May 17, 2007

• Two things...

  1) Who the hell thought it was a good idea to eat ice cream with flat wooden spoons? They taste bad and they hurt your lips.

  2) My gym has been overrun by gaijin.

  Let me explain that.

  In my experience, gaijin go through three phases in their interactions with each other.

  1) The "Hey, you're white too!" phase.
  Oh, pity the fool in their backpack and khaki shorts, landing in Narita for the first time. They thought Japan, as the second biggest economy in the world, might be somewhat civilized but no! No one speaks English, nothing is written in English, and everywhere they go they seem to be standing in the wrong place, eating with the wrong utensil, and talking much too loudly. Is it any wonder then that when they finally see a pair of eyes as blue as their own, at roughly the same height as their own, that they would jump for joy, or, at least, wave and smile?

  2)The "I'm not like you" phase
  Greenhorns no more, a Gaijin of 6+ months no longer needs the safety net of other gaijin. They've learned the language to an extent, they've learned their way around. They know where to stand when waiting for the train and how to order food in a restaurant. They've got their Japanese girlfriend in tow and they do NOT need to be reminded of how sorely they stick out by some grinning, cock-eyed newbie who thinks they're buddies just because they happen to be foreign. "I'm not like you!" says the stage 2-er, quite clearly, as he grips his girlfriend's hand and stares fixedly at the ground until the offensive tourist is safely out of range. After swimming in a sea of Japanese faces day in and day out, one begins to learn the subtle differences between them, even to the point where Korean and Chinese faces stick out a mile away. What a shock, then, a white face must be if accidentally spied in a mirror! Well, that mirror is another foreigner, an no self respecting gaijin in the midst of their tireless efforts to become Japanese, wants to be reminded of how painfully they stick out. Too bad.

  3)Acceptance
  Finally, the gaijin realizes that they will never, ever be accepted into Japanese society. They can follow every rule, and do everything right and say everything perfectly, but they're still "gaijin", and they might as well accept it. They cultivate meaningful friendships with other expats and travelers, who provide a nice counterbalance to the Japanese friends they've collected. They're comfortable with their language ability and the life they've created and they're more than happy to share experience and wisdom to those just starting out.

  Now, what does this have to do with my gym? Well, as a general rule, gyms, or "fitness centers" haven't really hit the mainstream yet in Japan. I can see that the trend is moving that way, but as a general rule the target market (20-30 year olds) are either too busy or involved with an actual extra curricular sport and are in little need of a gym. The one I happen to attend occupies stories 4-6 in a small building above a Kinko's, and is patronized mostly by old women who just come to use the sauna, and inexplicably ripped old men who walk around in bicycle shorts and hernia belts who all seam to know each other. The spaces in between are filled in by young women who are a little, uh, larger than most of their Japanese comrades, and slightly older women who just wanted to get out of the house and make friends.

  This leaves a lot of space for gaijin to take over. I would say on any given day that 10% of the people using the gym are foreign, which is huge, even for Tokyo. This high percentage means that the reactions stage 1,2, and 3-ers usually have with each other are intensified, sort of a microcosm of the gaijin world as a whole.

  As far as I can tell, I'm the only gaijin female there. The rest are male, and classic stage two-ers. For the longest time they avoided making eye contact, made a show of chatting in Japanese with the staff, and in general we pretended the other wasn't there. Once, one of them, clearly in the throes of stage 3, asked me if I wanted a job teaching at his trade school, and on another occasion advised me to use the precor treadmills, as they were easier on the knees. He's been in Japan for 18 years, which is, I suppose, how long it takes to stop being afraid of other white people.

  My gym, for all the early 90's R&B they play in the locker room, is actually not that foreigner friendly.-They don't have any advertisements in English, nor do they have an English webpage. Its not terribly easy to find, and none of the staff can manage more than greetings in any language but Japanese. Still, recently one non-Japanese speaker has managed to stumble his way in, his English piercing (as English does) across the room in unmistakable tones. This unexpected addition of a stage 1 gaijin has somehow lifted the fog amoung the rest of us, and we've more or less started acknowledging the other's existence. Case in point, a rather tall lanky gaijin passed me as I was on the arm weights. He stopped near me when one of the buff old men asked if he'd lost any weight. They had a short conversation and then he passed me, without so much as a glance, and headed toward the water fountain. "I'm not like you", he said, as the Japanese rolled off his tongue. Then, the newbie came up from the dressing room and the two of them had a short dialog, in English. They smiled and parted ways; the lanky stage 2-er coming back to me. This time, lo and behold, he looked at me and smiled.

  This absolutely fascinated me, and I spent quite a bit of time thinking about it before I figured it out: in speaking Japanese, he could pretend that he and I had no connection to each other; in speaking English he admitted that we did, and had no choice but to acknowledge me the next time he came by. Once he let slip his native English, his rouse of trying to be Japanese (fooling nobody but himself, of course, but still), was foiled, and he had to self-identify as a foreigner. Once he did that, of course he had to greet me! We're fellow countrymen, stuck together daily on a few square feet of exercise bikes and freeweights.

  It shocks me how many gaijin stay permanently at stage 1- never learning the language, never making friends with any Japanese people, just coasting along at expat hangouts, teaching English and living in a bubble. This saddens and confuses me. What shocks me less but annoys me more are gaijin who never get past stage 2- gaijin who live in permanent denial and contempt of other foreigners who are going through the exact same shit. Maybe they think they're Admiral Perry, alighting upon an isolated world where they are the only foreign explorers. Guess what pal? Uh-uh. There's no place to plant a flag anymore, kid. If you've said it or done it, or been there, some other savvy gaijin got there long before your pale freckled ass. My boss learned this the hard way when he took me to Nokogiriyama, a remote mountain in chiba that houses a 300m Buddha and a 100m high Cannon carved out of rock. "No gaijin has been here, probably in at least 10 years" he told me, not 10 minutes before we saw a bleached blonde American and his J-girlfriend taking pictures in front of the Buddha. We're everywhere.

  Its my hope that we can all learn to accept that we're not alone in feeling alone in this exceptionally isolating city. I'll settle at least, for a friendlier atmosphere at my gym.

  • 9:48 am
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