I See White People

I stride into my first class of the day and start off with a hearty, “goooood morning!” The collective Japanese second graders ape my greeting with a boisterous, “goooood morning!” Something doesn’t sound quite right. I continue with, “how are you?” Various children declare, “I’m fine” or “great” “sleepy” “hungry” etc. However, one distinctly American voice shouts, “I’m fine. How are you?” I turn my head towards the unexpected utterance and lo and behold in the far right seat of the front row is a freckled face white girl smiling at me.

What the hell is going on here? There is the occasional Indian or Peruvian kid in class but an American!? I quickly gather myself from the shock and start the English sing-along part of the lesson. While the three class reps bicker over who will put the cd in the cd player and who will hit the play button I hastily inquire the girl’s name and where she’s from.

The lesson is fruits which is really really easy since almost half the Japanese names for fruits are borrowed from English. Orenji = orange, remon = lemon etc. When I ask the class to tell me what fruit is on the flashcard the white girl, Lisa, barks the name out in her flawless American English adding “juicy” or “delicious” to ones she is particularly fond of. Luckily she gets bored of showing off after the first couple passes so the Japanese students have a chance to be heard.

When I ask the students, “What fruit do you like?” Lisa matter of factly states, “I like everything.” Throughout Lisa’s unexpected outbursts of English and our short conversation before the sing-along I’d been translating the English into Japanese for the rest of the class, except for juicy which I didn’t know the word for and said in Japanesey English, juushi.

Lisa’s English kept throwing off my teaching rhythm. I’d hear the American English mixed with the Japanese English and my brain took half a second to remember that YES I am still in Japan and teaching English and YES there is an American girl in my class.

The game was to lay out twelve fruit cards on a table as four or five children with their hands on their heads huddled around the cards. When I call out ‘peach’ the kids have to slap the card with a picture of a peach on it.

Side note. The peach on the fruits flashcards looks like a big fat naked butt. Some seemingly clever kids will call out “oshiri” or butt instead of peach much to the hilarity of the other students and homeroom teacher. Luckily there weren’t any oshiri comments during my lesson with Lisa.

Lisa repeatedly got beat by the experienced Japanese card slappers. Pouting and whining about losing, she eventually stopped playing all together. It’s not like she was doing badly though. I think she got three or four cards during the first game while the girl next to her never managed to grab any and seemed happy throughout.

Lisa’s behavior confirmed my suspicions that most of the competition style games played in Japanese schools would never fly in America because it would hurt the feelings of too many precious special unique gifted ‘we’re all winners’ children.

After the lesson I converse with Lisa a little more. I find out that she’s only been in Japan one week and her dad is a lawyer who also surfs and goes rock climbing. In case I forgot that her dad is a lawyer she managed to repeat it about ten times. Lisa then went on to tell me how many places in America and Japan she’d been to. I forgot how much American kids brag about themselves and their family. Not that Japanese children don’t do the same, but it’s on a whole different level with Americans.

I’ve been an ALT long enough to realize that nobody thinks it odd not to inform me that an American child is in the school let alone my first class of the day. I’m supposed to just know these things. But damn… I wish when I was eight I could have gone to Japan for summer vacation and made friends in a Japanese school.

After work last week I went to the grocery store by the train station to pick up some fresh produce for dinner. In the senbei aisle blocking my path is a triple chinned white woman with one of those small travelers backpacks on that sacrifices functionality for looking expensive and cute (or maybe it just looked small on her.)

I smile and say “hello.” The teenager throws me a sickened look as if I’d just farted in a crowded elevator. I slip my way past the disgusted obstacle and into the next aisle. Eh, I guess she’s Russian or something. Nope. One aisle over I overhear in a loud obnoxious valley girl drawl, “oh my GOD some creepy guy just smiled and said ‘hello’ to me.” Then an unseen white girl says, “oh my god that’s like soooo weird.”

What the hell? I live here bitch(es). I’m just trying to get some asparagus, tomatoes and coconut pocky for dinner. Since I dreaded seeing two or more revolt(ed)(ing) ugly faces much more than wanted to embarrass them I went to the checkout and got the hell out in a hurry.

Occasionally I’ll see an ALT or another white person that I don’t know out here in the boondocks. These are the unfriendliest group of people ever. It’s like I’m violating their inner Japanese sanctum where nothing Western may been seen or heard. Apparently they want to be the only gaijin in town because a city of 100,000 or so isn’t big enough for two foreigners and I’m the one that needs to leave.

The white people pretend not to see me but I catch contemptuous leers directed at me and can feel the animosity in the air. How DARE I be here to ruin their unique Japanese experience. Sometimes I’ll stroll over and talk to the white guy. (It’s almost always a haggard looking white guy.) They respond with a feigned look of surprise as if they only just spotted me as I’m right in front of them and asking if they speak English. I’ll get a nervous conversation with a brush off less than a minute in followed by one last angry glare as they try to extricate themselves from an association with their fellow Westerner as quickly as possible.

In Tokyo I blend in with the rest of the gaijin residents and tourists and have met some very friendly people. But get 20 kilometers outside of the city and I am outright HATED by other white people.

I can’t understand the prevailing anti-gaijin sentiments of contempt towards other gaijin. It’s like a self-hating Jew that’s not even funny, what’s the point? The grocery store bitches were the last straw for me. I’m not going to be hostile towards other white people but I’m not going to be friendly either. Of course if anyone wants to speak to me first then I’ll be receptive, however this has never happened outside of the tourist districts of Tokyo.

Sports Daze

In Japan the most popular sports are baseball, soccer and sumo in that order. There are tons of other minor sports such as golf, K1, boxing, badminton, long distance running and ping-pong which have their fans and brief moments of glory but they aren’t nearly as popular.

Baseball

Japan has twelve pro teams in two leagues. Every team has a sponsor attached to their name, for example, Yakult Swallows, Softbank Hawks and the Nippon Ham Fighters. I can see this happening to the cash strapped and/or greedy MLB teams in the near future. Most of the stadiums are already named after corporations and pretty soon the Verizon Pirates, Taco Bell Padres and Milwaukee’s Best Brewers will be a reality. I'm calling it.

Every day the tv news sports section has an update on how the Japanese MLB players are doing even when nothing really happens. Wow Hideki Matsui hit a sacrifice fly and Ichiro caught a ball he had to run for. They're really team players! With a Japanese player on both sides the media had a field day during the last world series. Every nuance of every pitch was analyzed and reanalyzed and when the two Japanese met on the field it made the front cover of every newspaper and was the top news story for a week.

Last weekend we finally went to the Tokyo dome to see the Yomiuri Giants play the Lotte Marines. We had to sit in the Marines cheering section because the Giants cheering section, which is four times larger, was sold out. If you’ve never seen a Japanese baseball cheering section it is really something to behold. So please behold it.



They are chanting 'Jose Ortiz', one of the gaijin players allowed to play for each team whose main job is to hit homers. Luckily he and a foreigner from the Giants both did their jobs and slapped a couple over the fence that game to make things interesting.

Along with organized cheering another cool thing about Japanese baseball is that the vendors walking up and down the aisles aren’t crusty old men screaming PEAAAAAAANUTS and tossing them in your face. Hell no! In Japan the ones hocking eight-dollar beers and squid chips are cute young women in tight brightly colored skirt suits, very eye catching.

The cheering sections aren’t content to simply chant and sing a batter’s name. Oh no. In the 5^th inning when the Giant’s pitcher was relieved the Marine’s fans did this,



This madness lasted three to four minutes. I got tired just watching them.

Soccer

Japan has a pro soccer league that is pretty popular, however since I’m an American I couldn’t care less.

Sumo

We haven’t been able to see sumo live yet, only on tv. The sport is nauseating yet fascinating at the same time, like a car wreck I can’t seem to look away and without noticing minutes and even hours slip away. The two current yokozuna are from Mongolia and are pretty damn good, especially the beefy Asashoryu. The winner of the last tournament however is an ozeki Bulgarian guy, the first European to ever win a major sumo tournament. Many Japanese newspapers and acquaintances have commented that he is very handsome and reminds them of David Beckam. I don’t see it.

Hmmmmm maybe Steven Seagal in his leaner years but not David Beckam.

I was talking to a co-worker that LOVES sumo and adorns his desk and classroom with sumo posters, a sumo calendar and several wrestler's pictures about the last tournament. He hung his head in shame and told me, “Today’s sumo is dominated by gaijin. Gaijin sumo is here,” raises his hand above his head, “and Japanese sumo is here,” lowers hand past his knee. “It is a GREAT shame.”

Sports Day

All of my Elementary schools recently had their Undokai or Exercise Event or how I like to translate it, Sports Day. Sports Day consists of half the school as red and the other half as white performing regular sports such as a relay race as well as American Gladiator type wacky sports like pushing giant balls around, grabbing logs, and tossing as many beanbags into a hoop in twenty seconds as possible. The emphasis is not on individual merit but how the team performs. There are also musical events complete with terrible choreography; terrible choreography is a Japanese trademark not only in schools but by “professional” Japanese musicians as well.

Here are the cute first graders playing the beanbag hoop game. It may look like the white team in the foreground isn’t doing too well, but out of the four groups that one took 1^st prize both times.



Much to my surprise The Love School’s principal wanted me to participate in a PTA event. The event was the beanbag hoop toss with a pole twice as tall as the first graders. Since I am at least a head taller than every other participate there was some pressure on me to perform. Unfortunately my group consisted of diminutive obasans who would toss the beanbag halfway up the pole then runaway as the bags rained down on their frail bodies. Our team lost badly both times. However, due to my effort in scoring half the points for my thirty odd member team I got a couple high (low) fives from the short statured Japanese grandmothers and THAT was awesome.

At The Love School the red team had won five years in a row. But this year white kicked red's ass. Is it a coincidence that the year I show up that the white team manhandles the red? I don’t think so.

Shoganai

One phrase that I hear practically every day from my Japanese co-workers and acquaintances is shoganai, or “it can’t be helped, so why worry about it?” Needless road construction makes me late to work? Shoganai. Boss is a total bastard? Shoganai. Fourteen-hour workdays? Shoganai. The pragmatic attitude of shoganai helps save a densely populated island nation from going crazy with stress and pressure, although “death from overwork” or karoshi is still a problem.

Sure the average Japanese worker gets rolled over and shit on, but it’s just shoganai and keep up that gambate spirit! Fortunately us gaijin aren’t recognized as part of the “Japanese” workforce and don’t have to adhere to such a strict code of conduct.

Unfortunately ALL the shit that the Japanese wouldn’t dare utter to another co-worker falls on my ears. I’ve been told secrets about infidelity, hating on bosses, or just confiding in me that they are having a particularly bad day. Sometimes the spate of words comes out so fast I can hardly understand a thing.

For example a couple days ago a young but weary Ms S asks me to come to the copy room. Wildly looking around for witnesses she closes the door behind us. No the unmarried woman is NOT making a pass at me but instead goes on to hastily whisper why she can’t stand that old bitch Ms Y that sits next to her because she is always undermining her in front of the other teachers and students. Relieved to get this information off her chest she sighs and looks up at me five years younger, happier and refreshed.

I’m not the only gaijin counselor in town, any halfway accommodating foreigner will do. Kim and other ALTs all have their own stories about being confidants to too many Japanese secrets.

Shoganai is annoying because the Japanese cannot air their grievances that accumulate over time and end up burying themselves in self-regret. Then again I prefer this method of keeping up a front of a happy workplace much more than the American system of bitching and moaning about every little thing. "I don’t care who yelled at you OR if your feelings got hurt. Just do your damn job!" Ugh, I've wanted to scream that to so many complaining American co-workers. There really needs to be a middle ground between the two opposite ideologies. Ahhhhh shoganai.