Gaijin Chronicles Issue 4: Jobhunt, Unfashionable Gaijin, & Engrish

To this day, job hunts remain one of my least favorite things EVER. Reading these passages from the first month or so of our stay in Japan, it's interesting that I have pretty much forgotten the depression and tedium that accompanied my lonely days in the apartment, watching YouTube clips and sending out cover letters.

…Yeah. Now that I just said that little bit of patheticness out loud, I'm thinking that I don't mind at all that it's been compartmentalized in some far corner of my mind.

Jobhunt

 I’ve come to the conclusion that job hunts stink in any language.  Many of you might be wondering, “But Jill, you’re in a new country, plenty of things to see!”  And, of course, you wonderers would be right.  However, Sean is back at work, I still don’t speak the language, and you don’t get a job teaching English by literally wandering the streets.  So, I hit the net, make some calls, send some emails, and cross my fingers.  And to break up the tedium, I write.  Or I pretend to study Japanese.  And I think about cleaning.  Thinking is about as far as I get.  On a happy note, the cicadas are finally dying off.

    
So, with that in mind, today you get two for the price of one! No photos this time, but I’ll make up for it next time!  Without further ado, here is today’s “Chronicle”.

Unfashionable Gaijin

The climate here—for a girl that’s northern mountain born and raised—is torture.  There is no such thing as dry.  At home it would take me ten to fifteen minutes before I got sweaty-sticky in the summer heat.  Here, it’s about ten to fifteen seconds.  Such a climate leads to lush and beautiful flora as well as spotless complexions.  It also leads to very grumpy attitudes (mainly mine). 

I got a haircut before I left the states.  With my hair so much shorter, it naturally gets curlier.  So now I enter the world where the word “humid” was born, and all of a sudden I look like the Shirley Temple no one ever knew.  Hair curlier than fries at the county fair.  Hair that could give a slinky a run for its money.  I have always been a bit vain about my hair, and I find that I don’t really mind this change.  It’s one thing I’ve got that these skinny-minnie, high-heel wearing, itty-bitty waisted girls don’t have.  Jealous of them?  I think not.  

It is interesting, though.  There have only been a few occasions when I have truly felt like a Gaijin here.  For those who are unfamiliar with the term, Gaijin is a Japanese word that’s a shortened version of “person from a different country”, or simply “foreigner”.  Depending on who says it and how, it can be an insult.  Generally speaking, it’s not.  Most of the time when I’m made aware of how different I am, it’s usually by a small child.  They are the ones who have not been sufficiently socially groomed to stare at you without seeming to stare at you. 

The first day I was in Kobe City, Sean dragged me out and about.  One of the places we visited was a major shopping center, and I took the opportunity to use the facilities—regardless of how afraid I was that I might find nothing but Japanese-style toilets (a porcelain hole in the floor).  As I exited the stall of my happily western-style toilet, I nearly bumped into a little girl exiting hers.  As I washed my hands, I watched her in the mirror watching me.  When she couldn’t reach the faucet to turn the tap, I smiled and reached over to turn it on for her.  She looked at me with these wide, terrified eyes and ran back to her mother, who was just exiting her stall.  A bit bemused and a tiny bit hurt, I left the bathroom to meet back up with Sean. 

Other than that, I have merely been the victim of stares, and there has thus far only ever been one girl who, when I caught her staring, smiled and gave me a greeting.  Sometimes I think I might make some of the stares up, mostly because I have never felt so unfashionable in my entire life.

Not only do I not wear high heels, but also none of my clothes are truly the right cut.  I’m not the right weight and thus not the right body type to wear what a lot of the Japanese women do.  And I won’t deny it.  These women know what looks good.  Never anything but impeccably feminine, every outfit is flawlessly accessorized and—unlike many American girls—fits well.  Kobe is home to a University of Fashion and a Fashion Museum, and many of the trends that end up big in Tokyo get started as fringe movements here.  Against that, I have nothing. 

         
          I did have a single, irreplaceable moment of camaraderie today, however.  When Sean dragged me out again today to visit downtown, we were wandering through one of the major shopping districts and I passed another gaijin.  But not just any gaijin.  This one had hair curlier than rotini pasta.  So do I.  She was wearing a cheap plastic headband.  So was I.  Her shirt was the wrong style.  So was mine.  Her pants were the wrong cut.  So were mine.  And on her feet?  Hiking sandals.  Me, too!  I’m sure that if we had stopped to exchange anything more than a commiserating smile and a hello, we would have been grand friends.

Engrish

The Japanese seem to have a fascination with all cultures western.  Until Sean took me into the heart of downtown, I didn’t even truly feel like I was in Asia.  Our neighborhood—for that matter, most all of Kobe except downtown—feels much like Seattle.  When I first emerged from the entrance to the subway, however, I got a slap in the face—and it felt like Asia. 

Huge ads were everywhere, many of them featuring Caucasian women like Heather Locklear for Nescafe, or Cameron Diaz for cell phones.  One public mural featured three blond women enjoying themselves at a café—all of them dressed in clothing best left in 1989.  That’s the problem with permanent art, I suppose.  Pachinko parlors belched smoke, loud music, and electronic boops.  Neon lights and signs were above nightclubs and bars closed for the day.  Music from every third store was being pumped into the street.  A five-story variety store crammed with hodge-podge goods ranging from Diesel Jeans to TVs to socks, batteries, and shampoo lured shoppers in with an over-stimulating array of fluorescent signs, loud music, and lights. 

Go into one of the major shopping districts, however, and you could be shopping anywhere in Europe.  There is a French Boulangerie et Patisserie (bakery) on every corner.  Stores with names like “Rue de B” and “Mediteranesse” and   Caucasian mannequins display kimonos in one of the few truly Japanese stores.   “Banana” and “Comme ça le mode” and “Regalo”, or other versions of almost-right English, French, and Spanish line the walkways.

Like the names of some of the stores suggest, many of the Japanese don’t care or don’t know if a phrase or translation is right as much as they care about the illusion of “western-ness”.  A mild example was a fashionable young lady attired in a kelly-green sports jacked with gold embroidered lettering that said, “Mysterious” on one line and “Inconvenient” on the next.  I’m sure that “inconvenient” isn’t what they had in mind.  Or, a worse example is a shirt for a young boy (or girl, I suppose) that says (and I quote), “Sweet Little Rock the Happiest of Emotions”.  Now, explain to me what THAT means!  Or, a shirt for a toddler that says, “Strain Joy Baby Doll”.  Baby Doll is, I think, a brand, but that’s only a guess.  Either that, or people really like wandering around with “baby doll” written on their clothing.

In the end, however, I suppose it’s really no different than so many Americans wearing clothing or getting tattoos with kanji, the Japanese pictographic symbols.  How often are any of us really sure of what such things say?  Sean’s wedding ring has the kanji for “Love, Loyalty, Happiness” on it, but I was meticulous in having it researched first and then approved by a native Japanese teacher.  Therefore, I’m fairly confident that it really does say “Love, Loyalty, Happiness”.  If it doesn’t, I suppose I could be in no better place to find out!

Gaijin Chronicles Issue 3 - Sensible Shoes and Jedi Knights (Bonus story)

It's funny for me now to look back at my early posts and see how many centered on shoes. Like any stereotypical woman, I like shoes a lot...I just also believe in practicality, and it was hard for me to fathom women who--for the sake of fashion--walked miles in ill-fitting, 3-inch heels. My feet twinge in empathy for their rapidly developing bunions every time I think of it.

What amazes me is that we went to a festival just a few days into my arrival in Japan, and for some reason I didn't choose to write about it. Held at a winery, it was a yearly celebration with dancers and taiko drums and all sorts of neat stuff. If I remember correctly, it was for the Japanese version of Halloween, in a way… a celebration of the ancestors, called Obon. More "Day of the Dead" than Halloween.

Below the regular Issue 3, I've written a new entry, with my recollections of that night at the winery.

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Sensible Shoes and Jedi Knights

 Remember the girl that tottered past me on her recklessly high heels in the Seattle Airport?  Apparently she’s a trend-setter.   Such a trend-setter that my first coherent impression of Japan was that the Japanese women are, to all appearances, insane.  Approximately one in fifteen women wears what I would consider sensible shoes.  That means something with an inch heel or less.  And the other fourteen women?  You guessed it.  Recklessly high heels.  Heels of all sorts: stiletto, wedge, platform.  Chunky, skinny, straight, curvy.  Lace-up, strap-up, slip-on, pumps, sandals, “flip-flops”, boots.  With jeans, with skirts, with fedoras and striped shirts!  With suits, with shorts, with khaki slacks, but never skorts!  They wear them in a house, they wear them with a mouse, they wear them in a box, they wear them with a fox!  

     

I do not lie. This unwise fashion statement has reached the point of near epidemic-status.  Fashion-forward young women even wear high heels on the beach.  Yes, you read correctly.  On the beach.  I suppose that they think they look good.  It must be some reassurance to know that their feet are fashionable and pretty even as they blunder ungracefully through the sand with the rest of their bodies. 

Now, I suppose I’m being unfair.  I haven’t actually seen this phenomenon with my own eyes, but have had it reported to me by numerous reliable sources.  And judging by the footwear I’ve seen on women who are walking downtown all day, I find it extremely easy to believe.  Plus, I’m just jealous.  I know I don't have the stamina to support myself like that. As I said earlier, to perch upon heels of this magnitude requires a raw athleticism, an innate skill that I was, unfortunately, born without. And while I have accused them of lurching ungracefully through the sand, the truth is that many of the women wear them quite well and even with an air of elegance, which I'm sure is the whole point.

  
For every five women who wear them well, however, there is one who doesn’t.  Her ankle is rolling out to the side.  Her itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, super-skinny heel looks like it’s about to snap off at any moment.  She can’t bend her feet, so she clomps through like a tin soldier.  Her outfit is meticulously selected to accessorize with her shoes.  So far we’ve seen the Japanese equivalent of Hilary Duff, Lindsey Lohan, the Olsen Twins, and Avril Lavigne.  But you know what’s funny?  Even in the midst of perfect “accesorization,” the Lavigne wanna-be was wearing sensible shoes.  Avril would be so pleased.

In the midst of all this musing, Sean and I descended the subway steps with a crowd of after-workers.  And there, smack-dab in the middle of modern society as we know it, were two scrupulously dressed young women, fully done up in their traditional kimonos with the wide belt called an obi.  The only exceptions were their cell phones and modern hair-dos, but it was a glimpse of traditional Japan in a very, very modern world. 

And of course, seeing the obi sent me off on a different tangent all together.  It occurred to me that in the Star Wars universe, nearly all the Jedi Knights have Japanese-sounding names, or at least Asian-sounding names.  For instance, Obi-wan Kenobi.  Qui-gon Jin.  Mace Windu.  Yoda.  And now that I’ve embarrassed myself by being able to name any Jedi-knights at all (I would like to blame my nephews, but anyone who knows me knows that I can’t pass that off on them), I do have this to add:  I think the Jedi would be very proud of these young kimono-clad women.  You see, I looked at their feet.  They were wearing sensible shoes. 

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Obon, Taiko, and Grapes

Shortly after I arrived in Japan, Sean and I went to go see the Obon festival with several other of the JET teachers. I still felt intimidated and awkward. Not only was I in a new place (a foreign country, no less), but I was the only spouse in the group, and the only one who arrived late. Though they had all been in the country less than two weeks together, already a bond had formed. 

It was hot and muggy in the way that tropical climates are, and it took me approximately 30 seconds to get gross and sticky. I remember chatting with a couple of the other teachers, and one of them teasing me for using words like "exponential" when I said something like, "put me in humidity, and my sweat increases at an exponential rate."

"Exponential?" they said. "Who uses words like 'exponential'?"

I looked at Sean, a little bit in shock. I've been teased for my vocabulary before, but I had thought 'exponential' was something relatively normal. Sean just kind of grinned and shrugged and shook his head all at once. It was normal for him, too. Funny the random things that stick with you.

Since this Obon Festival--the Japanese celebration of the ancestors, one of the only times during the year when the spirits of the dead come back home (a happy thing, not a creepy one)--was being held at a winery, the talk naturally turned to wine. One JET mentioned that they were surprised there were any wineries in the area, because it didn't seem conducive to grapes.

"Really there's only one," said Brindley, a ridiculously tall South African on his second year in Japan. It's a miracle he didn't develop a permanent stoop from ducking all the time. When he got excited, I had trouble understanding what he was saying. "And the wine is total shit. But their plum wine is good."

I don't remember much more of the ride, but I do remember being inside the courtyard and seeing all the people in their yukatas, so we must have gotten off the bus just fine. To the casual westerner, it might be hard at first glance to tell the difference between a kimono and a yukata. Kimono is formal wear, while the Yukata--as one of the teachers later told me--is like the Japanese version of pajamas. Now, this isn't strictly true, but it IS far less formal. It's usually made out of cotton or some other light fabric, and there's only one layer and a simple belt (obi), as opposed to the multiple and complex layers of silk that make up a kimono. Because this was a traditional festival, many of the men and women were wearing their summer yukatas.

The courtyard was strung with red paper lanterns, traditional for Obon. In the middle there was a large tower, probably only about 6 feet high, but seeming bigger because of the posts on top, from which the lanterns were strung. The platform housed a massive taiko drum, with other drums around the base. The drummers--both men and women--were also in traditional garb: the standard black pantaloon-style pants, sleeveless wrap shirt, and coiled sweat band on their forehead. Throughout the night they pounded out various traditional rhythms… but the magic came when the little old ladies (and some not-so-old) formed a moving ring around the central plinth, singing traditional folk songs and moving slowly,

slowly around the circle in the steps of a traditional dance that their grandmothers did, and THEIR grandmothers' grandmothers did, and THEIR grandmothers did.

It was a great night, even if I couldn't stop sweating. It was a low-key, great way to be introduced to "the" Japan. Brindley was right… the wine really WAS horrible, but that wasn't really why we were there in the first place. The two edited pictures--one with the older lady in blue and white, and the other with the young girl in red--still hang in our house. Perhaps that's why I can remember these impressions so clearly all these years later.

Gaijin Chronicles Issue 2 - Small People, Big Bugs

So, the first few installments of the Gaijin Chronicles were short and sweet. I don't really have anything to add to this story as far as annotations go. It WAS a long trek back to the apartment. And the cicada really did freak me out. But you know what? Every once in a while I'll be somewhere in the summer where I hear a cicada… and it always makes me wistful for Japan.

Small People, Big Bugs

After an interminable amount of time traveling, negotiating customs, and exhausting every minor phrase of Japanese that I know, I was very, very happy to finally touch down in Osaka and meet up with Sean.  After our joyful little reunion, Sean asked if I was ready to head out.  “Yes,” I said, “but what do you think about shipping some of this luggage?”

You see, the Japanese are very intelligent people.  They realize that in a society where public transportation is the norm, it’s neither very easy nor practical to lug all your luggage (say that five times fast) to your end destination, wherever that might be.  Sean’s reply to my inquiry was something like, “Well, I don’t know.  How hard do you think it will be to handle?”  At this point I said nothing, but eye witnesses have reported that I allegedly gave him “the look”.  Which means, in the end, that we shipped part of the luggage—for a mostly reasonable price, as well.  And boy howdy… was I ever glad when I realized what sort of hoops we’d have to go through just to get home.  Of course, anything feels like too much effort after 24 straight hours of travel.  So I suppose giving “the look” to Sean might have been a tad unfair.  But only a tad.  It turned out okay, though.  Like I said, the Japanese are ingenious people.  There are elevators that take you up the worst part of the hill to our apartment.  I love the Japanese. 

On the way, Sean pointed out a couple of spots where he had already hit his head.  Being at least 6’ 0” barefoot and soaking wet, he’s taller than approximately 99.9% of the native population.  Okay, it’s not that bad, but it’s a writer’s prerogative to use hyperbole to make a point.  Not only does he bonk his head on a semi-regular basis, but he also has to stoop significantly to use the counter in the kitchen.  It is indeed a country built for short people.  I have finally come into my own. 

Walking up the stairs to the front door, I was dive bombed by a miniature kamikaze pilot… or at least that’s what it felt like.  After I got done shrieking like a little girl, I asked Sean, “what the #$%^ was that thing?” 

“A cicada,” he replied.

“Is that what all that noise is?” I asked.  Upon closer evaluation, I had realized that the surrounding jungle noise was not a crowd of people shrieking like little girls, nor was it approximately five gazillion trillion zamillion crickets.   The cicada is, for those who don’t know, the loudest insect in the world.  On the entire planet.  And they’re HUGE.  Imagine a flying, shrieking cockroach. 

“Isn’t their lifespan only about two weeks?” I inquired, quite calmly, I thought. 

Sean affirms my question.

 “Thank God!” I said.  “Why do bugs like this even exist? “

Sean shrugged and said, quite nonchalantly, “Small people.  Big bugs.” 

Yes, I thought.  That really does sum it up rather nicely.

My dive-bombing friend

Blast from the Past - Gaijin Chronicles

Bamboo forest, Kyoto

Well, isn't this a step back in time…

In 2007-2008, Sean and I went to Japan to teach English. Well, actually, HE went to Japan to teach English, I just hoped to get a job once we were there.

While we were there--and before I was blog-savvy--I wrote a series of posts and sent them to friends and family via e-mail. I called these (ir)regular emails the Gaijin Chronicles. For various unknown reasons, they'd been on my mind a lot lately, and quite coincidentally Sean found and restored most of the Chronicles while looking for something else on the computer. I spent much of today reading them, and wonder why the heck I never finished. I think I got busy, and I think that I figured they were boring. In reading them again, I did NOT find them boring--granted, I'm not objective, but I liked them enough I thought I might re-post them.

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to post them up on my blog, because even friends and family who have read them already might find them interesting, and for those who haven't read them already, well, you might find them interesting, too.

What I plan to do is post one of these regularly, but I also thought it would be fun (at least for me) to annotate each post with additional thoughts, anecdotes, and reflections. In addition, I'll be going through our copious photos of the time, and may even provide some new stories along the way--and I will certainly do my best to finish them all, though I stopped at quite a strange (and busy) time. I'll do my best!

It's interesting to see my evolution through the year. As a girl who's heart had always been set on Europe and had NEVER considered Asia, I was slightly less than enthused to go. Oh, I was excited because I'll go just about anywhere to see the world, but it was Sean's dream, not mine. Flying alone and completely ignorant of the language, I was intimidated, anxious, and perhaps even a slight bit resentful. This obviously colored my first entry, which I started while I was waiting for my connecting flight to Osaka in the Seattle airport. Reading it now, it almost sounds forced to me… I can remember trying to cover my trepidations with an attempt at almost grating humor.

And so I present Issue 1 of the Gaijin Chronicles. Any photos used throughout these postings (there may be as many as 50 or more by the time I'm done) are mine or those of my family/friends. Mostly ours, though there have been some photo swaps, and I can no longer tell whose is whose. Also, I won't make any significant edits to any of the posts… I'll only correct typos or other minor errors.

Enjoy!

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Minority Ad Nauseam 

First off, I have never really had an interest in visiting Japan.  When I realized that Sean’s dream was to go and teach English, I began to encourage him (even before we got married) to apply to the Japan Exchange in Teaching (JET) program.  After all, there’s no better time than now, right?  No kids, no real debt, “no worries.”  In the interest of moral support, I also applied to the program.  When Sean got accepted into the first round of the approval process and I did not, my thought was “oh, great.”  When he went all the way through and got placed in Kobe City, my next thought was a panic-stricken “oh, crap!” 

But, I continued on, at least pretending to be supportive (Sean understood), seeking employment and even turning down an offer to teach for a private institute (funny how having an employer being served an injunction by the Japanese government sours one’s taste for potential employment).  Not finding anything that suited our needs, and being assured that employment is ridiculously easy to find once you’re in the country, I found myself in Spokane on a Saturday morning on a wing and a prayer—and waiting very impatiently for a hazelnut latte that was taking longer than the Exodus.

After grabbing a dish of fruit that shockingly didn’t cost as much as, say, Canada, and with my “guaranteed-not-to-regurgitate-any-in-flight-meals” patch tucked conveniently behind my ear, I navigated the Disney-land style ropes cordoning off the security zone, endured a TSA agent’s attempt at humor, and safely made it to Seattle on a teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy, puddle-jumper.   After checking the monitors, I was relieved to find out that I would not have to switch terminals.  I was even more relieved that everything appeared to be on time. 

So, having an hour or so to kill before boarding, I decided to get something to eat.  What I really wanted was a nice burrito, or something of the Mexican persuasion.  I mean, come on!  How many Mexican joints are there likely to be in Japan?  After making a clumsy circuit of the terminal twice, I was forced to come to the conclusion that I was out of luck.  Glancing at my options (a bagel shop, a sports bar, Burger King, or Starbucks), yearning for something that I could pretend had nutritional content, I was once again forced to submit.  The line for the bagel shop appeared to be moving at a rate slightly speedier than a glacial recession, and the line for Starbucks was longer than a State of the Union Address.  Burger King it was. 

A young Japanese woman with thigh-high black velvet boots teetered past me on recklessly high heels.  And that’s what she wore flying.  While negotiating a busy international airport.  While she ate her burger.  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I thought.  Open minded as I try to be, I will never be able to absorb that bit of fashionable Japanese culture.  I simply don’t have the skill or raw athleticism required.  With a sigh and a small shake of my head, I set off to find a women’s restroom that was slightly less busy than Tokyo Station.  Yeah, right.

After fighting the masses in the restroom (I should have donated one of my “guaranteed-not-to-regurgitate-any-in-flight-meals” patches to my neighbor, if you know what I’m saying), I found myself a nice cozy seat among the even greater masses at the gate.  And that’s when it hit me.  Surreptitiously glancing at the faces around me, I realized (no shock to you, the enthralled reader, I’m sure) that most of the faces surrounding me were Japanese.   And what’s more, most of the babble around me was Japanese.  And the nice gate people were making their announcements in—you guessed it—Japanese.    I was outnumbered.  My ability to eavesdrop on conversations was gone.  And for the first time in this whole adventure, I began to wonder how ready I was to become a true minority.