Japan is not Hamilton

I’ve been in Japan for exactly one year, so that’s nice. You know what else is nice? The kids no longer look at me funny!

About a month and a half ago when nature flipped the Spring/Summer switch and turned the humidity to full, students' attitudes towards me also flipped. No longer did they glare at me like they might glare at a ghost, make a face and then pretend they never saw me, or become so elated as to form head-splitting grins and try to talk to me in English only to realise that they can’t, and subsequently that not doing their homework has real-life consequences (which I had warned them about multiple times). Instead, their grins settled down, sort of in the way a 30-something year old settles down with kids and spouse, and it became more common for them to greet me without me having to greet them first.

Nowadays, they’re no more surprised to see me out and about the town as they would be to see me in the corridors at school. This is great! (The town isn’t much bigger than the school, so there's really no need for them to get a fright when they see me living my life.)

So, while I am one of probably four foreigners in Gotsu, at least the kids now see me as a friendly giant and not just a giant.

The elderly still give me looks, though.

East Gotsu on a cloudy August day.

I don’t blame these elderly folk. I mean, think about it. Whenever you see someone you think you know, first you look at them, and then you probably go over and talk to them. This is the same as that, just with the going over and talking part cut out. I mean, what would you say? “Hey, you’re a foreigner! Cool!”

That was meant to sound hypothetical, but it actually happened just the other day. I was perusing the yogurts at the local Youme Town (there are only 3 kinds of yogurt, so 'peruse' might be too strong a word) when an elderly man halted in front of me and said, “You. Foreigner.”

I said yes.

“What country?”

“New Zealand.” He didn’t hear me. I said it in Japanese: “Nyuu-ji-ran-do.”

“Nyuu-ji-ran-do?” he repeated. He gave me two thumbs up. “Good! Good!”

That was fine, because he talked. Usually they don’t talk, they just stare. Successive stares start to become burdensome. What I’m trying to say is, don’t get famous.

Anyway, there’s one very clear highlight about living in a small town in a super foreign country such as Japan (and just so you know, both of these criteria – small and super foreign – are necessary for this highlight to function). And it is this: ‘the opportunities to get involved with your local community’.

I put that in quote marks because it’s what almost everyone will tell you when you ask them what the highlight was of living in a town in a super foreign country. It just sounds super generic and unexciting, you know? Like they're trying to convince themselves that living in such a remote place wasn't a complete waste of their life. And they won’t really elaborate other than to list some general examples, like going to community events, watching performances, participating in [insert cultural activity here], etc. But of course, you’ve never even seen or heard of [cultural activity] before in your life, so you’ve no idea if it’s actually fun or exciting; you’re just taking the person’s word for it.

Well, let's put this matter to bed, shall we? These events are almost always fun and exciting.

It isn’t so much the event itself that makes it these things. If this event were in Hamilton (where I’d spent the last 20 years of my life before moving here), it would be pretty mundane. Hamilton is too familiar, and I’m familiar, and ‘getting involved’ isn’t even in my job description over there. Not that that last part should have much to do with it, but, hey, on a bad day it can be a motivator. If it’s my mission to attend, I’ll attend, you know?

So, if I wouldn’t go to such an event in a familiar setting, then it can't be the event itself that makes it worth going. Get me?

Rather – and it took me a bit of thinking to figure this out – it’s the act of engaging with people in a realm of unfamiliarity.

In Japan, few things are familiar. I’m also unfamiliar. So there’s something new for everyone! In these places, I see my students outside school, I meet their parents, and I meet locals who are probably related to these parents (due to the size of the town). These can be cultural events, dinner parties, festivals, sports events. The event itself doesn’t really matter. I get to be in the very centre of a culture that was previously totally unknown to me. At times like these, it feels very much like I’m in another world. And it’s addictive. Like watching a genre of film you’ve never seen before, and falling in love with it. The particular film itself doesn’t really matter; it’s the genre that you can’t get enough of.

It probably helps that the movies I'd seen set in Japan depict Japan extremely well. Everything you see there, you can see here. But movies are limited to sight and sound. Coming to the setting of these movies adds a whole new dimension. You can taste, feel and smell, and you can interact in real-time. It's a lot like playing a video game, only far less artificial because in video games your interactions are limited to what the creators meant for you to do. In fact, since coming to Japan, video games have lost a chunk of their appeal because, nowadays, real life is more interesting.

Even eating out on my own means more than just consuming food. It means talking with the staff there, sharing stories, speaking a new language, trading a new currency. They ask me why I came to Japan, they thank me for coming to Gotsu and apologise for its smallness, they (probably, due to the aforementioned town size) tell me that their kids go to one of my schools, and then, for this, they thank me again. This is half the motivation to go out in the first place - not to eat, but to interact.

A couple of months ago, we Gotsu ALTs went to Chizu's house for dinner. About a half hour after sitting down, she brought out a plate of lamb and set it in front of me. "NZ lamb," she said. "I remember you said you like lamb." It was my first time eating lamb in Japan, and it was heaven.

In a town like Gotsu, everyone’s connected, so I’ll probably see some of these staff at the next dinner party, and meet their kids, and realise that I already met their kids because I teach their kids. You know the giant tree in Pocahontas, or Avatar, or the other Avatar, with its infinite roots that ties everything together? It’s like that, though in my case the roots are a bit more finite – town size.

Sometimes these people don’t know each other, but they know me, and I know who they know but who doesn’t know them. In these cases I’m the tree. Being a tree sometimes equates to lots of pressure. In Gotsu, the moment I step out of my apartment door, I throw all secrecy of my existence out the window. The next place I go to – and even on the way there – I’m almost guaranteed to see someone I know (or have them see me, and then hear my name blurted in uncertain tones, followed by -san, -chan, or -sensei, depending on the relationship). Other than the 7/11 just around the corner, I don’t remember ever going out and not seeing someone I recognise. And even at the 7/11 I sort of know the clerks. So.

This pressure is relative, mind you. As I said before, most encounters are pleasant experiences. But there are those people you run into whom you’ve only met once and with whom you had an awkward first impression. All they know about you is that you’re awkward.

There are those people that seem to harbour negative thoughts, like why is he here, and oh it’s him again - like when I go for a run and I pass an elderly man, and he stops smoking his cigarette and just stares, and I start to wonder if I'm running wrong. And there are those people who give you the impression that they don’t want to make the effort of simplifying their Japanese or attempting to speak English. They don’t have the time for you.

Now, this is more a me problem than a them problem, because who even cares? And anyway, I can’t exactly read their minds, meaning everything in the previous paragraph could be completely false and just me being very silly indeed.

At the very least, it’s not a Japan thing. These pressures occurred in New Zealand, too; they didn’t start the minute I arrived here. It’s just that here it stands out more, because I stand out more.

The possibility of having to face these pressures was one of the fears that made me hesitatant to move to Japan in the first place. I coped well enough in New Zealand, I thought, and having achieved a stable life, why opt to move to a place where there was no guarantee?

And yet, this fear was also one of the prime reasons I did move. I mean, if it’s uncomfortable and scary, shouldn’t I do it? I think so, assuming that it isn’t also stupid – and it wasn’t. And anyway, by the time I began to get scared, I’d already got the job.

The job, by the way, is fun. This is primarily because the teachers are easy to get along with, and the students, for the most part, are pleasant and cooperative. At school and elsewhere, people are great and the food is delicious. Most importantly, I’m learning stuff and I'm helping other people learn stuff (if I wasn't doing both of these things I wouldn't have renewed my contract). I had no idea I’d ever learn a new language, let alone Japanese; and I had no intention of doing so when in university, or even afterward. I had no intention, ever, of moving to Japan and teaching English. Yet I'm very glad that I did.

To live here is an opportunity that not many people get, and that a lot of people wish they had. I try to remember this on the bad days, and I try not to take it for granted on the good.

The second year may be more difficult in this regard. The rosy tint of unfamiliarity is swiftly fading, meaning that, slowly, Gotsu is turning into another Hamilton. But then you have to remember that the kids no longer look at me funny. And this alone has me very excited.