So the first thing about Japan is...well, we all know the "Japanese Proverb" that "the nail/blade of grass that sticks out/grows too high gets hammered/cut down.
Yep.
I knew that was a thing even before I came here. I knew that from living in the US suburbs for 22 years and going to a suburban high school where EVERYONE had to wear black and white Adidas or be socially stigmatized. A red shirt meant you were gay. A trenchcoat meant you were going to kill everyone. Lol, the 1990s.
I knew what to expect, and they still managed to flatten me here. Worse, they were all foreigners, too...absolutely no excuse in my mind.
Remember the movie The Seven Samurai? And there's "that one guy". You know the one. The drunk guy who bullshits everyone and chronically screws up...but shows everyone up on their hypocrisy.
I was that guy. "That Guy".
The first day of training I miscalculated my time and got lost (reading signs and understanding the change in cultural spatial setup is actually a thing), thus staggering in 45 minutes late. Not even drunk. Far worse--thinking for myself. I'd dyed my hair red in recent months, because I liked it. My luggage having arrived the evening before, I hadn't managed to iron my shirt. Unable to afford shoes, I was wearing a highly scuffed pair I procured in Cambodia.
Because, shit, this was a training session amongst other lost foreigners, not a public presentation.
(And I didn't have any way to contact the organization, not having been given any advice on how to obtain a functional phone and SIM card. )
I was promptly dragged out into the hallway and yelled at.
It didn't get any better after that. I went to my new location, and the manager there, while a very nice person, could also be considered a "mom". And I felt that.
Amongst the other crimes:
- I was then forced to dye my hair and tie it back, which is NOT in the handbook regulations.
- Expected to wear makeup
- Yelled at for coming "on time" (on time is 15 minutes late)
- nailpolish
- sparkles on shirt
- "you're not going out there looking like that?"
- remarks about my hair
- remarks about my eyes
- being on time
- getting lost in a train station
Over the next several weeks, each time I would redouble my efforts, only to be yelled at about something else. It was...hard to endure, to say the least. Basic things.
I mean, one is inclined to say "culture shock"...but I have never had problems like this in any other country. Not once. Even in Dubai where I was the poor scholarship kid amongst the rich, I didn't quite encounter this level of petty bourgeoisie/nouveau riche idiocy. To my battle-weary, sun-baked, jaded, hell-surviving psyche, it sounded like the biggest bunch of bullshit ever.
That's right. I've been deathly ill for years on end, starving, living under the yoke of terror (thyroid-induced panic attacks, I kid you not), too sick and aching to get out of bed, every symptom known to man, accosted and robbed of my only valuable possession, kicked out of several homes, survived dengue with permanent ocular damage...all of this ALONE...and I'm being subject to humiliating remarks about my personal appearance by soft little people who know NOTHING about what "life" really is.
I was so enraged that...I just forgot. I just rolled over on it. There was no way to humanly process the utterly un-gratifying indignity of it all.
For a week or so, I nearly--VERY nearly--pulled out, despite the love, care, energy, and life savings I'd put into coming here. In retrospect, I kind of wish I did. (though where would I have gone?) Cause I withdrew into a mire of shame and self-disgust, right back to my angsty, self-pitying days as a lost 10 year old wondering why the hell everyone had rejected me. I avoided all contact with my superiors, and just pretended (with limited success) like I could even respect the judgemental people I was teaching. I'd go home, lock myself in my room, and just stare at the walls, unwilling to be seen by such a wretched mass of humanity. I wore my hair over my face, so they didn't see the alcoholic-looking rings left by my thyroid disease. Ugly, disgusting, and now, aging.
Because yes, the men in this country are nasty enough to tell me exactly how old they think I look. If it were women, I'd imagine they were jealous of my lighter skin tone or something...but the men? Well, the boys are just as nasty 20 as they were years prior in grade school. I apparently revolt people, as these shameful incidents prove yet again.
You know, I never complained, never told anyone about my feelings. I did get angry and hurl something out my window in a state of rage, and I did lose all respect for humanity permanently. And I tried to reach out to Facebook friends, but they only reacted with contempt. But you, the readers, and I are the only souls upon this earth who know.
And to this day, I feel melancholy, this job being a degrading daily ritual to be endured. Thus, my utter separation from the civilized world has been complete. I'll never belong back in a first world country.
God, I can't even write this up like it's funny or epic. It just makes me disgusted to be human.
Wait till I tell you what happened at New Years.
(Backdated from June 2015, on 20 April 2017)
Yep.
I knew that was a thing even before I came here. I knew that from living in the US suburbs for 22 years and going to a suburban high school where EVERYONE had to wear black and white Adidas or be socially stigmatized. A red shirt meant you were gay. A trenchcoat meant you were going to kill everyone. Lol, the 1990s.
I knew what to expect, and they still managed to flatten me here. Worse, they were all foreigners, too...absolutely no excuse in my mind.
Remember the movie The Seven Samurai? And there's "that one guy". You know the one. The drunk guy who bullshits everyone and chronically screws up...but shows everyone up on their hypocrisy.
I was that guy. "That Guy".
The first day of training I miscalculated my time and got lost (reading signs and understanding the change in cultural spatial setup is actually a thing), thus staggering in 45 minutes late. Not even drunk. Far worse--thinking for myself. I'd dyed my hair red in recent months, because I liked it. My luggage having arrived the evening before, I hadn't managed to iron my shirt. Unable to afford shoes, I was wearing a highly scuffed pair I procured in Cambodia.
Because, shit, this was a training session amongst other lost foreigners, not a public presentation.
(And I didn't have any way to contact the organization, not having been given any advice on how to obtain a functional phone and SIM card. )
I was promptly dragged out into the hallway and yelled at.
It didn't get any better after that. I went to my new location, and the manager there, while a very nice person, could also be considered a "mom". And I felt that.
Amongst the other crimes:
- I was then forced to dye my hair and tie it back, which is NOT in the handbook regulations.
- Expected to wear makeup
- Yelled at for coming "on time" (on time is 15 minutes late)
- nailpolish
- sparkles on shirt
- "you're not going out there looking like that?"
- remarks about my hair
- remarks about my eyes
- being on time
- getting lost in a train station
Over the next several weeks, each time I would redouble my efforts, only to be yelled at about something else. It was...hard to endure, to say the least. Basic things.
I mean, one is inclined to say "culture shock"...but I have never had problems like this in any other country. Not once. Even in Dubai where I was the poor scholarship kid amongst the rich, I didn't quite encounter this level of petty bourgeoisie/nouveau riche idiocy. To my battle-weary, sun-baked, jaded, hell-surviving psyche, it sounded like the biggest bunch of bullshit ever.
That's right. I've been deathly ill for years on end, starving, living under the yoke of terror (thyroid-induced panic attacks, I kid you not), too sick and aching to get out of bed, every symptom known to man, accosted and robbed of my only valuable possession, kicked out of several homes, survived dengue with permanent ocular damage...all of this ALONE...and I'm being subject to humiliating remarks about my personal appearance by soft little people who know NOTHING about what "life" really is.
I was so enraged that...I just forgot. I just rolled over on it. There was no way to humanly process the utterly un-gratifying indignity of it all.
For a week or so, I nearly--VERY nearly--pulled out, despite the love, care, energy, and life savings I'd put into coming here. In retrospect, I kind of wish I did. (though where would I have gone?) Cause I withdrew into a mire of shame and self-disgust, right back to my angsty, self-pitying days as a lost 10 year old wondering why the hell everyone had rejected me. I avoided all contact with my superiors, and just pretended (with limited success) like I could even respect the judgemental people I was teaching. I'd go home, lock myself in my room, and just stare at the walls, unwilling to be seen by such a wretched mass of humanity. I wore my hair over my face, so they didn't see the alcoholic-looking rings left by my thyroid disease. Ugly, disgusting, and now, aging.
Because yes, the men in this country are nasty enough to tell me exactly how old they think I look. If it were women, I'd imagine they were jealous of my lighter skin tone or something...but the men? Well, the boys are just as nasty 20 as they were years prior in grade school. I apparently revolt people, as these shameful incidents prove yet again.
You know, I never complained, never told anyone about my feelings. I did get angry and hurl something out my window in a state of rage, and I did lose all respect for humanity permanently. And I tried to reach out to Facebook friends, but they only reacted with contempt. But you, the readers, and I are the only souls upon this earth who know.
And to this day, I feel melancholy, this job being a degrading daily ritual to be endured. Thus, my utter separation from the civilized world has been complete. I'll never belong back in a first world country.
God, I can't even write this up like it's funny or epic. It just makes me disgusted to be human.
Wait till I tell you what happened at New Years.
(Backdated from June 2015, on 20 April 2017)
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