#5: Perpetuating the stereotype of the stupid American for future generations...

9/27/05

Summer is, very gradually, coming to a close. It's still regularly in the 70s and 80s, but the nights are getting colder.

Last week, there were two large flea markets in Kyoto: one at Toji Temple in Southern Kyoto on Wednesday, and the other at Kitano Tenmangu Shrine in Northern Kyoto on Sunday. Being the good listener that I am, I thought that both flea markets were at Toji, so I decided to go to the one on Sunday. My host mother even told me that she thought the one at Sunday was at Tenmangu, but I being stubborn, told her I had heard differently, and that maybe I would check out Tenmangu if I had time, but first I was going to Toji. Oh, stupid, stupid American - little did I know it was adventure time again. I took my usual train into Kyoto but got off early at Omiya since it was closer to where I wanted to go. Then, after a call from my dad and a long time figuring out which bus and direction were correct, I took a bus down to Toji. After wandering around the desolate temple for a few minutes, I called my friend Scott to ask where he and the others were. He said they were in front of the temple, by the steps and went onto to describe what he could see in some detail. I wandered around for several minutes before realizing something was horribly off. I called him again and asked him the name of the place he was at. "I dunno...Ten-something?" I wanted to tackle myself. Luckily, I'm not that flexible (if it's even possible). I should have known Keiko would be right. Anyway, I walked for a while before I got to a bus stop that would take me all the way North to Kitano Tenmangu (Kita means North) and rode it all the way up the West side of Kyoto. So now I've been almost all over the middle section of the city.

I initially intended to be at the flea market at 11:30 am, but didn't get there until 1:30. My friends Scott and Dave, who I had planned to meet there, were getting ready to leave when I ran into them. Greg, Lydia, Joe and Ali were still milling around, however. The first thing I did was get a skewer of chicken yakitori, because by God was I hungry. The second thing I did was get some yaki soba because of course I was still hungry. There were little food stands like this with traditional Japanese specialties all over the flea market. There were several stands of Takoyaki, which are little balls of octopus, vegetables and other stuff. Zach, you would have died if you saw the giant pork buns they were making at this one place. I was already full so I didn't get one, but I know you probably would have anyway. They looked sooo good. Oh my god.

The food was exciting enough for me, but the majority of stands were full of a combination of traditional Japanese goods and random junk like the 1980s E.T. model I bought - full with the red hooded sweatshirt and glowing finger. A couple of my friends got full kimono sets - kimono, sash, undergarments and geta sandals. They were good sets, which they got for cheap - around $100. Quality kimonos can cost thousands and thousands of dollars. One of my friends was looking around for a good katana, but gave up the search when he saw that decent tsuba, sword guards (the circular part that goes above the hilt), were going for hundreds of dollars by themselves. Japanese style umbrellas, old books, clothes...there was a pretty wide variety of stuff there, and I think they have these festivals once a month. Overall, the festival was a good time.

Note (October 10th): At this point in writing the email, I left Kyoto for my mid-term break trip around Japan, so that last part may have seemed like I cut it short. Over break, we went to Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Matsuyama and Himeji. I will talk about the trip in my next email because I had already outlined things I wanted to say in this one. I know this is a little awkward and I apologize for not sending this sooner. The truth is that I probably did have time to do so, but I was a slacker over mid-term break.

Kyoto is a very populated city, but becoming friends with Japanese my age has proven difficult. They seem largely cliche-oriented and nigh unapproachable. Kyotoites have a reputation among Japanese as being stubborn/persistent. The people I have met have, with few exceptions, been in their mid-20s or older. I actually wasn't as surprised by the nature of the youths here as most people probably were, which is due to the fact that I did a research paper on a similar topic last year. One reason is a major generation gap, partly caused by the intensely fast modernization Japan has undergone, and also due to the fact that they have not seen wars the way the older Japanese have. I have never seen rebellious looking youths conversing with people of unlike mind outside of a job setting.

Last night (October 9th), I went to Tokiko's house to have dinner with her and her English students, of which there were three: two middle-aged women and a middle-school boy. Their English turned out to be rather spotty, so we conversed in Japanese, with the exception of when Tokiko made them speak English. We had dinner in the little classroom she has in her house. The boy came in first and introduced himself to me as Suzuki Kazunobu (in Japan, people state their family name first). He had been studying English for three years, but was very apprehensive to speak more than a single word at a time to me. This gave me a laugh, because I identified with the feeling well. I told him that going to an English-speaking country would improve his English vastly. We had some interesting conversations, including one about how only actors say "break a leg". Suzuki-san joked that runners must say "break both legs", but I told him to be careful because telling someone, "I hope you break your legs!" has an entirely different meaning. Suzuki also explained to me that he was being interviewed in English for class, and mistakenly said "I have no future" when he really meant "I have no plans for the future". That was pretty funny, too. Overall, the dinner was a good time, and Tokiko is an excellent cook.

I have had several other chance meetings with friendly Japanese. The first was on the train at the beginning of school. I was trying to memorize a vocabulary list I had made for myself when I looked at the woman next to me and saw that she was peering over my shoulder and chuckling a little to herself. She asked if I thought Japanese was difficult, to which I laughed and replied that it was very different from English. She said her name was Mizuki and that she was 26. I am horrible at telling how old Japanese people are, as most Westerners seem to be. She wrote down a new word on my vocabulary list that I still haven't figured out. Most Japanese are too shy to talk to anyone, let alone a foreigner, on a train. Mizuki, however, had probably been enjoying happy hour before getting on the train. I haven't seen her since, and don't expect to since 1000s of people make the Kyoto-Osaka commute every day.

The next person I met wasn't actually Japanese, but she could have fooled me. I got on the bus one morning and upon sitting down in the back immediately heard, in very easy Japanese, "Ah, same school?" She turned out to be right, but I wouldn't have known it. She was a Korean woman named Miyeong, who had been studying Japanese at our school since spring of last year in order to work for a Japanese company in the future (she already has a job lined up). She said she was 25, which threw me as usual (I was thinking...19?). It was Miyeong who explained to me that most of the other language students are Korean, though a few are Chinese or Taiwanese. I still see Miyeong on the bus to school now and then.

A couple weeks ago, I heard two people in the back of the bus speaking in simple Japanese, and heard one of them mention something about people coming here from American universities, which made me whirl my head around. One of them was a woman I recognized as being one of the other language classes (probably Korean, also). After hearing a bit more of the conversation I decided they had probably been talking about me at one point, so I decided to approach them when we got off the bus and try to make my meager circle of friends grow. The girl I recognized walked off before I approached them, so I wound up talking to the other one. I said "same school?" the way Miyeong did to me, which apparently surprised the woman greatly, as she took a step backwards. "That's great." I thought to myself. I asked if she went to my school, too, to which she said something I took to mean yes. Miyeong got off the bus then and they said hello to each other. I should have taken note of the way Miyeong addressed her. Oh, stupid, stupid A.D.D. American, when will you learn? Next, I made a big mistake. I asked if she, too, was Korean, assuming she was part of Miyeong's class. The woman looked at me a little cock-eyed and said "No, I'm Japanese," and then paused for a moment to let this sink in. She went on, "I'm a teacher here." I probably looked physically bent over as she walked away after saying that. In truth, my attempt was more comedic than anything else, and Miyeong and I had a good laugh about it during one of our class breaks later (she was in the room next to me that day). I haven't talked to the teacher since.

I also had a conversation with a middle-aged Tokyo businessman I met on the train once whose English was very good. He said he was studying Chinese, so we bonded a little on how difficult learning foreign languages was. Another meeting I had was with an English teacher from Kyoto named Aya, who I guessed (in my head) was 20 (I'm getting more conservative with my guessing) and turned out to be 24. The most recent interaction I had wasn't a conversation as much as an understanding. I was sitting in the bus listening to music when I saw a woman in a pin-stripe suit, also listening to music. When she got up to get off the bus, she stopped next to me and gave me her meishi (business card) and walked off. Turns out it wasn't actually her meishi, but rather that of the business she works for - a design company. After looking over what I could understand of the card, I decided I would pay the place a visit eventually. So how did she know that I was interested in art? I still puzzle over this, but it made me feel cool so I don't question it too much.

That's about it for my social interactions with Japanese people outside of being a customer, student, or with my host family. The Japanese are very shy in this way. There is another side to this element of their psyche, however. Professor Hudson gave a lecture to us earlier today and in one of his tangents told the story of when he knew he had crossed over into the Japanese psyche. He said it happened when he was in a museum with some Japanese friends, and he heard an American tour group in the distance. "Oh my god, they're so noisy and disrespectful," he thought. "And they're probably going to want to ask me questions! Oh no, what do I do? I don't want to be associated with these sloppy people...wait - I am one of them." And at that point he went and hid in a corner so they wouldn't approach him. I thought this story was hilarious until I realized how realistic sounding it was. I can completely imagine that kind of change occurring if you stay here long enough. The Japanese are so much more polite and respectful about everything. Professor Hudson said that when he finally went back to the States after a long stint here, it was painful for him to do something simple like go into a supermarket. He told one story about being in a laundromat after returning from Japan. There was a large woman next to him who's son kept climbing on top of the washing machine, and she kept slapping him and throwing him off and yelling "GOD DAMNIT! STAY OFF THAT MACHINE! HOW MANY TIMES 'VE I TOLD YA?" Hudson said his immediate thought was "oh my god...I need to get back to Japan." I'm not sure how understandable this is to someone who does not know much about Japanese culture, but maybe the debate my friends Max and Dave had afterwards will clarify the subject. (I should also add that the Japanese are generally extremely organized and on top of everything)

Over lunch, we talked a bit about the points Professor Hudson had brought up (the lecture had actually been about the beginnings of Shinto and Buddhism in Japan, but we found the other stuff more interesting). Dave argued that he would rather be surrounded by people who are quiet, polite and respectful because...well, frankly, he doesn't like being treated like shit by workers and the like. Max, on the other hand, said that he would rather have people be sincere, even if it meant they would be assholes to him. Both of their points were pretty subjective, but we had an interesting conversation on the subject nonetheless, knowing that neither side would cave on the issue. Dave, who claims to be a pretty cynical guy, said that he preferred not to assume that people were being insincere to him when they were being nice. Max said something along the lines of the fact that since everyone here acts the same outwardly, they can't possibly be being sincere. I added at this point that it's probably the same here as it is anywhere else - if you really want someone to be sincere with you, you have to get to know them. The debate went in circles for a while, but I thought it was an interesting discussion.

Well, I guess that's about it for this segment. I'll get to work tomorrow on the recapping of my adventures over mid-term break, so as to write it out while it's still fresh in my mind. I have begun to put up the photos I have taken online. The site is www.snapfish.com - you have to log in with my email address, turinargh@hotmail.com and password - "photos", in order to see the pictures, but the uploading system is still much more practical then that of Webshots.com. As you'll see, I'm not much of a photographer, and since it's been such a long time since I was in Tokyo, a lot of the captions are not the most detailed or interesting pieces I've ever written (a rather large understatement). I will soon put up the rest of the photos that I have taken, and also attempt to steal some better pictures from my more photo-savvy friends here (Joe is quite the photographer). In the meantime, I hope everyone is well, and that those of you in the Northeast are enjoying the coming autumn, because the leaves here are still green as ever. It seems I'll have to wait another couple weeks for my favorite season to set in.

Love and peace,
Jess