So, I am back in Japan once again, the weird place that holds a strange fascination for me, because even though I am highly critical of so many aspects of this society and will never succumb to many of the rules I still want to stay here, at least for a while longer. Call it what you will, masochism, love-hate relationship, challenging myself, I keep coming back, even if I sometimes have to run away half-way across the world just to get a break.
Among one of my biggest challenges here is that I am a foreigner. Visibly. And a female at that, too. For a male foreigner many things are quite easy here, the nerdiest and positively attraction-free guys find those pretty chicks here, end up getting married and go off their heads in their own imagined super-sexiness. Outside of Japan they wouldn't have had a chance to reproduce, ever, but here... and it's not that the girls here are stupid. On the contrary, I think they have their own motives, which mostly come down to this: Japanese men are macho pigs. Exceptions do exist, but in general a Westerner makes a more comfortable partner. Or so I hear. For me, a Westerner, many of the guys still appear to be macho pigs, but maybe they win in comparison? I don't know. But fact is: For foreign men it's easy here, for foreign girls less so. Because Japanese men... well, the macho pig comment still stands. And most of the nice guys are too shy or too scared of Western women to make a move. And I have no clue how to notice who is nice and who isn't here, they all look like cute little boys to me!
Anyway, that wasn't what I wanted to talk about. What I did want to talk about was that as a foreigner you will always be just that, a foreigner. However hard you try, however well you speak the language, marry into a Japanese family, learn all those rules of conduct and mannerisms and what have you, you will still be the outsider. You will maybe get a glimpse of the inside, but you will never belong. Even if you find great friends or even partners, there will still be those moments where they will exclude you, because you wouldn't understand. And they won't explain. Because some things just can't be translated, linguistically or culturally.
I came to this country in the first place to learn the language. I wasn't too interested in the culture to begin with, I just wanted to learn a language with a different writing system. And then I got stuck with it, and went on, all the way to Osaka. I stayed for a while, learned a lot, but then forgot it all again when I left. Therein lies the rub, this damn language just vanishes from your braincells if you don't refill them every day...
And so, after going on two decades of dealing with this language, I still can't speak it. Oh yes, it sounds impressive to others who don't understand a word of Japanese, and I am definitely able to make myself understood and have simple conversations, but make it a bit more complicated and that's where it all ends. And that is so damn frustrating! I mean really frustrating, the kind where I just want to throw myself on the floor and pound it with my fists and scream at the top of my lungs! And I would, if I even remotely thought it might help...
So what to do? Luckily in many situation people overlook my lack of Japanese or the parts where I wasn't able to express myself politely or even remotely correctly, and still talk to me the next day. There may be some who didn't, but since they usually withdraw themselves really discretely I didn't notice. And wasn't bothered by the fact that we never met again.
But still, I wish I could be able to express myself much better, and know what to say in certain situations, and ask the questions I really want to ask but don't know how, and understand the underlying meaning of what I am being told. I mean, I love my friends here, and I know they love me, despite me trampling on their toes every once in a while because I just didn't get it. By now their feet must be flat as pancakes. I just wish I could finally get to a point where I feel like I know what I'm doing. Or saying rather. And be able to say the right thing when they tell me their grandmother is in hospital. Instead, all I can do is look concerned, and give them a hug. And for now, that has to be enough...
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