By Claytonian
I was thinking about how being a foreigner in Japan affects the ego. On the one hand, there are some things that really make one feel good about one's self. But often, there are experiences where you just have to grin and mutter, "Ya got me again, Japan."
Most of the problems I encounter are unsurprisingly related to my incredible ineptitude for any language but my own (and my editors would argue that even my Engalishe is pretty shaky at the best of times). When one combines the trinity of my bad Japanese, ignorance of customs, and general naivete, well... let's just say I am so used to having egg on my face I can vouch for yolk's acne-fighting properties.
Take for instance my first eating-out experience in Japan. Before coming to Japan, I was heavily influence by a movie about ramen named Tanpopo. It's a beautiful film, and is one of the reasons I became interested in Japan in the first place, so it is only natural that the first thing I wanted to order when I reached the soil kissed by the rising sun is order a big bowl of authentic ramen. Upon arriving, I walked into the first restaurant I found and asked in my (at the time) best Japanese if they had any. I blurted with a nervous grin, "ラーメンありますか?" (ramen arimasu ka, which is not an order so much as an inquiry about the existence of ramen, but it's the best I could come up with at the time). The girl at the counter looked at me like I had just asked to shave her back. I tried my line again; parsing it in my head to search for mistakes. She peered at me, the very epitome of an ignorant foreigner standing before her, very hard as if to use the famous Japanese telepathy I had heard so much about. I nervously glanced around and it dawned upon me that I was in fact standing in a curry restaurant.
So I ordered a curry (at this point in the process, my Japanese ability was used up for the day, and I could only order by animatedly pointing at things) and slunk quietly to a table. Boy, I thought to myself asI tried to eat from the bowl before me, eating curry is harder than I thought. Indeed, I wasn't even aware that curry came in this half-rice-half-curry-bowl-form a mere five minutes before; all my curry experiences had been with Indian-style curry stateside. With much consternation, I was trying to gingerly eat this food, that I had at long pains ordered via sign language, with some chopsticks. The girl came over to me and held up a spoon. Eh? My first meal and people are already telling me to give up on chopsticks?! Am I that bad with them? I practiced for months! I tried to nod her away. "I can do it!" I almost yeleld, but I calmed down once I realized that Japanese curry is eaten with a spoon, which is the most obvious thing ever.
What a way to start an expat life. It set the tone for a good 60% of my experiences from then on too. I laugh now at how incredibly inept I was at obvious things like this in the beginning, and my 10 word vocabulary at the time, but humiliating experiences still come with regularity, and I have a feeling that they always will no matter how used I get to Japan--especially for an avatar of happy ineptitude such as me. Japan is constantly going, "Here's an awkward experience. Deal with it," and then it hands me something like those on the following list: Language misunderstandings, oblique customs, fingers poking my bum, doorways to bang my head on, people eager to be my friend so they can learn English, etc.
On the other hand, Japan can really boast your ego too. I may get to talking about that sometime, provided I don't accidentally commit a faux-paus that gets me killed by my (not so secret) yakuza neighbors between this article and the next. You never know when it comes to me...
I was thinking about how being a foreigner in Japan affects the ego. On the one hand, there are some things that really make one feel good about one's self. But often, there are experiences where you just have to grin and mutter, "Ya got me again, Japan."
Most of the problems I encounter are unsurprisingly related to my incredible ineptitude for any language but my own (and my editors would argue that even my Engalishe is pretty shaky at the best of times). When one combines the trinity of my bad Japanese, ignorance of customs, and general naivete, well... let's just say I am so used to having egg on my face I can vouch for yolk's acne-fighting properties.
Take for instance my first eating-out experience in Japan. Before coming to Japan, I was heavily influence by a movie about ramen named Tanpopo. It's a beautiful film, and is one of the reasons I became interested in Japan in the first place, so it is only natural that the first thing I wanted to order when I reached the soil kissed by the rising sun is order a big bowl of authentic ramen. Upon arriving, I walked into the first restaurant I found and asked in my (at the time) best Japanese if they had any. I blurted with a nervous grin, "ラーメンありますか?" (ramen arimasu ka, which is not an order so much as an inquiry about the existence of ramen, but it's the best I could come up with at the time). The girl at the counter looked at me like I had just asked to shave her back. I tried my line again; parsing it in my head to search for mistakes. She peered at me, the very epitome of an ignorant foreigner standing before her, very hard as if to use the famous Japanese telepathy I had heard so much about. I nervously glanced around and it dawned upon me that I was in fact standing in a curry restaurant.
So I ordered a curry (at this point in the process, my Japanese ability was used up for the day, and I could only order by animatedly pointing at things) and slunk quietly to a table. Boy, I thought to myself asI tried to eat from the bowl before me, eating curry is harder than I thought. Indeed, I wasn't even aware that curry came in this half-rice-half-curry-bowl-form a mere five minutes before; all my curry experiences had been with Indian-style curry stateside. With much consternation, I was trying to gingerly eat this food, that I had at long pains ordered via sign language, with some chopsticks. The girl came over to me and held up a spoon. Eh? My first meal and people are already telling me to give up on chopsticks?! Am I that bad with them? I practiced for months! I tried to nod her away. "I can do it!" I almost yeleld, but I calmed down once I realized that Japanese curry is eaten with a spoon, which is the most obvious thing ever.
What a way to start an expat life. It set the tone for a good 60% of my experiences from then on too. I laugh now at how incredibly inept I was at obvious things like this in the beginning, and my 10 word vocabulary at the time, but humiliating experiences still come with regularity, and I have a feeling that they always will no matter how used I get to Japan--especially for an avatar of happy ineptitude such as me. Japan is constantly going, "Here's an awkward experience. Deal with it," and then it hands me something like those on the following list: Language misunderstandings, oblique customs, fingers poking my bum, doorways to bang my head on, people eager to be my friend so they can learn English, etc.
On the other hand, Japan can really boast your ego too. I may get to talking about that sometime, provided I don't accidentally commit a faux-paus that gets me killed by my (not so secret) yakuza neighbors between this article and the next. You never know when it comes to me...
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