Week 6
It is likely you will spend your whole life trying to find yourself. But these satellites can do it in mere seconds. Yep. There you are. (c) Welcome to Night Vale
So, about finding yourself.
Patriotism has always been a big question to me. In my modest two decades of life I had the luck of living in different places, and I actually lived in those different places more than I have lived in my country of origin. What does patriotism mean to you? Why is it so important to be proud of a country you didn’t choose? Of a country that you personally don’t feel much connection to, religion-wise, worldview-wise, values-wise? I still am not entirely sure. What I’m sure about is that you should be grateful for what you have been given, even if it’s small in comparison, and you should defend your country and your status on the international arena fighting tooth and nail, no matter what. It took me long enough to find a patriot in myself, but I’m glad I did.
That’s why this week I took a metaphorical flag in hands and climbed a mountain full of scattered ignorant rocks, that is Japanese high-schoolers’ brains, in order to plunge the flag directly on top and make some of those rocks roll down and shatter.
In other words, I was kindly asked to do a presentation about my country. Eight minutes. Folk costumes approved. Any topic, but make it interesting. Reward 1000 yen.
The foreigners that agreed to such a pastime were surprisingly plentiful, so we were divided into separate groups. My group contained the following specimen (imagine it to be a bar joke): one American, one Frenchman, one Thai girl and one Taiwanese girl. I was the only one wearing a traditional costume, my beloved vyshyvanka. First we introduced ourselves to the class 1–2 of Takada Highschool, and then listened to them, coming up to the front in groups of four, all dressed in neat uniforms, to read us (in a truly disastrous English) some common facts that everyone knows about Mt. Fuji, the Tea Ceremony, Kimonos etc. We clapped politely, even though the information was not really clap-worthy.
Then it was our turn. The Frenchman surrendered first. He was one of those foreigners that Japanese people usually draw in manga: tall, handsome, blonde, blue eyes, big nose, healthy-looking. He told us about the Eiffel tower, about cheese and wine. The best thing about his presentation was his Japanese. Just hearing a French person speak anything except for their darling French is absolutely hilarious. I would seriously buy tickets to such a show. Their beautiful “u”s are like plum flowers on a banana tree.
The American came afterwards. His approach was very simple. “See this map — this is the USA. Amazing! See this — this is California. Fantastic! And this here! This is Disneyland! Thank you for listening, people!” Maybe I’m not fair to him, maybe this is the right way of communicating with Japanese kids and actually make them remember something, but still.
I was right in the middle. I tried to show some weird places and weird food that no one has ever heard about and make Ukraine sound like paradise on earth. There was absolutely no kind of reaction during any of the presentations, so I have no idea how I was received. I thought that at least my costume could make some of the kids go home and tell their parents of that mythical land in Eastern Europe that is rumored to have dragons and apparently everyone should visit.
The Thai girl and the Taiwanese girl took hold of another strategy — they bombarded us with colorful pictures of food, that made me internally cry tears of jealousy and ecstasy. God apparently made Thailand the delicious fruit shed of earth, and Taiwan just a gourmet’s wet dream. (But maybe I’m biased — Taiwan is my personal favorite for personal reasons.)
After the presentations, the high schoolers divided themselves into five groups, so we could interact with a particular group more closely. I got assigned to a group of enthusiastic boys that wanted to know all about sports. One of them knew about Shevchenko (sadly the football player, but come on), which impressed me. We talked about everything and nothing, trying to understand each other. It was nice in a way, at least they looked like they were having fun. In the process we made a thingie that spins when there’s wind: collaborative handiwork is an ice breaker apparently.
Then a lot of them took pictures of us/with us/with each of us/with all of us as if we were animals at the zoo. I hope I was the llama.
My activism of the week didn't end there. On Sunday I joined the few people who actually agreed to come on 9 AM (remember? morning person here) to clean the territory of our dorm. The whole event was Japanese from head to toe. First we received a proper invitation in the mail, describing the activity, with time, place, date, and even a note: “In case of typhoon the event will be postponed”.
(By the way, said typhoon ruined my Sunday plans: Kyoto, and un-ruined my Monday morning: the first two classes were cancelled. Typhoon sounds cool and dangerous, but actually it was just a little bit of wind and heavy rain, nothing you haven’t seen).
So I go downstairs, fresh and bright at 9 AM to find only the two Taiwanese girls from my floor and a bunch of teachers. The students live in the Southern tower of the dormitory, while the teachers and assistant staff in the Northern. In a perfectly Japanese way we introduce ourselves one by one, then listen to the encouraging words of the managers of the building, then they give us each a sickle (cautiously wrapped in a plastic thingie with Careful! written on it, oh how endearing), like we’re Death’s apprentices, and send us to rip off the ivy that has covered the whole perimeter of the wall that protects our two majestic towers.
We sail on the quest and with rewarding collaborative work the ivy comes off, the leaves are gathered, the pavements are swept and we all are saying “Thank you for the tiring work” to each other. Of course in the meantime I also learn that one of our painfully Japanese managers majored in English and has been to London three times and is fluent in English, though is really angry cause he wants to have a British accent, but people tell him it’s actually American (observe the problems of others and judge them accordingly). I also impress the Taiwanese girls with my Mandarin skills, and actually look at them and find them peculiar — they both are tiny, but one has brown-dyed hair and pale skin, the other one has black hair and darker skin. They remind me of Oreo cookies, which is why it’s awesome that at the end of our work we do receive cookies: free beverages and snacks — little custard cakes and chocolate goodies, for our immensely hard work.
At work I don’t learn nothing in particular about cocktails or food, which is a pity. They still don’t let me waitress tables, but Shio-kun (the younger waiter, I finally can tell them apart) actually teaches me the proper way to polish the glasses and don’t leave any marks on them (which is actually awful as fuck — you think all those bartenders polishing glasses are just lazy, no, man! tip them! tip them hard!). This week we had a customer who is a teacher at Tenri University, looks like a typical teacher, and actually holds a conversation like a teacher about Japanese Literature with me and makes me feel all smug about my knowledge. Also we have a guy who drinks a little too much and stares at me half the evening, then walks out of the bar almost falling over the steps. And a very nice couple, the girl offers her homemade apple pie with cinnamon to everyone in the bar! Which is like, four people, including me and Shio, because it was already 1 AM and we were just wishing they would go, no matter how nice they were. The apple pie was seriously delicious, considering the typical Japanese sweets (my assessment everything with red beans — awful). When they do actually leave, we enter turbo-mode and clean everything as fast as lightning (the boss left earlier), polish, scrub, throw away garbage. Shio offers a lift to my dorm, and I ride sitting on the back of his bike, and apparently at 1 AM after an exhausting shift at work no one cares if it’s legal to ride the bike in two or cross the road when the lights are red.
Another thing I would like to talk about are the video game centers. We blessed one of them with our presence last week for my birthday. It was in Nara. Four floors high, and full of lost souls. On the last two floors there are those kind of games where you should sit and put coins so other coins may fall (maybe), and lots of those with race cars and combat games. The people who sit there look like they’ve been sitting there since before Eve ate that damn apple. There’s a cloud of smoke, and they all, obese grandmas, dudes who haven’t shaved in centuries, sorrow-drowning workers of companies, just sit there numbly staring at the flashing screens. It’s fascinating and somehow very sad. On the second floor there are a lot of machines where you think you can pick out a plush toy in just one grab, but it’s all just staged to look easy. There are also improbable objects, food, anime characters, plastic lunch boxes, phones, school supplies, and basically all you can think of, sitting there waiting for you to pay the machine 100 yen for a try. Instead of pushing our luck, we race in Mario Kart (ah, the joy of kicking someone’s butt in Mario Kart, truly indescribable) and dance on one of those dance floors where you should hit the buttons on the floor in time with the arrows. We look like wounded bears, but it’s very fun.
The first floor had my all-time favorite video game stand — little drums, with actual drumsticks that you should use to hit in the rhythm of the song. It’s so pretty and fun, and the song choices are endless. After us there’s a group of uniform-clad boys, just from school apparently. One of them rolls his sleeves and the others put on a little camera to film his every move, and oh boy does he play! From the moment he picked out those drumsticks to the last beat, his hands didn’t stop for one nanosecond. I thought that he would catch on fire for how fast, precise and absolutely magnificent his game was. Sadly, he missed two beats in the song, and the level was failed. My heart still hurts for him. Hope you’re okay, little Japanese boy who probably spends hours playing drums in Nara’s videogame center. May lady luck bless you next time!
I may add some photos later on, right now you should just watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLt5qSm9U80&feature=share) and thank me for the long-ass post. Huzzah!
