by Claytonian

By Claytonian

Oh, to be a foreigner in backwoods Japan! You can't know unless you've done it, but I recommend you relocate posthaste! When you arrive, prepare to be treated as a king. Only if you look foreign, of course.

I spent a few years in such an environment. People were constantly turning to see my foreign presence enter a room and letting their eyes widen to proportions usually reserved for those magazines in the back corner of the combinis. "Where are you from?" They would say while putting an arm around me and guiding me to a seat adjacent to them. Then they would wine me, dine me, and tell me to marry their daughters (no exaggeration). It didn't matter that it was all shakoujirei (social pleasantries), cause it made me feel special, damn it.

Fast forward to life in the big city (I'm living in Yokohama now), and things are a bit different. In this town, most people don't bother with the double take that their country brothers throw around like so much whip-lash fodder. No, I am anonymous and unnoticed for the most part. Sure, when I engage people on a personal basis, I still encounter the Foreigner Reality Distortion Field, but for the most part I am left to my own devices, which is great for an eternal tourist such as myself.

The other night though, I heard some loud sax. I love me some good sax, so I walked down the street until I found it. Turns out a guy was grilling in the entrance to a bar, and in between flipping shish kebabs, he traded notes with a guy on an old Hammond organ beside him. It was really swinging. When the sax/grill-man saw me, he beckoned me inside, telling me I needn't worry about the cover in a way that felt like those old friendly greetings that I used to get in the countryside bars.

Once inside, that familiar foreign royalty feeling came rushing back as everyone cheered at seeing me and told me to chow down. I ordered a kebab and drank in the atmosphere. A man offered his wife's female friend for dating purposes. Then a guy and his kid moved tables to sit with me. They asked what I was drinking, but I insisted that I wasn't interested in alcohol. Then they pointed to the soft drinks menu and said it was okay. Now, you have to understand, strangers in bars don't ever do this unless they plan on paying for the drink. That's my experience. So I relented, thinking it would be fare compensation for the awkward little English lessons he was forcing between his 11 year old and me--who wants to talk to kids when there is live and energetic jazz in a bar?!-- and ordered an orange juice. Stiff price it was too, but if he really wanted to pay...

I drained the glass and ate my kebab. He ordered me another one. Just kinda decided on his own, hey, you want this, and I had another one placed before me. Well, if that's what he wanted to give me, who was I to argue? I finally asked for the bill, confident that the man would follow the pattern I was so used to and pay for my drinks. I even half expected him to cover my kebab as well.

Well, you have probably already guessed that I ended up paying full price for those icy orange juices. You may also think that I am a little spoiled. I do. It was a good reminder that I can't always be a taker, living off of the goodness of Japanese strangers. In fact, maybe it's about time I bought a Japanese person some food for a change. I'll even insist that he date my daughter.

By Claytonian

I am not an English teacher. When I first came to Japan, it was indeed through the JET Programme, but that stands for The Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme, not Japan English Teaching Programme. And yes, the British spelling of "Programme" is a mystery that eludes me even today. I was not a mere English teacher. I was a cultural ambassador... that used the medium of supportive English instruction at junior highs and elementary to spread my message of internationalism and peace.

Through my experiences as a JET I learned what a past participle was, but never caught on as to how they can dangle. I also learned what 関係代名詞 were and how we use them, but I can't recall what we call them in English. Connective representative nouns? No, that's not it...

I started to develop peculiar ways of describing English, as much for myself to work out it's complexities as for the students' edification. "Kids, can I tell you about Mister A? He likes Mister Noun, but they have an open relationship, so Miz Adjective can come between them. Mister The doesn't like Mister A and kicks him out to keep the precious Mister Noun all to himself. Unless Mister Noun has a name. Kids, is this all clear? This... is... English! Where are you going?"

I also started to experience pidgin rot. Pidgin rot is when you start losing your native language because nobody you know can speak it properly. Suddenly I was losing articles left and right. "Can you pass the salt?" became, "Salt... pass me?" Japan was turning me back, linguistically, into a caveman (emotionally I've been there for years though). Another problem was that I had to intentionally dumb down and slow down my language. Upon meeting other native English speakers, I would have to go through an adjustment period of a few minutes to get my tongue back up to snuff.

Finally, my time at JET ended and I became a student at a Japanese language school. To make ends meet, I found myself leading a few groups of adults that wanted to learn English. Still, I was not a proper English teacher, but more of a facilitator, trying to lift the conversation to a higher level, while often succumbing to pidgin rot during my instruction. I started to take to reading The Oxford Guide to English Grammar. I have a copy in Japanese (which makes it doubly effective as a sleeping aid by the way). It helped me at times through some of the trickier questions, but the more I studied English the more I learned that: a) English is an insane language, b) Not even a native speaker can understand said insanity, and c) One will sound quite inane when trying to explain it in their broken and purposefully simplified English. So why must I correct your speech sir? I don't know, that's just not the way we say things in English.

Recently the biggest problem for me though is the way all this listen-and-try-to-correct stuff has affected my personal interactions. Sometimes a person will be talking to me, and I will just blurt out a correction at them. "Oh, I'm sorry! Um, I didn't mean to to do that. It's just that I correct people for my job. At they speak. Speak the do I teach good way. Good speaker, I. Uh... Me... me go now."

By Claytonian

Next month, it will finally be the point at which I have spent 5 years in Japan. Which is interesting, because it I have been telling foreigners who inquire about it that I have lived here that long for the last six months. Further amusing is the odd fact that when Japanese people ask about the same thing, I claim I have only lived here about a year.

The reason why I lie to foreigners is that it's bothersome to say 4 and 1/2 years. That's, like, a whole extra syllable that I would have to utter. Plus, 5 sounds like an impressive, a veteran Japaneer's number. Why when I was first here, young whippersnapper, lemme tell ya, we didn't have no fancy smart phones! It was all rotary back then!

The reason why I lie to Japanese people is centered around trying to impress them. If I claim that my time in Japan has been only a year, they're like, Whoah, this dude must be a genius to speak my language--Japanese is officially the hardest language ever according to most any Japanese person you ask--to such a degree and I totally must rain adulation upon him!

But I am also scared of what will happen if they know the truth. Because if they do, they will surely think to themselves, This losers been here five years and he still makes all those grammatical and accent-related mistakes? I knew Japanese was the hardest language ever and foreigners can't learn it.

But you know, I really do it for the children. Those poor foreign children--or, even unluckier yet, children of partial Japanese heritage--who have to go through life in Japan not having their perfect Japanese believed. If I can pass myself off as being better at my Japanese than it should be after just one year, I can improve the image for every non-native speaker here.

What, you think I'm making that last motive up? I've never told a single lie during my whole year in Japan.

By Claytonian

I know you thought you were through of me, but I'm back today, my little Jibbers. Jibblets? What do we call our readers? They must have a nickname!

So I've been absent of late due to moving to Yokohama and starting a new life. That's right, I'm no longer an inakappei (country hick). The move has entailed a lot of interactions with the locals as I've been doing lots of paperwork--so much paperwork that I have forsworn ever moving with Japan again; I'm stuck in my tiny apartment for life-- and during these interactions, I've encountered the Foreigner Reality Distortion Field.

The Foreigner Reality Distortion Field is always an interesting phenomenon. Though I've encountered it often, I never seem to see it coming. I guess because I come from a country where we are rather lax about learning foreign languages. Anyways, the field has the following properties:

• If a Japanese person is caught in the field of a passing foreigner, they will be compelled to blurt out English.

• The field cannot be canceled by the foreigner speaking Japanese as people listening to the foreigner will not be able to hear or acknowledge other languages besides English.

• Japanese people will only give answers in English. Their questions will still be in their native language. This is especially true for cops and other civil servants. If somebody wants to tell you that you are doing something wrong, you're going to hear some Japanese. And it won't be that polite Japanese, more often than not.

• Old ladies seem to be immune to the field. Expect a lot of dialect from them.

• Old men are affected by the field, but they haven't practiced English since junior high in most cases, so the are limited to "come here" and "turn straight."

• Middle aged men will feel compelled to ask you intimate questions about your girlfriend while in the field.

•But on the other hand, they will also feel compelled to buy you drinks while within the field.

• Many train station staff members will ignore your lack of a train ticket while within the field. But this is not to be relied on.

There is nothing to be done about the Foreigner Reality Distortion Field in most cases, but you may be able to break it by speaking really well. I recommend using a dialect to shake things up.