The Japanese and associated vexations

Differences in culture and means of approaching problems can be frustrating to both native and alien peoples.

Take for example, one of my Japanese teaching colleagues. I like the man, I admire his drive, his intelligence and his bottomless affability. Typically Japanese in those senses, also in the way he expresses dissatisfaction. I suggest something for an upcoming lesson...there is a pause...he eventually says "OK". His features betray nothing of the titanic struggle raging within, only his manner reveals every scrap of him disagreeing. Simply saying "I think not" isn't the Japanese way. He will eventually approach me later with some source to gently state what he's thinking.

Indirectness is an infuriatingly Japanese quirk. If you're asking for anything in a shop, you can be assured that unless your request is greeted with a hearty "Hai!", you know they can't help you...but they don't like saying "no" as a rule. Even though they know that their little search is going to be ultimately futile, they're still going to rush off somewhere, at least with the pretence that they're looking for whatever your request was...I rarely ask for anything in shops now.

Yes, a diatribe...bluntly put, the Japanese annoy the hell out of me on some days. Their indirectness, the racism, the rudeness, their sense of cultural mystique, their utilitarian approach to things and people...on bad days, it's easy to feel like an English speaking object. People will momentarily abduct you in the street to practice their language skills on you. At work, there are times when I'm wheeled in as the human tape recorder, the gaijin pet, the zookeeper entertaining the monkeys.

As is life, it's at these low moments that something happens to slap you around and make you retract your vitriol. The Japanese are capable of the most incredible acts of kindness. Caught short in rainstorms, I have received two umbrellas from strangers in the street. Students have made me origami dinosaur heads, presented me with a charm for my mobile phone. Our landlord consistently feeds us exotic things, and my private student has been known to present us with random high quality foodstuffs. Then, last week, whilst at the Board of Education, I bumped into a former Principal who seemed very keen to make friends with me, despite his English being about as good as my Japanese. I got the impression that he wanted to show me some photos that he had taken whilst working at a Japanese school in Mexico, which he said he'd bring in the next day. So, the day came, and he presented me, not with a photo album, but a book of really amazing photos that he had published. The key word there is "presented". Not only did he give me a truly lovely book, but he signed it in kanji, wrote another variation of my name in kanji, and gave me a mock certificate to say "congratulations, you've been here for almost a year", all written with a brush, giving the characters a wonderfully raw appearance. To cap it all off, I've been invited to his house in the Spring break, where I imagine he's going to teach me a thing or two about sake. One feels quite overwhelmed.