), I can only report what I've witnessed from my friends who have been victim to Asian fetish guy - it sucks! Back in California, I have a Vietnamese/Chinese-American friend who gets jerks yelling out random "arigatos" and "konnichiwas" at her all the time - and they actually expect her to be charmed by this!
And, before you get on me about my new gay boyfriend and how excited I was to meet him, I have to say that although I was excited that I had a potential new gay BF, I was MORE excited that he likes to dance. Not that he's a gay boy who likes to dance. Not that he's a Japanese boy who likes to dance. Not that he's a boy of any kind who likes to dance. Just that he's a cool person who likes to dance. And, by the way, he's a frickin' amazing dancer! A great addition to the dance circle.
Re: my food costs. I have no job. Also, I have a “tired liver.” I know you're sick of me being cheap, but making only 6000 yen a week weighs heavily on my mind and though I'm not living like a pauper or a hermit, I pick and choose my spending (e.g. cheap drinks at Gaspanic so I can dance for free = worth it. 5000 yen for cabbage and coke with people who see me as a prized monkey = not worth it). Also, I can't drink lots of alcohol to make up for the food costs because I'd end up with an even bigger hospital bill from alcohol poisoning, or water bills from the frequent loads of laundry I'd have to do to wash the vomit and public bathroom floor germs from my clothes. So, also, not worth it.
Re: reverse gauloisisme. We’ve talked about this before and I think I’ve figured it out. My situation, and from what I heard from friends in France, was that when we’d speak French (and be struggling), the French would let us continue in French until we actually asked them if they spoke English. And then they’d switch and speak easily in English. Also very frustrating! Talking with J – who’s had similar experiences as you where they replied in English – I figured that it may be because the last time I was really a tourist in Paris was when I was 15, when I didn’t speak French well so I probably didn’t notice/think about why the person was speaking to me in English. I don’t even remember if I attempted to speak in French. But when I finally did spend a lot of time in Paris was when I was fully living there, so I wasn’t really in tourist areas very often. Of course, in areas that are more likely to be frequented by tourists, it’s more likely that the people who work in or around that area would speak English, having the opportunity to use it so much. To feed your love of numbers, it might interest you to know that France is the most visited country in the world and has been for a long time. I can’t remember the exact figure (sorry :( ). But, in any case, that’s a significant title and is telling of the likelihood of coming across people in your travels who speak English or are used to speaking English (no matter how bad or good their English is) in their daily lives. In terms of her own experience, J thinks that it also probably has something to do with the fact that I have a Parisian accent and she has a Quebecois one. Of course, she has a much higher level of comprehension than I do, but I guess her accent threw the Frenchies.
p.s. this response is 1189 words, including this post-script. And the original post is now 3768 words, with the revisions. Next time I’ll shoot for 4000.
I can assure you that my comment was not intended to be condescending. If I did, I wouldn't have spent so long drafting my response and wouldn't have cared enough to respond in the first place.
Your addendum to the post does clear things up – you are right, I did mis-interpret it - and it appears we completely agree on the matter. And, as you say, the issue can bother you or not bother you. The “hyphen” issue is interesting and one I did some thinking on while in Britain as a result of the "world political situation" we find ourselves in at the moment. I agree - it is not necessarily right or wrong.
I hear you on the looking different to what you are front. I know how that feels.
I can provide the “inside track” on the darker side of being different if you want to hear that. I don't want to write about that here.
Wow, Miki...this is so engaging! I've decided that your calling is professionally writing a memoir to share with the world. I'm serious. You make each event, big and small, so incredibly entertaining to read. Maggie and I have been talking about how much fun we have reading about your experiences!! Only you can bring them out the way you do! Most people send long update emails and they are boring as crap but yours, and your blog, are truly the best!! Call you when I'm in Tokyo for 6 hours on Jan. 6th!!
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