When you first move to Japan things are exciting and new, but as "life" starts and the excitingly new fades to the unavoidable normal, you begin to crave not only peanut butter and tacos, but good hearted English speaking friends.
There was a point about 2 years ago when Nathaniel and I had lived in Japan for over 6 when the reality of how secluded we were and how much we craved contact with other gaijin. It was a night in early spring when the snow still hadn't melted and we had lived together for so long we were driving each other insane. I was sitting in the apartment watching TV when Nathaniel came running into the living room and quickly hit the mute button, "Is that English?!!!!" We sat for a second and I heard inaudible yelling and screaming and after a minute of Nathaniel watching me waiting to see if I agreed it was English I said "Well Japanese people usually aren't that loud, especially at 11:30pm". We listed a little longer and opened the window. "Its coming from over there," Nathaniel whispered. "But I cant even tell if its English" I said. "Let's go and see!" he said excitedly and I said "ok!" and we jumped up and put on our shoes and ran down the street with the chatter growing louder. All of a sudden it sounded so close so we walked slower only to find out it was a huge group of middle-aged Japanese people who were extremely drunk saying good-bye to one another.
Yep that was the moment I realized that I urned for contact with others like us. We didn't speak any Japanese, we didn't know anyone, we were growing more and more annoyed with each other living and working in such close conduct.
Nathaniel ended up moving out about 6 months later and we adapted to living in an entirely Japanese life style. We never saw gaijin except for each other. We were getting conversational in Japanese. We had formed our own cliques. We, ourselves, were becoming Japanese in nature.
I started to make more Japanese friends all over Nagai and it became so natural that when I went to a bigger city and saw gaijin I turned my eyes and face down and prayed they wouldn't speak to me. Or when a cashier or information worker spoke English to me I automatically replied annoyingly in Japanese. I caught myself using bad English on the phone with my parents, or worse yet would speak to them in Japanese unconsciously. I had adopted the Japanese culture as my own.
After two years of living in Japan and Nathaniel moving away from Nagai, I met two new ALT teacher. I was nervous and annoyed by them, half wanting so badly to attach onto their gaijinness because I had missed it so dearly and half out of annoyance because I enjoyed being in my Japanese state of mind and they were new and didn't understand that. But after a few meetings and inviting them over for dinner, I automatically made friends that I thoroughly enjoyed. Great people!
Now I'm at a different stage. I find myself leaning back towards my American habits and resorting to English once again. I hate it!! I miss my Japaneseness... it made me so unique and it made me feel so much more at home. But now I have all these gaijin friends and I want to hang out with them, but so desperately crave the Japanese culture and conversation.
Its funny how you go on paths through life and how at one point you crave something so dearly, but at another you realize you don't need it, just to find yourself in the opposite place years later. I'm curious to know if anyone else has gone through these phases or if its just me.
No comments:
Post a Comment