A Giant in Japan

I've said it before that in Japan I have to duck to successfully clear thresholds. What I haven’t said is how significant this ducking needs to be.

Last week I was sitting on the couch, doing nothing much. At some point I rose, took my phone to hand, began thumbing away a text, and began the necessary looking down at my phone so as to thumb it correctly. (What this means is my neck and head were tilted forward just so.) Still texting, I proceeded from the lounge to the kitchen with all the speed and impatience of every millennial in existence.

Only, I did not reach the kitchen.

I was stopped.

Furthermore, someone had taken a hammer and whacked my head with it.

The pain was like a rising kettle, silent at first, then excruciatingly loud. I recoiled, my lips mouthed the syllables for something French (well, syllable; there's only ever one), and my fingers crunched into fists.

But then, though I glared at that doorframe with all the contempt in the world, I breathed. Somehow my knuckles thought twice about enduring the same fate as my head that, quite literally, sits in the clouds. Once again I'd learn that above these clouds is a ceiling.

This selfie took too long; I was borderline late to work. But see that door frame? And see my head? Yeah.

Yes. I’m tall. Tall enough that simply tilting forward doesn’t suffice. Instead, my head and neck must assume a sort of battering ram angle if I’m to navigate the apartment with any success. This becomes hazardous in the early hours when the lights are off but the bladder needs swift escort. Very hazardous. The potential for spilt blood - and spilt urine - grows.

Since then, I’ve mastered the bowing angle: my hair now grazes the frame like a cat’s whiskers while the integrity of my head goes untouched. Surprisingly, my spatial perception has not been compromised in the hammer thwacks hitherto; rather, it has only heightened: ‘ducking at thresholds’ is the newest and most reliable technique in my repertoire of defensive reflexes. I duck even at those doors built for the 6’2” citizen. For you see, in Japan one must adapt if one is to survive. And so I have.

This doesn’t mean that I enjoy bowing at every entranceway. I do not envision with pleasure the slowly shifting verticality of my spine, nor return with joy the myriad stares of those who watch me bow like a pitcher pouring forth its dignity. Exactly like a pitcher.

People look up at me like a mountain they’d prefer to go around than over; like a giant whose mere existence bids them question if it’s reality or just a dream; as if this town is, and will henceforth be, a foreign and foreboding place so long as I’m in it.

The first question my students ask when they meet me is how tall I am. When I tell them, their faces beam and their eyes grow wide with wonder. I of course pat them on the head and say, “Don’t worry, with time you, too, will grow tall.” Which is a lie.

Because this height thing is, oftentimes, coveted. Many a person has told me they’d kill to be half as tall. At least, that’s what I think they tell me; it’s hard to hear them from this altitude.

And how can I blame them? Here in Japan, height alone makes me an expert at many things. I’m a basketball pro; I’m a natural at high jump; tall or not, because I’m from New Zealand, I’m obviously great at rugby. Coach volleyball? Pfft. Course I can! I mean, I don’t exactly play volleyball, but if I did I’d be amazing at it. 

And that's not all: my hobbies include coconut picking, rescuing cats from trees, and laughing at ladders. (Hah… ladders…)

Well, that is until I tell them that I in fact do none of these things. To which the faces beam anew, and the eyes, again, cannot sit still. It's the kind of punchline that no one knows how to react to. The kind of news your audience wasn't quite ready to hear. 

“Oh,” I add, “but I do like volleyball.” This tends to work. The general composure returns once more. Hmm? What’s that? Stereotypes? Nonsense. I’m one of a kind!