Tokyo Never Happened
Things are easier on this side. I realized that when I woke up and, in my persistently active manner, decided I had to go the bank and settle some business. I spent at least a full minute worrying about how I would say what I needed to say in Japanese. Once I realized that wasn’t much necessary, it occurred to me that I have begun a nice grace period where everything I do is going to be awfully simple in comparison to my maneuvering and studying and eating and buying and banking in Tokyo.
The question I am almost always asked is if it is “strange” to be back in the United States. Of course, mostly it isn’t. I am a man of limited means so, while I most certainly have done a lot for what I have been offered, I have spent a great deal of my life wherever my family considered home. It is not strange to return to what I have known for two decades. I may have to readjust and rediscover, but strange is unknown and different. To be sure, in a grand sense, there is nothing different about the America I have found.
The Democrats have majority in Congress, a few more small businesses have been replaced by national chains in my (once) rural county, and many people have had changes of fortune in their lives, but History will not speak of this. The Northeast still has great pizza, there are still dirt roads I can drive on, and I still lose cellular phone service going through Culver’s Gap.
I am just a little less ignorant and stupid than I was half a year ago. I was at a little bar and I spoke effusively of tatami mats and konbini when I discovered I was sitting near a Japanese-born businessman. I didn’t get far before I was reeled in by friends because, “what is Showa?” I don’t know a great deal about anything, so I am prone to rattling off nonsense to the rare listener who knows less about something than I do. I have just spent four months in Japan, and I have to accept that, for once and for now, I know more about a topic than most here. I will file all that I have learned and certainly maintain and expand it, but, knowing myself, soon enough I will be twisting and battling against another world of knowledge about which I know nothing. Education should be without a destination.
It is “strange” to think how rapidly I have gone from over-confident plane traveler, to lost American in Japan, to comfortable student in Tokyo, to trying to remember how to change gears in a pick-up truck near the Delaware River. The Christmas music and holiday cookies are overflowing and I haven’t had a conversation in Japanese in days but I am not overwhelmed or confused. I feel as if someone pumped a Tokyo semester’s worth of learning and seeing into my head without my ever leaving Philadelphia or Sussex County. The memories and pictures are here to prove otherwise, but I can’t quite convince myself I climbed Mount Fuji or studied the Korean War, or played basketball with a Japanese college team before sharing a meal and drinks.
Maybe I don’t have the time to think of it all, anyway. Forget unpacking, I am throwing clothes in a bag to take on a flight to New Orleans tomorrow, where I am doing a bit of reconstruction work with a group called “Common Ground.” I guess this is the life I chose.
I am home and a little smarter but facing no epileptic shock. It is closer to the feeling you get when you wake up half a day later after three days of incessant and sleepless action. Trying to find the beginning and end of your new memories and understanding is pointlessly arduous. They are there and you are better for it, so you crawl out of bed and have the same cup of orange juice you have had every morning since you can ever remember. You take what you can remember and otherwise wipe those lost days off the calendar, leaving you a long continuity of what you might readily consider your normal life. Tokyo never happened.
Thank you for watching, thank you for reading, thank you for making all that I have done a little less solitary and a little more soluble. I would certainly appreciate any final comments or questions if you have them.
Jaa ne,
Christopher
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Lasting Memories
Before I could even begin to compress and react to returning to the United States of America, please indulge me. May I mention what already appear to be my lasting memories of Japan and its baby, Tokyo?
Japanese kids love their school uniforms, and you see packs of them walking through the streets. This, I suppose, is a fine image for a people that still reject individualism in preference of obedience and communal living. There are more pet grooming shops and pachinko parlors than Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in Tokyo. In the United States, I expect to get beeped at if I cross a red light into traffic on my bicycle. In Tokyo, they will simply drive at me. I felt four earthquakes, lived through one typhoon season, and had one tsunami warning on my four months on that weather-pestered island.
It is a sanitary place that is kept by a sanitary people. They sweep up their leaves. There is no ‘god bless you’ after you sneeze in Japanese and why would there be? That habit was formed by the Roman Catholic Church in an attempt to wish well someone who sneezed in the late sixth century, a time when widespread disease was threatening large swaths of continental Europe.*
I was with a few Japanese friends and I mentioned in passing that my mother drives a 2000 Toyota Camry. They were, surprisingly, ecstatic, wearing pride and smiles at the realization that an American would choose a Japanese car. It was a moment of nationalistic stubbornness; I couldn’t get myself to admit that some Americans believe American vehicles are substandard in comparison to many Japanese automobiles. … I thought I had offered compliment enough. I will remember that.
I will always see Tokyo through the glare of the enormously crowded intersection outside of Shibuya Station. Lit up by mammoth television screens pumping advertisements and music videos, I will see countless billboards selling wares and thousands of Japanese going any direction but the one that would allow me to get through the crowd on my bicycle.
I will see Japan in the eyes of the old men with their suits and matching hats, bowing and smiling and laughing. I will remember the ancient maintenance man who let me sleep in his cabin in Nikko National Park, and I will remember those guys with whom I played basketball in the shiny elementary school gymnasium
I will remember eating rice, splurging on sushi and devouring tonkatsu and soba. I will remember the beautiful women pushing baby carriages and the hair sprayed twenty-somethings. I won’t forget the students at the English camp at which I taught or the woman who bought me a beer after I met her at a festival in Kichijoji. In my mind, I will always be able to touch the giant Buddha and the tame deer I saw in Narra, and the twenty temples and three geisha I saw in Kyoto.
Thank you for that, it feels good to remember, even if I could never forget. Now, I can work on rediscovering this very strange, very open place, the United States. I will let you know how that goes.
Jaa ne,
Christopher
*According to Cecil Adams, author of the Straight Dope column
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Japanese Names
I have an embarrassing admission. It took far too long for several sources to explain to me what is up with Japanese names. Names are one of a handful of cultural issues I readily acknowledged as being different than my Western tradition before I began preparing for my trip here, but, it took me some time asking questions here in Japan before I developed an understanding, so I thought it might be worthwhile to try explain what I’ve learned, if only to hasten my comprehension.
Alright, well, we all have this vague understanding that given names come after family names in Japan, making our contemporary American conception of “first” name fairly meaningless and confusing. Moreover, the family name taking its place in the front of a person’s name is a firmly Asian tradition, from China to Indonesia to most Middle Eastern countries of which I can speak.
I’ve read some interpretations that have suggested that the family-name first order has had a historical place in developing Europe, but I haven’t the energy to confirm that, and this isn’t meant to be one of those heavy-handed history lessons on which I try to harangue you all so often.
So, we’ll focus on contemporary usage. As you know, the Roman alphabet on which the Romance languages of our Western world base themselves is a (relatively) recent import to Asia. Here in Japan, a country that had six years of overt, and closer to ten years of what was effectively, American occupation post-World War II, and has a long history of business and political ties with the Western world since, Romanization of the Japanese language is widely recognized, on subway signs, some street signs, and almost everyone can write his name with our 26-letter alphabet.
Another consequence is that almost all Japanese will transpose the order of their names when dealing with Westerners, or even whenever they use the Roman alphabet. So, while some might interpret that as a sign that the tradition is dying, do understand that when written in characters, Japanese names are never switched, always remaining family name first, given name second. In purely Japanese fashion, the government is into the regulation of names. Less than 3,000 kanji are allowed to be used in personal names, even less for the newly born, with exceptions for Japanese named before the regulations took effect, according to a poorly translated, exceedingly confusing Japanese government document I tried to read.
A host of issues crop up, as, of course, characters can be pronounced in different ways, so, Japanese passports require an official Romanized-spelling of a person’s name. This, even though, to become a Japanese citizen, one needs a Japanese name written in characters, though hiragana and, increasingly, katakana is used. Generally, in Japanese, the family name comes first and, when Romanized, the family name comes last. (Fortunately the Japanese do not typically give middle names).
For anyone familiar with Japanese names, this doesn’t get as confusing as one might think, as there are few names that can serve as both a family and a given name. Meaning, that while in the United States I have had friends with “Davis” as both a first name and last name and two legends of American pop music call themselves “Billy Joel” and “Elton John,” this doesn’t quite happen in Japan, indeed in most Asia that I know. The only name I have seen both as a family name and a given name “Masuko”, but a friend told me that “Kaneko” is another example. Still, they are few and far in between.
Anyway, in actual use, family names are often used to refer to people, most often with tag-phrases that show respect (somewhat similar to Mr. and Mrs.). Use of given names is largely restricted to familiar situations, particularly socially or when someone older refers to someone younger. Even today, many Japanese people will avoid using any name for those that are senior, instead using a title. One you likely know is “sensei” for teacher.
Most often, Western media readily transpose the order of Asian-style names, particularly for the politicians and diplomats with whom they so regularly deal. So, to anyone who has his nose in the lists of world leaders, he likely knows Japan’s Prime Minister as Shinzo Abe. I certainly do, but, in a discussion with some new friends I met while playing basketball, they laughingly corrected me. “His name is Abe Shinzo,” a young man said, trying to hold back a smile, surely a sign that he read me to be a confused foreigner.
But, there certainly are examples of names retaining their Eastern-style order. I’m sure you’re familiar with the pudgy, North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Il. He took over power when his father, Kim Il-sung, died. This mostly has to do with a greater openness to the Western world by the Japanese than the North Koreans. Of course, it does seem fairly odd that anyone would so easily switch his or her name order. I suppose I really wouldn’t mind, but I am not eagerly hoping someone will call me by my family name first.
The reality is that the motivation is often through embarrassment. The Asian, and particularly contemporary Japanese, devotion to respectful obedience comes in very stark contrast to a much more open, bullying Western world. Now, of course, we really don’t mean anything by it, but those hard, clangy sounds of Japanese names have been the brunt of many American jokes, and names from throughout the continent bring snickers to Westerners when they visit the East.
I believe that that has really struck many Asians, particularly the Japanese, and many are self-conscious about it, whether they know it and admit it or not. With Asian-Americans that can be seen when names like Quyen become Justin or Phung becomes Michelle. But, it is a reality here in Japan, too.
When I ask someone for their name, (Onamae nan desu ka?), I am often met by a moment’s thought, before I get a too-easy-to-pronounce-to-be-real name. Just yesterday, I tried to speak with a young college student. After it was apparent that neither of us was well versed in the other’s language, I asked him his name. After a hesitation, he said, in a heavy accent, “Dave.” Oh peculiar.
Sadly, I understand it. Westerners have a history of not being terribly welcoming to what is funny in our culture. I met a beautiful, young girl a few weeks ago and after she proudly told me her name was “Ayako,” I couldn’t help but think of a cartoon character from a television show called “The Animaniacs” that I watched when I was little. This is nothing particular to Japan. The name “Phuc” is fairly common in Vietnam, but, laughs aside, it means “luck” in the local language.
In the United States, as the Asian culture nears a century of growth in America, there appears to be a rebound in using less “American Christian” names and rediscovering old roots, albeit often those that coordinate best with Western culture. The Korean name “Soo Jin,” which sounds like “Sue Jean,” is currently very popular, according to Elaine Kim, a professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
I hope that confidence will help Westerners (including myself) become better accustomed to Asian names and less likely to openly laugh at some names they might encounter when traveling abroad. Plenty are tame enough, like the Japanese equivalent of John Smith, “Yamada Tarō,” but from time to time you do find a name like Korean meaning “virtue,” “Fuk.” Meaning it isn’t outrageous to find a “Fuk Yu,” however, according to Kim, these instances are lessening, even in many areas of these Asian countries.
Greater access to the Western world has altered a lot of Asian traditions, perhaps few greater than Asian names. Many better traveled Chinese will adopt a Western name to come in front of their birth names, giving rise to the possibility of you meeting a “Ted” from Shanghai. The famed Seattle Mariner Ichiro Suzuki switched his name, but, then, if you hadn’t noticed, NBA player, Yao Ming, a legend in China, hasn’t made the switch, and the back of his number-11 Houston Rockets jersey reads simply, “YAO.”
I suppose it is all a personal choice, but an interesting one indeed. I suppose awareness is the first step towards understanding, no matter how silly you think some of those names sound.
Jaa ne,
Christopher
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