I’m feeling sick of having my differences pointed out.
It’s a condition I think most foreign residents in Japan suffer at some point. For some people, it gets so bad their only treatment is to return to their home countries. Others find a suitable remedy and recover with time. I’ve been relatively symptom-free for over eight years but all of a sudden, I’m struck down with Gaijin Complaint.
What are the indications?
- 1. “We Japanese” phrasing starts a raging fever.
- For example, a friend’s Japanese teacher did it to me the other week. “We Japanese use those as sewing boxes,” she said when I was showing my friend a beautiful Showa-era cabinet I intended to use as a jewelry box. Would she have said that to a Nihonjin? Certainly not. Did I need to be corrected? Certainly not.
Then a few days later, a shopkeeper called me mezurashii (unusual) because I filled in a form without actually looking at it and wrote my name on the address line. “Japanese people would have put their name here,” he said, pointing. If I were Japanese, would he have said that? I think not. - 2. Assumptions about my eating preferences make me lose my appetite.
- I do not want a fork with my conbini salad; I’d prefer chopsticks just like all “you Japanese.” Thank you.
- 3. Excessive staring causes me to withdraw.
- I grapple with a desire to blend in and the knowledge that I never will. I am sized and colored differently to 99% of the population. I am a novelty who is tired of being noticed. On the other hand, I don’t want to hang around the gaijin hot spots like the Pink Cow, Yoyogi Park or the foreign ghettos in Minato-ku
- 4. Presumptions about my comprehension make me to prickle all over.
- Whether it’s what they are saying or some aspect of culture, it aggravates me when people think I don’t understand. I’m sure in lots of ways I don’t but I’m not entirely clueless.
For example, yesterday there was a handwritten notice in our lobby stating “Futons are bulky trash and need to be collected by the city for a fee; please contact the management office.” When I left the building in the morning, the manager caught my eye and rose from his desk, which he only does if I am stopping by to pay the water bill. Did they assume that I had thrown away a futon? Ha, ha. It wasn’t me.
I don’t like this dis-ease. I love living in Japan. I want to be comfortable again, so of course I’ve been thinking of possible palliatives. Cheerfully embrace my gaijin-ness, or strive to behave more like Japanese? Improve my language skills, or bury myself deeper in my English-speaking bubble? Point out discrimination in a polite non-confrontation way, or pitch a screaming fit every time I’m offended?
Somehow I think some of these might work better than others. What do you think? How did you handle your spell of gaijin complaint?
