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I continue to sweat through my only suit as I turn in my chair to stare out the floor-to-ceiling window that looms 26 stories above Osaka's Kita Ward. The city is usually described to Westerners as ugly, industrial, metallic, boring -- at best, these epithets are followed by a "but" and something uninspired about history or culture. I wonder: am I the only hakujin in this vast office building packed to the gills with salarymen, kimono-clad old women, jewelry stored, coffee shops? How many gaijin are there in the hundreds of squatting concrete monstrosities in my line of sight? How many of them are unemployed, too?
I turn back to face the tiny classroom I've been waiting in for nearly an hour. The whole room is done up in a monochromatic rainbow, but the effect is less Men in Black and more modernistic community college: gray carpet, gray plastic desks, whiteboard, white acoustical tile, eggshell wallpaper, black-and-white photocopied fliers stapled to gray felt message boards. The room seems set up for two dozen students, but conditions are cramped; I had to shove one of the desks forward to accommodate my modest gut, crushing the row of chairs in front of me as I did so. At 5'10, I am clearly uncomfortably big for this room.
Staring up at me from the cramped table (my legs press uncomfortably against its black metal underbelly) is my application for Nichibei English Services that I was given by the secretary who showed me in when I arrived at 1:10, a full 20 minutes before my interview was scheduled. In my ignorance, I had politely introduced myself to her and offered her a copy of my resume, grinning like a fiend to seem as genki as possible. Now, 40 minutes after my interview was due to begin, I can't stop my mind from lingering over the bursts of feminine laughter that periodically echo in under the door.
"No, no, he seriously said 'Good morning, I am English teacher, appointment interview have!"
"Ha ha, really?"
"Yes! And he wouldn't stop smiling for some reason! I think he thought I was in charge!"
"Tell us again about how sweaty his suit was!"
I sigh deeply, in the process blowing a few drops of sweat onto the application. The hideous cyclopean blank under the final unanswered question glares up at me: "Why did you come to Japan?"
I glance at the clock. 2:15.
It seemed a fair question, on the surface. No teaching certification, no work visa, little knowledge of Japanese (say, on par with David Sedaris's French), two degrees in an unusably academic discipline...why the hell did I come to Japan?
I had certainly been asked this question, this accursed, stinking, raging motherfucker of a question before: by parents, by friends, by teachers, by all the acquaintances and random strangers my mother had told for some reason. Usually I was able to pass off a joke or a bullshit answer, something ranging from "Why not?" to "I've always had a fascination with the elegance and and complexity of Japanese culture" to "Well, I like the food, ha ha!", each of which contains some kernel of truth, but is still beautifully meaningless.
Still, there always seemed to be something suspicious or evilly prying about the question (feelings only intensified when seeing it in print on a job application). I mean, hey, why the hell do you do what you do? Huh? Why do your work your job? To pay the bills, right? TO advance your career? To try to eke out a little happiness in this thoroughly fucked-up world? Boredom, maybe? Fuck you!
Then again, I had been asked the big "why" question during my interview at Pizza Hut the summer before flying to Osaka...maybe Nichibei English Service just wants a bullshit answer, too. Maybe they'll be as relieved as the Pizza Hut RM was to hear something stupid like, "Well, I've always loved eating here, ha ha!"
2:25. I keep spotting a silhouette through the narrow papered-over window in the door. Eyes glazing over, sweat painting my brand-new Hanes undershirt yellow, I can swear that someone is checking to see if I'm finished yet. The door stays closed.
OK, then, why the hell did I come to Japan? Other than "the food" and similar hoo-ha, there are two real reasons, neither of which would be interesting or even acceptable to a prospective employer.
The first reason is simple, or at least comprehensible: love. My wife and I had discussed coming to Japan for years. We gleefully filled out one application form after another for the JET Program, a Japanese governmental program that imports hundreds of smelly foreign barbarians every year -- most of them fresh out of college, with zero teaching experience or Japanese ability -- to serve as Assistant Language Teachers in public schools. Essays written, letters of recommendation forwarded, we passed our final year at Truman State University cheerfully planning our futures. JET Program to Peace Corps to MATESOL, maybe? Or JET to Fulbright to PhD?
(...Oh god, it just hit me. Truman State University? Could I have picked as worse alma mater for finding a job in Japan? I strongly consider doctoring my photocopied diplomas to something less offensive, like, say, "Al Gore State University.")
The sympathy poured in from all corners, most of all my own. "Gee, I was sure you'd be a lock!" "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear it!" "How is it that you didn't get in, even with your teaching experience and Japanese?" Like, I know. I immolated myself in self-pity for hours before bothering to congratulate Jenn, behavior for which I'm still extremely ashamed. We were married two months later, and we dropped our visa applications in the mail a week after that. I am legally a "spouse," as far as the Japanese government is concerned.
2:31. Still haven't been escorted out of the building and exposed as a fraud. The "food" answer grows ever more tempting.
I begin: "I came to Japan because"
No college-boy tricks here. No double-spacing or margin-fudging. No typographical acrobatics, no obfuscation or unfounded generalizations or meaningless jargon -- you're not in Kansas anymore.
The second reason I came to Japan, and really, the lesser of the two, was a very provable if idle interest in the country. At 9 years old, I took an after-school course that taught me to count to 99 and to appreciate mochi. At 18, I tried my damnedest to like anime. At 19, I cultivated a short-lived interest in Japanese folk tales. Hell, I took six Japanese language courses and one culture course. Can't they just read my resume instead of having me fill out this ridiculous form?
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Anticlimactic, I know, but as it happens, I never finished this piece. Now, a year and a half later, I find myself almost totally unable to recreate that mindset. I can enter strange restaurants without fear. I've applied for dozens more jobs and I've been working for 14 months. I've moved and opened two bank accounts. I have Japanese friends. All I can offer to finish this story, for now at least, is resolve the two big questions:
1. While I can't remember exactly what answer I finally gave, it was something uninspired that might as well have been copied from the first paragraph of a travel guide to Japan, something about a synthesis of traditional culture and progress. Pffffft.
2. I got the job. Go figure.
Happy New Year and all that. Here's to another year of confusion, be it awkward, joyous, drunken, or all three!
1. While I can't remember exactly what answer I finally gave, it was something uninspired that might as well have been copied from the first paragraph of a travel guide to Japan, something about a synthesis of traditional culture and progress. Pffffft.
2. I got the job. Go figure.
Happy New Year and all that. Here's to another year of confusion, be it awkward, joyous, drunken, or all three!
"...random strangers my mother had told for some reason..."
ReplyDeleteAccording to my Mother's Manual, that's what mothers do.
Good piece. Keep writing. Continue to make your mother proud.