Inner and Outer

Much is written about Japan's contrasts. About the outer 'face' and inner 'face' of things. The Japanese are known for their composure and smiles through difficulty. It is seen as incredibly childish to lose your temper or overly display your emotion.

Additionally, belonging to a group and drawing lines between those who belong and those who do not is an essential part of daily life. Instantly, upon meeting someone you assess their age and social rank so that you know what level of polite language (if any) to use with them. People are very concerned with who belongs to which group.

Your inner circle and the outside are very important concepts. When this attitude is applied on a large scale, this is the line drawn between Japanese people (the inner) and foreigners (the outside, the rest).

Despite my joy over the summer at having begun our seventh year here, I have been having trouble recently not strangling some of the people I encounter. This reaction, very unlike my peaceful nature, has got me thinking recently about how this inner/outer concept applies to my own life in Japan.

When I go to work everyday, meet my friends and visit the bank, everyone knows me. This is my inner circle. They all know that I am not noisy, I know how to behave in a 'Japanese' way and speak the language. As many of our friends often tease us, we are more Japanese than they are (since we know and do many traditional things like grow our own food, make umeboshi, study arts like flower-arranging and dance, live in a little mountain village, etc.). They love us and we love them. We learn from each other and realize often how similar all humans truly are.

Step outside this inner circle and the exasperation begins. I find it to be a bit like climbing a mountain but when reaching the top I jump off the cliff, relieving my tension. I can smile and nod politely to the first fifty "Oh, do you know Japanese green tea?" but the fifty-first, watch out. Most likely, some really smart aleck comment is going to come sailing out of my mouth to attack the ignorance standing in front of me.

Even when I can semi-fluently speak the language, cook traditional staple foods blindfolded, list various kimono colors and their meanings, or boast of having traveled to more places in Japan than most of those around me, I am still bombarded with stares, rude behavior and asinine questions like "Do you know Japanese food?" Or even worse, grammatically incorrect English injections like "How old your darling?" (for those of you who need a translation- How old is your husband?) AHHHH!!!!! I don't want to imply that I am better than others for having done these things. I would just like a little understanding and a little less stereotype.

When you live in America most of your life, you do not realize that it is not 'normal' to have different ethnic foods on every corner, different skin colors and nationalities in every house on the block, or supermarkets full of flavors from around the globe. I don't think I was truly able to value America's diversity until I left. In theory, everyone in the US was created equal and most people made an effort to understand the difference of those around them, realizing that at the end of the day, we were all the same. Human.

Conversely, when you live in Japan your whole life and your image of America is the TV show "24" or "America's Most Wanted", you don't realize the definition of diversity. If you have never gotten to know someone slightly different from you, you cannot imagine being able to relate to someone who holds a different country's passport. Since you are also culturally inclined to draw lines to create your outer and inner, you look at my face and think- Outsider! And try to come up with sort of ridiculous question to confirm your stereotype of me. Please stop doing this. It is really annoying.

I have been incredibly frustrated recently when I have to leave my 'inner' and experience these conversations over and over again. Like when I go to the post office and the mailman almost falls over with surprise because I have a hanko (name stamp). Excuse me, but if I didn't have one of these, I couldn't open a bank account, receive my paycheck or any other manner of everyday things. Or when the delivery man comes to my house and drops off a package with nothing but two grunts (for any of you who have experienced true Japanese hospitality or service, you can understand how incredibly rude this was). Or when this week I was refused a debit card from the bank I have had an account at for seven years. The same account that has always had plenty of money in it for all of our monthly automatic utility withdrawals.

Going back to the grunting man, a corollary to this prejudice and lack of understanding, is many people's tendency to drop polite phrases with me. Even when I address people over politely in Japanese, they sometimes fail to use formal addresses (like sensei or san) or correct verb forms. Or worse they don't say anything but grunt, like the delivery guy and throw their arms and fingers around gesturing wildly, like I am some kind of institutionalized mentally slow human being. I would like to clarify- I am a university educated adult. I have a fully functioning mind. Please use yours to figure that out.

Ok, this is turning into quite the rant. Yes, I have for the duration of this blog post, turned into one of those ex-pat complainers who cannot stop moaning about the country they have chosen to live in. Bear with me.

I feel like I need to make a T-shirt with some silly phrase on it claiming my long term residency. No, it's not that bad yet. I just had a rough day at a school where the teachers don't respect me or my teaching abilities, followed by a debit card rejection (yes, think about the true stupidity there...debit!?!)from my long term bank and it was enough to send me over the cliff.

When people outside my inner circle behave as they do, I feel like so much less than a human. I feel that somehow their comments negate all the hard work I put in everyday to learn, to be accepting, to be a better citizen here. I want to smack them upside the head and make them realize that the world is so much bigger than any of us can imagine. Show them that even though I wasn't born in the same place I still have similar feelings and needs.

I need to be respected.
I need to be treated as an adult.
I need to be understood as an individual not as a member of the group "foreigner".
I need people to understand that Japanese things exist outside of Japan.
I need some people to understand that there are not concrete rules for how people behave (i.e. all Americans eat Wonderbread) but rather many shades of grey.
I need to not be asked a bazillion times what country I am from.
I need some people to understand that what they consider to be "Japanese" may actually be considered "American" in another country.
I need to shop for groceries unsupervised.
I need peace.

In my inner Japanese circle, I have long had these things. That is why we are still here.

In the outer circle of those that I encounter in my daily life but who do not know me, I think I am asking for too much.

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