As I sit at home sipping on my whiskey and Borkum Riff Vanilla flavored tobacco I wonder if I'm sober enough to write a post for my blog. Of course I've done the drunk test in which I touch my cheeks for feeling. I can feel a sensation. HOORAY! SOBER! As I sit at home sometimes it is easy to forget how much I have had to drink. Back home I could easily tell because people's words would stop making sense. But here it's difficult. Even when I'm at my maximum intellectual capacity I find myself lacking in understanding. Therefore I am in a constant state of confusion; "Am I drunk or not?" I often ask myself "WHAT HE SAY?" "WHY HE TALK FUNNY?" "WHY THAT MAN ON THE TV ALWAYS BOWIN DOWN TO LOOK AT HIS SHOES?"
But when I take a step back from all of this I come to a startling realization. HOLY SH** I'm total soto here. Total outsider. I mean I am gaijin. That's why I don't understand. For example the other day my school was having our annual school festival. We were having a chorus competition. Each class prepared a song and sang in front of the school. The teachers also participated. One teacher came to me and asked "Ah stephen will you sing with the teachers for the contest?" In which I replied in horrible Japanese, "I hope so! But I don't have the music. I'll get it from my supervisor."
After asking my supervisor for music he then proceeded to say, "Stephen it is in Japanese and it is an old Japanese song. You don't know it." I said, "No problem, I can read hiragana and I majored in music! I'll pick it up quickly." He then said, "But maybe it is best if you stay in the back and watch." in which I replied with my head down walking away and the charlie brown music playing "ok". This is just one example of the many times I get treated like the outsider.
Of course being an outsider isn't so bad. If there is a stupid rule I don't want to follow I just pretend I don't understand. I have never officially taken a vacation day in a year. I can get out of teacher meetings and when the salesmen come into the office I just look at them funny and bite at my shoulder until they leave.
Not to mention being an outsider gives me immediate street cred. All I do and say is looked on as something awesome. I was asked to introduce one of the classes choir groups in English. No one understood a word I said, but they looked on saying "AMAZING!!!!" No one understands, but that's what makes it cool. I'm like the cool kid in high school who never really spoke, wore t-shirts under long sleeve shirts under t-shirts and when he did speak it was something completely incomprehensible, but you probably thought it held the weight of the world on it. Sometimes when I'm at school I rap for the students. They look on in awe as I spew words that would make any b-boy's ears bleed internally leaking blood into his stomach causing his ph balance to be tipped which in then turns causes him to vomit and poop blood for a year.
So I am not uchi, insider, nor am I completely soto here. What am I? I'm this weird enigma in the Japanese system that leaves some Japanese scratching their heads in confusion, some people look at it as a learning experience, and some just cry. While many others just turn to alcohol. Alcohol becomes a everyones best friend here. It has really helped with my Japanese!
At least I think it helps with my Japanese...or maybe my English becomes so bad that it doesn't really make a difference which language I speak because it's all just going to be "mumble mumble BEER! mumble mumble girl like me? mumble mumble SHORT PEOPLE!!! mumble mumble I DON'T THINK BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN REALLY LIKES AMERICA...."
But anyways, I find myself digressing from my main point of this blog. So let me wrap it up with this last bit of information. Regardless of being an "insider" or "outsider" This place is freaking amazing. The role I play no matter how stretching it is for me or the people around me really is amazing. And with that I will lay on my tatami mats staring at my ripped shoji with a smile and say "Thank you God for this place."
No comments:
Post a Comment