I’ve been having a lot of conversations with a lot of Japanese people. Actually it’s my job, as for better or worse I am working at an eikeiwa or ‘conversation school.’ Often the students don’t want to use a text book in class and start the lesson demanding ‘free-talk.’ This is fine, fun with the right student, except very often the request is followed by this tight-lipped, expectant smile that I’ve come to associate with Japan. I understand they have no topics in mind and they are waiting for me to make one out of thin air. I rack my brain. It’s hard to think of anything that won’t seem completely abrupt in this context. But I have to do it.
At times it gets interesting. Other times it’s boring, excruciating even. Sometimes I get lucky and get a student who likes books or movies. The students have gotten me into the writer Keigo Higashino, who is very beloved here for his detective novels, some of which have been adapted for movies and TV. One of my students, a scientist on a year-long maternity leave, is book-clubbing one with me. It’s called ‘The Newcomer,’ and it’s one of several books Higashino has written about his Detective Kaga character.
Detective Kaga isn’t respected by his peers at the precinct, because he dresses in a short sleeved collared shirt and his demeanor is ‘laid-back,’ which I gather is not a good thing at all. But Kaga’s strange ways actually serve a purpose as they allow him to disarm suspects and witnesses alike. Kaga believes a detective’s duty is about more than just finding murderers. It’s about bringing comfort to the families and helping them understand their lives and relationships. No detail is too small for him to investigate.
The book I just finished has got to be the most wholesome story about a strangled woman ever written. The murder weapon is the string from a toy spinning-top and a plot point revolves around a young man not wearing his helmet on his motorcycle (shameful). Kaga helps the son of the murdered woman understand why his parents divorced, and that even though neither of his parents had been speaking to him since he dropped out of college to pursue acting, his mother had been watching over him at the time of her death. It is all around heartwarming, and sentimental. Safe to say if my student ever read the kind of crime fiction I am used to reading by American writers she would have a heart attack or fall into a depression.
The people here really seem to love their escapism, and they don’t seem to have a problem with the sentimental, either. I even have one student who loves The Bachelor Japan. He particularly recommends Season 2, because as he told me, with reverence, ‘The Bachelor was so kind. He is …the perfect human.’ (I have tried watching it but can’t find it with subtitles, which, is so, so sad, but moving on. Trying to move on anyway…) He asked me if any of the American Bachelors have been like that, and I had to tell him unfortunately none of them have. I described the concept of a guilty pleasure, which was foreign to him. (As was the concept the Bachelorette, which was so shocking he could hardly believe it.)
At the risk of generalizing or stereotyping, there is an innocence to the culture. I had this sense before I arrived, of course. When we visited I remember seeing it as a playfulness. I remember I was tickled by the construction sites. On the barriers around them, the bars are held up by little cartoon animals. And I remember I was struck that politicians depict themselves as cartoons on their political advertisements. I thought ‘how playful and how cool. I guess no one takes themselves too seriously.’
(^a construction site I saw recently)
But now that I live here I am struck by it differently. It’s definitely not that they don’t take themselves seriously. I’m not sure what it is, exactly, but I will give a few examples of what I mean.
When I don’t have a student at work I am asked to help the Japanese staff ‘make decorations’ on promotional materials. They ask me to draw ‘hearts’ and ‘rainbows’ all over the fliers in colored markers, then heap praise on me because ‘I decorate so well!’ One of the most important executives at my work carries a lavender leather, hello-kitty shaped bag and wears full ruffled skirts with her business blazer. We have to act extra hardworking when she’s around, as the Japanese staff get very nervous and frightened whenever she visits our school branch. This woman covered in bows and cat cartoons is an object of fear.
There is a lot anxiety in Japan in general. A lot of activities are perceived as scary or dangerous here that would be laughed off elsewhere. We go to a public pool in our neighborhood and every 50 minutes or so, the teenage lifeguards walk around saying something in Japanese which we understand to mean ‘break time, everybody out of the pool.’ Everyone gets out and waits for 15 minutes, then we can get back in. I asked my students why, and they say it’s because as everyone knows it’s dangerous to be in the water for more than an hour at a time. Your body temperature will drop and you could get sick and die. The water at this pool is like lukewarm bath water temperature.
I am often amazed and have to wonder…are you for real? You guys, there was a mass murder in Kyoto a few weeks ago. A man burned down an animation studio killing 35 people over a plagiarism dispute. A little girl was just kidnapped from my neighborhood. Another time recently, a man unleashed a stabbing rampage on school girls in which one kid and one man were killed. Sexual assault on public transportation is a big problem (and that’s for another letter). So when I’m feeling ungenerous I wonder if the childlike gaze is just blinders, a way for them to pretend to ignore the problems of societies including their own. It is a safe country in that there is not much theft or drug crime here, but it’s not as if violence or the facts of life don’t exist.
Speaking of the facts of life, as you may have read, the birth rate in Japan is declining, and many adults are not sexually active. The Japanese government is actively trying to encourage people to start families with incentives like year-long maternity leaves. Women’s fashion is modest to say the least. In the 90 degree heat, many of them have been wearing long dresses over leggings or jeans. It looks very chic, but I wonder if that is why they’re doing it. Even at the pool, almost all the women wear shorts or even long pants and shirts in the water, both out of fear of sun exposure and modesty.
There are many aspects to life that remind me of our idea of 1950s America, (though when it comes to fashion the ‘50s were far more risqué). From the muzak to the color palate, the glass bottles, and even the heavy drinking. And then there’s this: In the book I just read one character gets engaged to a man she’s dating. I will quote what happens directly:
‘Despite her age, Tamiko burst into tears. She would have hugged Koji right then and there if there hadn’t been other people around.’
Wait, what? If there hadn’t been people around, she would have hugged him? Excuse me…at this point I checked when it was published: 2004.
The word kandou in Japanese means ‘moving,’ and I hear it about a dozen times a day. Detective Kaga is kandou. The live-action Aladdin was kandou. (My students of all ages and genders have been going to see it. I keep being asked, even by the Western teachers I work with, if I have seen it yet. Still no…). Full House, which my student is watching to learn English, is so kandou. Whenever a student is trying to remember the right word in English, and they start bringing their hand to their heart, I know I can provide it.
‘Was it, by chance… moving? Like, kandou?’
‘Yes!’
They are incredibly earnest. Sometimes that’s a great thing. Sometimes it’s this odd willful ignorance to the world we live in. Occasionally I get a student who tells me something genuinely kandou. Many of my students have a great sense of dignity to their values and characters. Everyone is obviously an individual here, with personalities as diverse as they come in the US. Some are shy, but others are very gregarious and outgoing. Instead of continuing to theorize about a culture I’ve only known a few months I thought I’d share a few stories about some interesting individuals I have met. In the next few letters I will be sharing some stories they tell me. Here is just one case to start us off:
CLERK AT A TOKYO POLICE PRECINCT
(^a tiny police station in my area)
I have a student, a young man, who I was surprised to hear worked in law enforcement, since he seems so tender-hearted and vulnerable. He is a bit on the chubby side for a Japanese person and has a very open smiling face with large lips. He actually works as a clerk at a Tokyo police precinct. Here’s a sample of our lesson:
‘How are you today?’
‘So busy, so stressed.’
It was a big week at the station. His job as a clerk entails overseeing payroll, station maintenance, and lost and stolen property. President Trump was in town, and my student had to make sure all the extra security details got paid. He had to do this on top of his regular duties as a clerk, like finding lost cats and dogs.
He doesn’t enjoy his job at all, he tells me. It’s so stressful and he never wanted to go into law enforcement. His dream had been to work in City Hall, but he couldn’t pass the test. He passed several stages of the test and failed at the last stage. In order to pass the test to work in city hall, you need to have knowledge of accounting, math, the law, and English. When he couldn’t pass, his uncle suggested he try the test for the police force. Since he already studied kendo, which is traditional Japanese sword-fighting, his uncle thought he’d have a good chance of passing. All police men are required to study either judo or kendo, and this makes up a good part of the test.
So a bit reluctantly, my student took the police force test and passed. But he didn’t want to become a police officer because it seemed too dangerous, so he decided to become a clerk. Big mistake, as this job is incredibly stressful.
I asked him if he would try again for the City Hall test, and he said maybe he wants to, but that he is running out of time. He is already 27, and people over 30 aren’t allowed to take the test, as they believe older people could be at risk of memory loss.
Now he has to live in company housing in a small room with two other policemen. One of them stays up all night watching anime, which he doesn’t really like. But we did talk about the popular anime ‘Your Name,’ a fantasy romance I had watched on the plane. His policeman roommate made him watch it. It is about a teenage girl and boy time displaced three years apart, who swap bodies. The boy touches the girl’s breasts when he is in her body, which is as romantic as it gets. Otherwise it’s totally chaste. But the story is very original and unpredictable, and the animation is beautiful. I do recommend it. It is sentimental, but maybe also moving. Definitely a good teen fantasy. It’s hard to imagine cops watching it together in their room late at night, but that’s what they do here.
^(me in an Alice in Wonderland costume they offer you to wear at Karaoke spots)