Maybe there are places in Japan just for Japanese people

I can remember everything.  Humanities class had just finished and most of the other students were already out the door.  My notebook and pen and some papers were still out on the wood-textured plastic row tables.  Jon was standing by the giant map - the ones that pull down out of a collection of other rolled up maps.  I used to marvel that Mrs. King-Kalnek could always pull exactly the map she wanted, and there weren't even listings on the tabs. She never ever made a mistake and pulled out the wrong map.  I'm positive.  The big map of Africa hung there because we were studying the ancient kingdoms of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay.  But it was a current map. John pointed and said, 'Hey Derek, say this country's name.'  As soon as I looked up at his finger I understood the joke.  But I said it anyway.  

"Nigger."

He was of course pointing to Niger.  Mrs. King-Kalnek whipped around and demanded, 'What did you say?' so quickly that I almost didn't understand her.  I couldn't say anything.  I couldn't move as she strode toward me.  I knew I shouldn't have said it, I still don't know why I did.  I was scared.  She stopped in front of me, looked me right in the eyes and said, calm as she could though I knew she was furious, 'Don't say that word.'  Her voice betrayed her and rattled.  Then, my memory gets hazy.  I can't remember exactly what happened.  I can't remember if she said more, or if I just said I was sorry.  I don't actually remember whether I said I was sorry or not.  I was sorry, though.  I am sorry.  

I start remembering at Jon's laughing.  He had run out of the room after I said it, but came back to wait by the door.  I think he wanted to see what was going to happen to me.  For some reason, he started laughing.  Mrs. King Kalnek snapped her neck to him and barked, 'Get in here.'  He came in.  She shouted, 'And you're even worse if you think this is funny!' without feigning control.  Then we left.  

I remember those words crystally clear.  "You're even worse if you think this is funny."  "You." She didn't condemn the word, and she didn't condemn the act.  She condemned me.  Just because of a word.  

Since that day, every time I hear 'nigger' I have the same reaction.  I freeze.  My body remembers Mrs. King-Kalnek snapping around and the intensity of her eyes.  The little black spots were dancing madly.  'It's wrong.  Don't say that word.  How could you say that word.'  That's what I think now about people who say it.  Mrs. King-Kalnek was entirely successful in passing her loathing of that word on to me.  On the other hand, she made me so scared of it that I never wanted to revisit it, or race at all, for that matter.  When I said 'nigger' in middle school, I didn't realize it's history, the power behind it, and the effect it had on people.  It was nothing more than a taboo word. But the strength of her reaction and the force in her eyes scared me from talking about it again. What if I, once more, were to say something without knowing the connotations and context? This is not limited to just words, mind you. What if I expressed an opinion or a thought or a joke that provoked the same visceral reaction?  I never wanted to see anyone look at me like that again.  She hated me in that moment, despite what she might have said later.  'You are even worse,' replays over and over.    After that, I felt it better to just leave the whole area alone.  Racism and racial slurs are all bad.  Don't explore it.  Just know it.

It's been a long time since the eighth grade, but I only started thinking seriously about stereotypes, prejudices, discrimination, slurs, and where I fit in, recently.  High school didn't really challenge me to explore it, and college certainly didn't, one 'History of the American '70s' class excluded.  But in that case I came from the angle of an impartial observer measuring facts with plastic gloves through a glass wall and thirty years.  I didn't feel it.  I suppose I had never been discriminated against.  No one had ever given me cause to get the eyes like Mrs. King Kalnek had almost ten years ago.  Then, I went to Wakkanai.

Picture, if you can, Ryan and I in a desolated town.  A town with a feeling like it had been quickly abandoned because of a plague, or zombies, or a plague of zombies...  There had been a summer festival about three hours before, so vendors' tents were still out and the streets were littered with papers and rubbish from the raucous gathering.  Clues abounded that quite recently the streets had been hopping.  But, the party had died suddenly and no one had stayed around to clean up the mess.  Pushing midnight, we strolled around looking for something to do.  When we couldn't find any dry alternatives, we decided to hit the bars.  (Really mom, we did try!)  Unfortunately, for humanity (not my liver), none of the bars would let us in.  At every bar, the same played-out play played out.  

Setting - Bar, dimly lit.  No one else in the seats.  Woman in tight black dress or man in flowing dark clothes behind wooden counter, Japanese.  American pops playing lowly on the speakers, barely audible.

(Door opens)

Barkeep:  いらっしゃいませ。 (looking down)   Note: いらっしゃいませ (Irrashaimase) is the standard greeting when a customer walks into a shop.  It is such an ingrained, habitual set expression that workers at stores are programmed to say it whenever a door opens.  They don't actually care if someone walks in or not.  If I brought a tape recorder with sounds of doors opening, I bet I could get a clerk to greet me 36 times before he or she noticed something fishy, like only one person in the store.

Derek:  今晩は。 (perfect Japanese pronunciation)  Note: 今晩は(Konbanwa) means 'good evening'.

Barkeep:  今晩は。 (decent Japanese pronunciation)  

(Barkeep looks up to find two immaculate, well groomed men, early twenties.  Conservative adjective for the Adonissi might be 'strapping'.  Upon sight recognition, barkeep quickly throws her arms up in front of her face in an 'X' shape, meaning 'no.'  

Derek:  なんで?  Note: なんで (Nande) means 'Why?'

Barkeep:  もうすぐ閉めるからです。Trns:  Because we're going to close soon.

  

Derek:  本当？！ Trns:  Really?!

Barkeep: (with much feeling) 本当です。Trns: Really.

That happened three times.  Ryan and I both knew the bar wasn't closing.  But, skeptical reader as I know you are, I will offer proof.  There was only one main street with bars and the like, and in our search Ryan and I walked up and down for a good hour and a half.  The bars, miraculously, were getting fuller and fuller.  Imagine that...  Also, we found out later, by contacting the only ALT in Wakkanai, that he has the same problem in that town.  Perhaps he is an awful guy, but I have a hard time believing that.  

Finally, on bar four, we managed our way in.  At first the man said no, but I really concentrated on my Japanese and pleaded our case.  I attempted to say that if he didn't have an excuse better than, 'We're closing,' or 'You're not Japanese,' Ryan and I were not going to leave.  In Japanese, he told me he was worried about his ability to speak English to us.  Take a moment and re-read that sentence.  Finally he let us in, and Ryan and I ended up having a pretty good time playing darts and talking to other people there.  The bartender even showed us his favorite Metallica videos.  Go figure.  

Being turned away because I wasn't Japanese didn't bother me most.  The prospect of not being able to drink at bars in Wakkanai didn't bother me most.  What bothered me most was my reaction to being turned away.  After the third bar, I might actually have believed a little bit that I wasn't good enough for the bars.  When I pleaded at the fourth bar, that emotion didn't spring from a dying physical need for alcohol, or a cry for a way to combat boredom.  I wanted to get in there and show them that I was a good guy!  I wanted to show them that Ryan and I were exceptional foreigners who were different than what they had encountered before.  I wanted to show them that I was more like them and less like me.  In the bar, I concentrated on my Japanese and made more of an effort to talk to people in Japanese than I ever do.  I even buried my gut reactions.  When I speak Japanese, I generally react in English.  Rather than switching to the Japanese equivalent, I stick to phrases like, 'No way!' or, 'Cool!' or 'That's fantastic,' in English.  But I withheld those.  Ryan had the same sort of feelings, too.  Ryan speaks a little Japanese, but since he just started learning a year and a half ago and didn't start taking real lessons until after our trip, his Japanese at the time was very much a noticeable process.  In the bar, he hardly said anything, even to me.  He told me, after we left, that he was afraid to speak English because the other people might not like it.  

In the span of merely two hours, Ryan and I had started to doubt our worth.  We kowtowed because we wanted to fit in.  We threw our language away to apologize for mistakes we assumed others like us had made.  We bought into the charade that we as ourselves weren't good enough.  I still can't believe we tried so hard to get into somewhere where we were so unwanted.  We believed the racists in Wakkanai.  

And now that I'm out of that place, and the inferiority spell is broken, it's hard not to think about those people without hating them.  Not for turning me away, but for making me feel those things about myself.  If I went back there, I think I would try and show them all just how different I am and how proud I am to be different.  And if a woman in a tight black dress or a man in flowing dark clothes tells me I can't come in, I know those inferior feelings would come surging up.  And the best way to bury those is to beat them back - force them down. I'd want to lash out real hard and real bad...

But I wouldn't.  Because I remember the eighth grade.  And I remember the mad-dancing eyes.  And I remember what it feels like to be 'you' and not know why.  

Maybe I'd try to get in and be myself, or maybe I'd just walk away.  I'm really not sure.

First is the Worst, Second is the Best, Third is Irrelevant for My Purposes

"Why the hell would we want to see the most northern point in Japan when we can see the second most northern point in Japan with more difficulty?"  I asked.  To me and Ryan, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable question.  To our Japanese friends, it took some explaining.  Clearly, the only reason that people come to this city in the middle of nowhere is to see the most northern part of the mainland.  That means the most northern part will be infected with all the people who we wanted to get away from.  You know, all them city folk with their new fangled phones, and their rock and roll music, and their Twinkies, and their science.  They'd just be a-gawkin at this 'n that, ta'in' pichurs n' laffin...  There would be fleets of busses whose insides looked like rocket ships complete with amenities and toilets and foot-rests and personal space.  There would be gift shops with hoozits and cloppits, bonkers and cadoodles, maybe even winkers and prots.  There might even be English...  Everywhere you go in Japan, you see English.  Most signs are bilingual.  (That means they like both ways equally, but I personally think that's bullshit.  I know they prefer one or the other...I'm on to you bi-signs...((shakes fist)))  I wanted to see a place that didn't have signs in English.  There must have been a time in Japanese history when all the signs weren't in English, right?  I mean, Japan is older than English, right?  Right?!  And, thankfully, for my sanity, Wakkanai was one such place.  The signs were emphatically not translated into English.  They were translated into Russian.  

WhAt?!

Yes, Russian.  The signs on stores and shops were emphatically translated into Russian.  Clearly, no place in Japan is just for Japanese people.    

But, beggars can't be choosers.  At least I had found that feeling that I didn't know what the signs around me said.  Truthfully, I understand what the Japanese says, but at least I could imagine that had I come here when I first came to Japan I wouldn't have known what they said.  And that's what I wanted.  (Don't worry.  That doesn't even make sense to me re-reading it.) 

 

At any rate, after a little sight-seeing near the station, Ryan and I got down to the real purpose of our trip.  It took about twenty minutes and a crowd of three different groups to find our bus station.  Five minutes was spent assuring them that I understood what I was saying in Japanese, another ten was spent assuring them that we indeed did want to go to the second most northern point, another four was spent once again assuring them that I knew the difference between 'most' and 'second most' in Japanese, and the final minute was them pointing to a bus stop fifteen feet from us, as the bus was pulling away...

Now, as you can imagine, busses to the second most northern point in Japan aren't very frequent.  This was also explained to me, as well as the fact that three busses to the most northern point would be leaving before the next bus to the second most northern point came again.  But, Ryan and I stood firm.  Finally, our rickety bus pulled up, and we got on.  Shockingly, other people were on the bus.  Of course, they all got off before the last stop.  Except for a pair of twenty-somethings like us.  These Japanese guys were living out of their bags.  Unshaven, unkempt, we had a nice drive to the last stop at the end of the line just the four of us.  Nobody said anything, but we all knew.  As the bus weaved in and out between the run-down, bad smelling factories and the food shops hanging on for dear life, we knew we were almost there, to the second end of the world.  And here it is.

Derek:  This is it?

Everybody in the world except Derek and Ryan: C'mon, Derek, what were you expecting?

This is Ryan at the second most north point in Japan.  Can you feel the excitement too?

There was also this dolphin thingy.

Now, my tone may be a little sarcastic, but that's just for your amusement, reader.  The truth is, I had a great time.  It was really quite a journey to get to the dolphin thingy.  Two hours by train from Kitakami to Sendai.  An hour plane ride from Sendai to Sapporo.  A six hour bus to Wakkanai.  The whole time, Ryan and I were talking, or just looking at the scenery go past us, or laughing at how strange we are.  Remember, anyone can go to the 'most something or other'.  Trips are designed around going to the most famous places in a city.  That's easy stuff, fed to you for your consumption enjoyment.  It's an altogether different trip if you want to go to the 'second most something or other.'  And, its probably cheaper too!

Also, I got to eat some delicious sea food ramen at a hole in the wall shop.  Now, if a Japanese person asks me what the best food in Wakkanai is, I have answer to give that might actually give him pause.  "Well, my friend, there's a little place up at the second most northern point in Japan...  Do you know it?  No?  Really?  Hmm."  Then again, he might just assume that it's the second best ramen in Wakkanai.

 

A view from the outside

A view from the inside.  Please note the fly-paper strips hanging right over the food-making area.

Fly sou~ er, I mean... Crab Ramen

Please recall that Wakkanai, the name of the place I went, sounds a lot like the Japanese word for, 'I don't know.'

Principal:  So, where are you going this vacation?

Derek:  I don't know.

Principal:  What?!

Derek:  I said, I don't know.

Principal:  No no... I heard you.  It's just that Chihiro Sensei told me you already bought your ticket.

Derek:  Yeah, I did.

Principal:  Well, what does it say on your ticket?

Derek:  I don't know.  

Principal:  Oh!  You can't read it, can you?

Derek:  No, I can read it just fine.  It says I don't know.

Principal:  How does the ticket know?

Derek:  How does the ticket know what?

Principal:  That you don't know.

Derek:  What?

I apologize.  But it was funny to me when that happened.

By the end of January I have to tell my school whether or not I'll be staying in Japan for the next year, that is, until the summer of 2010.  Last year's decision was much easier than this one.  At this point last year, I had only been in Japan for half a year, which really didn't seem like enough time.  As it turned out, it wasn't.  But now, a year and a half in, I have to decide about the next year and a half.  It seems like the stakes are a lot higher this time around, and I really am twisting in the current.  

I had intended to write a regular update email to my friend Eric, but what came out instead is interesting, to me.  Hopefully it will be interesting to you, too.  I sent it out over a month ago, and upon re-reading it, it's still a good representation of how I feel.  So, here it is, word for word:

The fact is, I am at a crossroads Eric.  The only reason that I wouldn't stay in Japan for another year, and maybe more, is because I would think I was wasting my talents and not paying my dividends.  Perhaps it is strange of me to think of myself as a commodity, but I feel like I owe it to so many people to follow the gold-paved path and make some bank (editor's note - money).  My grandparents and parents and relatives have invested in my education throughout the years, and, if I put my foot on the gas, I could probably have the 'successful,' 'easy,' life that they had always envisioned someone in our family finally getting.  I could be the realization of making more than enough money to be comfortable, and doing so without using my hands.  In fact, my whole generation, including my three cousins, are primed for that step in (excuse the sappy reference) the Polish-American immigrants' dream.

But, the truth is, I am comfortable now.  No, I can't care for anyone else, and at this rate I'll have to work my whole life, but I am quite comfortable.  I have no job stress, aside from the pressure to make ready-to-graduate Japanese high school seniors interested in English.  I have no living stresses.  I stay at work if I want.  I go home if I want.  I do what I want when I want.  I live in a really beautiful environment, besides the wolf-deer.  (editors note - When Eric came to Japan, for one day I had to work and I let him loose, alone, on my fair city of Kitakami.  He biked up into the mountains and there was 'attacked' by some sort of creature.  In his efforts to get away, he didn't get a good look at the beast.  He described it as some sort of hideous cross between a rabid jaguar and a fierce boar.  It turned out it was a deer.)

In general, I feel like in Japan I can be the person that I want to be (and hopefully really am) more than I ever could in America.  I feel free and easy.  I feel like everything I do, even shopping, is an adventure.  It's a wonderful feeling.

It's ok to make a new personality, to strip the American Derek to the bone and build up again with a 'Japanese' coat.  If I go back to America now, I'll just find my old coat and put it back on.  I'll lose that everyday sense of adventure that leads me to talk to strangers and climb mountains and travel on weekends and dance stupid and play ridiculous games in public and do shotty (editors note - blowing hookah smoke into other people's mouths) with other dudes and play in a band live for people (Matt and I have formed a Whitestripes cover band.  We've played for people, not in a club or anything yet, but we will get there soon...) and start a book group to read and discuss Brothers Karamazov or wear a penguin suit and look like a fool in front of 200 high school kids.  I can do all those things back in New York, or anywhere in America for that fact.  But I probably won't.  I understand that that doesn't say a lot about my personal conviction to be unique and explosive and chase what I really feel is fun, regardless of other people's perceptions, but if its the anonymity of living in Japan that I need to do so, then so be it, no?

Sometimes it feels like a cop-out, though.  I should be able to do those things in New York.  I always had fun in America, no matter where I was.  Before I left for Japan, I was so sad about leaving America.  Leaving my family, the house I knew, understanding what signs say, you, Jen...  But very quickly I forgot about all that.  Quicker than any transition I ever made, in fact.  All I know is that when I was on the plane from Tokyo to JFK for Peter's wedding, and I was 'leaving' Japan, I was very, very sad.  I was sadder than when I made the reverse flight a year before.  AND I KNEW I WAS COMING BACK IN A WEEK!  I can't even imagine what it would be like to leave for good.

Well...  Sorry.  I had intended to write a couple of funny/interesting stories, but I got lost in this one.  I promise I'll write again soon with water-cooler banter.

Derek