Foreign Relations

I was lazy one Sunday and decided to wait until the afternoon to get lunch…like at around 3pm or so because I was playing some games. I usually get something small for lunch on the weekends though. I was holding it off since I should have went for lunch earlier, but whatever. As I’m walking out of my apartment, I come face to face with this random girl that I never saw before who was about to knock on my door. So I jump, startled but quickly gain my bearings and ask who she is. She told me that her name is Tomoko, she’s the daughter of my downstairs neighbor and that she was told to come upstairs by her parents because they told her that we are “ nice foreigners.” Lol Thanks, I guess.


After that however, we ended up talking for a long time in English. She started off by asking what we do in our apartments because when she was at this apartment a couple of years ago, they lived under an American guy and across from a British guy. They hated them because they were so loud and obnoxious and threw parties a lot. Ugh. She went on to say that everyone is aware that we are here, but we are so quiet. To me, it sounded like they liked the fact that they were able to hear foreigners making noise, but at the same time appreciate that we’re quiet, but can’t help but be ultra curious. I personally thought that we made too much noise because Keith and I blast our music, but I guess the paper walls seem to hold sound in alright lol. It could also be because she lives below and one door to the left so they don't hear noise. The family below us moved because the father was transferred to a different school, so we can literally be as loud as we like and no one would be able to hear. Sweet!


We ended up sitting outside near her door and talked about a lot of things, one thing in particular about how she would really, really like to swim (?) and if there are any public pools here. Um…what? I couldn’t help but chuckle and wonder why she’s in desperate need of a pool but I don’t think I would be able to help her. So I mentioned that there are some surfers that live next to her and that if she asks them then I’m sure they would know. Like… why the hell wouldn’t they know, right? So I told her to ring the bell and she was like,”No, no, no! I can’t just go up and ring some random guy’s doorbell!” I pointed out that she did that to me no more than half an hour ago and she commented that because he’s Japanese, she would not do that. So I’m like whatever, let’s just wait and see if he’s in there, but apparently he wasn’t in because his car wasn’t there.

We continue talking for a while then his car pulls up! I tell her there he is, so….she can ask him then. She still wasn’t going to make the first move so I ask him about a pool first, THEN she decides to take it away. -.- Well, that’s how it works here I guess. He tells her that there weren’t any public pools here but just in case, he will ask someone and if we’d be kind enough to wait, he’ll go in his apartment, put down all of his stuff and come back out. So after he came back out, we all talked about pools and how there aren’t any, when another neighbor comes! I told Tomoko about her before we spoke about the pool and how she is a very wonderful woman and her daughter, Natsuho is adorable. Yuko was the first Japanese person to actually not care that we were foreign and welcomed us with open arms. She’s also been quite busy so I haven’t seen her in a while, so I’m glad I was actually able to see her. So after she had the answer of where there was an actual public pool in Miyazaki (!), it was like an impromptu neighbor “party” because there is 4 out of 6 of us in the apartment, so a decently sized group of us were chatting outside. It was nice! So, afterwards, when they had to go inside and make dinner and whatnot, Tomoko and I make plans to have lunch or just hang out in my apartment since she lives downstairs.


When we can finally get a day to hang out, we usually just chat about random things. She was telling me that her culture puts way too much pressure on her and she hates it; she’d rather leave Japan and deal with another country. Imagine my surprise when a girl who was born in Miyazaki, lived in Osaka for a while, comes back, then tells ME that Japanese people from Miyazaki are rude! If you know enough Japanese people, you realize that they are quite proud of Japan, some of them, to the point of ridiculing other cultures. So, meeting a Japanese person who would rather bash their own culture than praise it is probably something that most foreign people won’t get to experience. However, she has pretty good English because she went to college in Australia, so I don’t really have to speak Japanese, but even she gets tired of trying to figure out what she wants to say in English and she’ll switch to Japanese.


She told me that when she got back to Miyazaki, most people stare at her and are rude to her because they can tell that she’s not from here… but I’m like…you’re Japanese. It doesn’t seem to matter though. She told me about when she first arrived in Osaka, she was wandering around lost, and this Japanese girl walked up to her and asked her if she was alright. She explained that she was lost and the girl that spoke went up to her told her where to go, and gave her the number to her cell phone and told her if she needed more to call. Unbelievable! You would never know that because the people here say so much bad things about other places IN Japan. They always say to stay away from the city because there are too many people and so, way too many bike gangs and yakuza. I always sigh every time I hear that and it’s clearly a country bumpkin type thing, but I still can’t help but roll my eyes. If they say such things about other Japanese people, I can only imagine what they think about foreigners.
She also told me that her boss has a kid but he’s always inviting her to drink like three times a week. That’s unfortunately, quite common. I know so many of these teachers drink every night. I asked one of the English teachers (the one that doesn’t like to team teach with my lesson plans) what does he like to drink, and his response was, “…night time or day time?” What!? Wow.



A different English teacher told me that he drinks every night to “train” himself and build up a tolerance to alcohol. Right. A couple of other Japanese people told me that they drink and smoke because they are very stressed and it’s the only way to calm them down. I can understand that, but you guys….ya know…have children to take care of. When I say that they drink, I mean that they go out with coworkers to drink after spending WAY too much time at work. It’s kind of like… go home guys! Not to mention: they drink and smoke NEAR their children (way too common here), and one jerk even had the nerve to bring her newborn baby to a smoke room! –holds back expletive-

In any case, hearing this Japanese girl talk negatively about her culture isn’t new. In the span of about 8 days, Keith and I have met random ladies who bash their own culture. This one lady, in broken English, said, “My foreign friends and foreign people…open. Japanese people…closed.” I didn’t even ask her what she thought about Japanese culture, but foreign-friendly Japanese people seem as if they can’t wait to complain about the culture that they are living in. I’ll get into more reasons that I was told in a different post, but from a foreigner’s angle, all one might see is the surface pride of their culture. Knowing enough Japanese people however, you’re bound to hear complaints…even without knowing a lick of Japanese.