Essays
Reflections on Sake, Strawberries and Internationalization
I am alone. My host has disappeared into the back of the house, and I am kneeling at a small table littered with snacks, empty beer bottles, sake cups, and the soon to be explored brandy collection.
The tip of my nose is numb.
For the first time in several hours, I am not involved in Japanese conversation. I am not leaning forward, intensely listening, desperately trying to make sense of ever more complex utterances. I am not, with my limited vocabulary, trying to describe the subtle plot twists and epiphanies that have led me to where I am now. It is strangely relaxing, which isn't to say that tonight's conversation hasn't been enjoyable.
It has.
I push my sake cup away from myself in a symbolic act, reach into the bowl in front of me, and pull out a large sheet of baked seaweed. It is firm, and subtly thicker than that which I am used to—a local specialty, perhaps. It crunches delicately when I bite into it, and has soft, caramel undertones. I have, I realize, become something I never dreamed I would be as a child: an expert in seaweed.
And I have eaten snacks with eyeballs.
Life is strange.
I am here, in the inaka—in rice field country in the outer reaches of Fukuoka Prefecture—doing a home‑stay with the Ueda family on this Saturday night in order to take part in an internationalization event sponsored by the local city hall. The event will begin bright and early tomorrow morning. I'm not entirely certain what my role will be, but if I am to base my expectations on previous experience, I can only guess that my impact on Japan and its culture will be minimal.
It was only a year ago that I went to my first such event. It was a Christmas party. I was there to teach some elementary school students and their mothers a French Christmas song, and to help them make strawberry shortcake. It is a day I barely remember, and I may well be blocking some horrible memory. What I do remember is the strawberries—yeah, the shtrawberries…
Not quite knowing what was expected of me in the kitchen, I decided to help with the slicing that day. I picked up a knife, and began to work. I guess I was lost in my own little world, making perfect slice after perfect slice, because I didn't even notice the crowd of mothers forming around me. That I could slice, it seems, was not something anyone had expected. They were stunned into silence for a time. Then they began to clap. I couldn't help but take notice of the mothers after that, but had no idea how to respond. So, to the sound of protracted applause, I simply continued to slice as if all this was normal, strawberry after strawberry… endless strawberries.
There is a damp feeling in my right hand. For reasons that I can't begin to imagine, I am squeezing the life out of two umeboshi—notoriously sour pickled plums the size of large gumballs. I pop them into my mouth and wipe my palm on my pant leg just as Ueda‑san re‑enters the room. In one hand, he holds a clear plastic bucket that contains a single, rather large chunk of ice; in the other, he holds an ice pick. He raises them up victoriously, as I greet him with an umeboshi‑inspired "Un."
I excuse myself for a moment in order to expel the umeboshi pits discreetly. When I return, I find Ueda‑san firmly grasping the block of ice in one hand as he furiously hacks away at it with his ice pick. I quietly go back to my place at the table, careful not to distract him.
And, as my host risks his life in the name of cool brandy, I begin to contemplate internationalization.
Internationalization is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. It is one of the stated goals of the Japanese Ministry of Education, and now that I am working in Fukuoka’s Prefectural Office in the Education Division, I realize that it is only a matter of time before someone asks me what it involves. I need to find a plausible answer before then.
I have been trying to get some hints from the internationalization events that I am regularly asked to attend. The most recent one was a recitation and speech contest. For four hours, I watched students as they publicly voiced words they had spent months memorizing. They had all clearly worked hard. The student who won the speech portion of the contest told a story about helping a lost stranger shop for a yukata—a traditional Japanese cotton robe. Fundamentally, it was about reaching out to foreigners. And in the spirit of that speech, and of internationalization, I tried to reach out to some of the students during the break. Predictably perhaps, I was met by a series of sweet smiles and silences. With few exceptions, the students here couldn't understand simple, slowly spoken English sentences—and I'm sure that none of them were able to understand any speech but their own. For four hours that day, they sat silently listening to random, meaningless sounds as they patiently waited for their chance to make their own random sounds. Their efforts notwithstanding, there was no communication that day—the contest was simply not about that. And if there was no communication, how could anything called internationalization possibly have occurred?
My strongest memory of that day, though, is of something that happened on my way home. As I was walking through the downtown core, I heard the familiar sound of passionate phrases being spoken through a loudspeaker. I strained to hear a few words, and made out chuugoku-jin, kankoku-jin and shigoto—Chinese people, Korean people and jobs. I assumed that it was one of those black vans with darkened windows that I've occasionally seen around town, funded by god knows who, and dedicated to the task of filling the air with racist slogans. But I was wrong. When I rounded the next corner, I saw that it was lone man with a megaphone—a man so firmly entrenched in his hatred of foreigners that he was willing to share his thoughts without anonymity. You had to give him that.
As I was still in speech watching mode, I decided to park myself in front of him for a short time. I felt bad because no one else seemed to be paying close attention. I smiled sweetly, looked him in the eye (eye contact, as the participants were reminded at the contest earlier, is vital for good speech making) and pretended not to have any idea what he was talking about. I would have hoped that the presence of his enemy would phase him, or make him more passionate, or something… but my existence seemed to make no difference to him at all. His ability to look right through me was impressive; it was almost as if he didn't see me as a real human being. I decided to move on. And as I passed by the last speaker I would hear that day, I smiled and made a final attempt to enter his world. I greeted him with the cheeriest konnichiwa I could muster. For one brief moment, his eyes darted toward me filled with a special kind of resentment. And maybe it was my imagination, but I think he missed a beat. I kept walking, and as I reflected on our brief interchange, I wondered if that was internationalization.
Of one thing I am certain: in order to internationalize, I have to make an impact on people, just as Japan has made an impact on me. In order to survive and fit in, I have learned to do things the Japanese way. I have learned to accept the natural order of things, even when it feels distinctly unnatural. Just last month, when the lady in charge of the video equipment for the meeting rooms explained to me that she never actually lends out the equipment (because it might break), I smiled and apologized and pretended that her policy made perfect sense to me. I fought my instinct to ask what on Earth she thought the purpose of owning the equipment was to begin with. I understood that she measured her success by whether or not the equipment worked, and that the safest way to ensure that it continued to do so was never to use it. I accepted that there was no higher power I could appeal to. I accepted that there are things I cannot change. I am in Japan, and must do things the Japanese way.
Even at home, I have adapted to local custom. My shoes are always lined up neatly in the vestibule, and have never touched the floors in the rest of the house (or, Heaven forbid, the near-sacred straw tatami mats in its traditional Japanese rooms). Like all good Japanese, I treat the vestibule as a public space. The front door is always unlocked, and neighbours are welcome to let themselves in, announcing themselves boisterously with the apologetic words ojama shimasu.
But there are times when I think that it's my duty to try and change things. Japan, for better or worse, opened up to the world just over a century ago. And, in order to survive and fit in, it has to learn to do some things in non-Japanese ways. It has to learn to accept the natural order of things elsewhere, even when that order feels distinctly unnatural. I understand that much, and I'm convinced that it has something to do with my sworn duty to internationalize.
It is this conviction which has been fuelling my latest little battle with the powers that be. The issue is simple: in December, we will be having a two-day conference at a prefectural facility. The facility is difficult to get to, and consequently has rooms available for conference participants. For some reason, and contrary to the usual policy, these rooms aren’t being made available for our conference—a fact that has knocked quite a few noses out of joint. Last Friday, my fellow Prefectural Coordinators and I ganged up on one of our supervisors and tried to explain our stance. He listened patiently. "I understand," he said at last, "but if we do that, the foreign teachers might cause problems. Five years ago, there were problems."
"But those were different people."
"Still, they have a bad reputation. It would be bad if there were problems."
"Well, what do you do when the Japanese teachers cause problems?"
"Un… eto ne… that's different. It's difficult to explain."
Yes it is.
Our latest little problem can easily be summed up in one word: discrimination—at least that's the word the four of us would be using back in our respective homes. So far, we have consciously decided to avoid it when dealing with our supervisors. They would be hurt, as their decisions have not been made maliciously. They simply view the foreign teachers as unruly—and every unruly foreign teacher in the past 10 years has confirmed that belief. Somehow, the 99% of foreign teachers who are responsible have gone unnoticed. We are trying to change that, but we quickly realized that that wasn't about to happen Friday. We decided to retreat while everyone was still smiling rather than fight on.
Japan, it seems, is having more of an effect on us than we are on it.
The four of us thanked the supervisor for his time and retired into a corner to think about our next move. As we did so, we heard the sound of an amplified and passionate speech wafting up from the street below—no doubt emanating from one of those aforementioned black vans. Like children at the sound of a fire truck, a surprisingly large number of our coworkers excitedly rushed to the window to watch the show.
It was a little disturbing.
Ueda-san hands me a glass of brandy with a large chunk of ice in it, and holds his own glass up in a toast. I smile; make a mental note to send him an ice tray for Christmas, and raise my glass.
"Ureshii," he says, "I am happy."
I am happy too, and tell him so.
We begin talking again, and I find that I am amazed at the level of warmth that we have established in one short night. He is genuinely pleased to have me here tonight, and there is the sense that what we are sharing is special. It is a feeling that I have had often here in Japan. Little moments of connection are prized.
Will Ueda-san and I become lifelong friends? Probably not. After tonight, we may see each other once or twice before I leave Japan, but we have already said everything we can say. Anything more would require a level of subtlety that my Japanese cannot rise to. Frankly, I'm surprised that we've gotten this far—far enough to make this night special. Whatever tomorrow holds, this trip to the far reaches of the inaka was worthwhile. So what if I don't manage to internationalize anyone? So what if I don't even know what that means?
And the brandy is good.
* * *
Three days have passed since the
internationalization event, and much has happened. The event itself held no
surprises. It was a walk marathon, and I staffed the Canadian station. My main
job was to hand out a Canadian snack (maple leaf shaped cookies) and to give the
participants hints to help them answer the Canadian trivia questions they had
been given. One question was "What symbol can be found on the Canadian flag?"
As a hint, I pointed to the package of cookies.
I guess you could say it was an easy job.
On Monday, I got news that one of the supervisors has seen the light, and agrees with the Prefectural Coordinators. I have reason to feel optimistic that, on this small issue, we will win the day.
And as I slept last night, someone, a quiet shadow, entered my house. It glided to the darkened study, where it found my wife's wallet; it gingerly stepped over our sleeping forms to find its way to my wallet in the back room, then stepped over them again on its way out. And then it disappeared from our lives as quietly as it had entered, just a little richer for its trouble.
If this had happened in Canada, I think I would feel violated. Just the though of someone entering my home uninvited would have upset me. Somehow, I can't bring myself to feel that way here. Maybe it's the fact that my concept of public space has changed—if my once-sacrosanct vestibule is public, why not the rest of the place? Oh sure, a polite cry of ojama shimasu from the thief would have been appreciated, but I can't bring myself to feel violated by a simple lack of good manners.
I can't deny that I'm a bit upset about the lost money, but, if I'm to be honest, the main thing I feel right now is a strange kind of appreciation. Our thief is one of the few Japanese people who has treated me in the same way that he or she would treat another Japanese person. (In fairness, I didn't actually see the culprit, but the demographics in this town strongly suggest that he or she was Japanese.) My foreignness was not an issue for my dear thief, and for that I would like to thank him. Or her.
If everyone were like my cosmopolitan-minded burglar, my work here in Japan would be done. But they aren't. According to a recent poll, over 80% of the population believes that no more foreign workers should be allowed in. As was recently reported in the New York Times, "It [Japan] has the lowest percentage of immigrants and expatriate workers of any advanced industrialized nation—about 1 percent of the population. Naturalization, even for Koreans who have lived here for generations and fought in wars for Japan, is extremely difficult. On average, fewer than 20 people are legally recognized as refugees each year."[i] Foreigners are viewed with distrust, and as fundamentally different.
And then there are the vans.
All this leads me to believe that maybe, just maybe, I have underestimated the impact that I am having here. Slicing strawberries for clapping mothers and smiling at students who are struggling to express a sense of international understanding may not seem like much, but it is in a country where foreign faces are so rare. Simple interaction with foreigners makes foreigners real. If Japanese people can associate real people with the concept of foreigner, then that concept will change. Friendships, even fleeting ones like the one I share with Ueda-san, are monumental accomplishments. If anything, it is them which will make the lone racists and their megaphones be viewed with disdain, not indifference.
I still have my bigger battles, and I'll keep fighting them. And, I have had a few setbacks. I'm told that an entire town in the outer reaches of Fukuoka Prefecture, thanks to me, now believes that the Maple Cream Cookie is Canada's national symbol. But, and this will help me stay sane, I have to learn to see my successes too, and to find them in small places.
I hope that my internationalized intruder reads this some day and feels proud. And if you are reading this, my friend, know one thing: if I ever find out that you wore your shoes on my tatami mats, for that crime you will pay.
Jean-François Chénier, Winter 1999
[i] "'Japanese Only' Policy Takes Body Blow in Court," The New York Times (Internet edition), November 15, 1999, Howard W. French
[ii] Photographer unknown.