"So what do you want to do in the future?"
This is one of 10 questions in a set which I have been asking all day. One of my side jobs here in Japan is conducting end of the year interviews for kids who are learning to speak English. There are about 8 levels for kids from age three to fourteen. This means that I am asking the same 80 questions over and over from 9 to 5, trying to look interested and supportive so the kids don't get nervous. At about 3, lunch is over and I still have 2 more hours of this. I have heard every possible answer possible. Despite the levels, I have memorized all 80 questions and asking 1,350 questions is starting to wear my voice to a scratching post. That's when Akari walks in. She is a junior high school student who actually looks like she's breaking the mold. She's not wearing the usual marching band uniform that makes young girls look dumpy and ill-kept. She is also not wearing one of the slutty varieties of the junior high girl uniform, where the leg warmers draw your eye up to the sliver of skirt that barely comes underneath the sweater. She is not caked in makeup, but she's not awkward or insecure. She stands in her sweatshirt with her hot pink clip pulling her hair neatly from her eyes. She waits for me to invite her to sit and she says thank you.
"Please introduce yourself"
"My name is Akari Suzuki. I am fourteen years old. I live in Yokkaichi. I go to Yokkaichi Junior High School." She pauses and looks to the ceiling, then exhales and looks back at me. "I like swimming and listening to music. I don't like math and umeboshi. Thank you"
Well we can agree on that. The fermented plum, umeboshi, is not the treat it's commonly said to be. Even if you drown it in sho-chu, it's still a bitter, salty fruit that spoils your cocktail.
"Me neither." I smile. She relaxes and she smiles too.
The questions continue. She has 4 people in her family. She likes natto. Nothing really different, but then we come to question 9: What do you want to do in the future.
"I want to be a bride."
I feel like a million years go by in that single second where I can't take my eyes off of her and I can't move on. I am shocked and saddened. I want to scoop her out of her chair and open her eyes up. I want to shake her so all those cliches of what a woman should be come pouring out of her, so that the ideas of this country will allow her to be more than a bride. "I want to be a bride"- that's not even being a wife or being a mother. That's not even specific on whose bride you'll be! Who cares, just as long as it's someone and people can look at me and think I look pretty. Then I'm reminded of that story that Mark told me: about a female student who turned thirty and was still unwed. She had to go to a local shrine and shamefully ring a bell on her birthday to pray for a husband. I look at her and wonder what kind of poison she's been suckled on and what kind of words have left her only dream as her wedding day. "Oh God," I think to myself. "What have they done to you?"
Last week when I left Kobato Kindy, Sato-San was there and stood up to address me as I entered the office with the usual, "Onegaishimasu" and "Otsukaresamadeshita."
"Emily-Sensei, you will return to your country soon?!"
"Yes, sir. I miss my family very much. I have had a wonderful time but I am ready to be close to them." The words come out like a script. You don't tell people that you can't stomach their culture; that the country of yes-men is not the place for someone who wants to think and be unique. You don't say those things out loud, especially not here.
"Oh I understand!" I let out a sigh. "I have daughter your age. I would not want her live in another country. I want her to marry with Japanese. I am sure your family is ready to see you return and marry an American."
This man has no idea that those words, the fact that he and everyone believes those words, are why I want to run as fast as I can. These are the ideas that make this country, with its reputation for safety, the most dangerous place I have every been. I attempt a smile and nod, making for the door. "Arigatou gozaimasu" I say as I bow my way out of the office to put on my shoes and make my way to the next school in a cold that seems warmer than the frigidity of those values.
And now I'm watching Akari receive her present and bow to me as she makes her way to the door. It's like watching a beautiful daffodil in the way of a lawn mower and you're too late to stop it. Instead you just stare and try to absorb as much beauty as you can before the thing gets mashed to bits and the spirit of it is forgotten forever.
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3 comments:
wow...that's all.
You're a very good writer with vivid imaginations. But often what we fantasize or imagine what the rest of the world should be - isn't the reality.
It's just their values of what marriage should be. They are not numbed or chained to anything, it's their custom, gender role that they are presribled to in that society. Everyone of us is unaware of something while others can see.
I remember in another post you wrote something about in Osaka there are no English signs. It's a Japanese city, it's not surprising they don't have signage in English? It's not like in former British colonies such as Hong Kong, Singapore or Malaysia where they still have bilingual policy.
kitty-
sorry for the late response. i really appreciate your comments on this post. as you can tell, i was quite moved by this moment as well as other similar experiences that i had for which this post was an outlet. my feelings were not just a result of this moment, but many different encounters with woman who defined themselves in terms of a relationship. often, the relationships were unhealthy, not just by western standards but often by their own. i've known number of japanese, both male and female, who cheat on their partner and suffer greatly because they are unsatisfied. what i was observing in this post was the root of that problem and the affect it has on unarmed young women like akari.
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