Time has locked itself into the expressway of routine; I hadn't even noticed that nearly a month has passed since the last entry. I'd be lying if I said not a lot happened but I am not far enough removed from it to make a clear judgment on the full significance.
The power of culture shock moves silently, like the angel of death, seeping into the crumbling old self image and killing it at the very core. The stages of this phenomenon are startlingly accurate: there is the honeymoon phase where everything is in a golden hue, the negotiating phase where sacrifices are noticed and positives and negatives are weighed against one another, then there is the adjustment phase in which a person either assimilates completely (10% of expatriates), rejects completely (60%) or creates a self-selected mixture of virtues (or vices) and shuffles oneself into a new being (30%). Of course, in the spirit of this whole experiment, I aim and hope to be in that golden 30. My self transformation has been rocky at times, however, and I have faced large waves of cultural hardship over the last month and reacted in...interesting ways.
Most of my gripes are so small they seem like banalities, but the deep irritation they cause me is like red to a bull. I cant stand the rotating air conditioners on the subways...every time it blows on my head I snap and punch through a window. People swing their umbrellas when they walk and block large sections of thoroughfare... rage. The word for "welcome" is so spleen-splittingly annoying it makes me want to scurry up a chalkboard with my fingernails. It is the small things. It is also the small things that I love: smiling carrots, Engrish misprints, My hometown printed on plastic cups, pink haired freaks, monks on the metro, people passing out standing up, the little-old-lady-bikes everyone rides around; These are the elements that make and break me.
Most of the last month has been daily life: shopping, commuting, and working.
Work is by far the most interesting of these three. The general level of fear in my classes is quite funny. My students are afraid of the sun, afraid of pig flu, afraid of mistakes, afraid of train doors, afraid of the mohawked American maniac that forces them to imitate mowing the lawn and shoots them dead with his fingers when he has had a long day.
My contact with my students (aged 18-24) is enlightening. I have learned a lot about culture and picked up some common Japanese. The students are strange, by and large, and have some awkward quirks that can only be described as perversions. The interactions in class are priceless. A few of my favorite moments:
A: I want to touch golden-haired girl's hips on the train...how should I?
B: Swiftly
I am God; sorry for making you so unlucky
A: I have cuts all over my wrists
B: stop doing that
A: will you loan me 10,000 yen?
B: for what?
A: long vision glasses (aka binoculars)
B: for what?
A: ...never ask, never tell
A: please forgive me
B: why?
A: for this mess I've made in your wife
A: What did you do this weekend
B: I went skiing with no shirt
A: What was the brand of the shirt you wore not?
A: You stole my girlfriend!
B: We can share! Hotels will be cheaper!
Turtles commonly support turtles(what?)
Ahhh.....I yearn for that life...(about my life)
A: my girlfriend left me...what do you suggest I do?
B: I suggest you cry
The interior of animals makes me sad
I want to be a cat. Do you mind?
(I walked into this one)...and then the poor homeless woman, her son, and their dreams starved to death in the dark alley rubbish bin...
And my personal favorite:
It is a bad idea to come (onto*) on a crying girl
Yes my friend, yes it is.
I am moving on, however, as much as I love the psycho-queerness of the 20 something veterinarians to be. My new job, starting in August, will be teaching little kiddos. I am going to be moving into the mountains to a town that boasts the cleanest water in the country, majestic ski slopes, hiking trails and untouched forests. It will be a welcomed change from the polluted and dark metro mind-clogging mess of Tokyo commuting.
I will be taking a three week traveling holiday to some far regions of the island major sites and will surely have more to write. thanks for the patience.
Yours newly,
Thomas
