In Japan, I heard that word a lot. To my face, behind my back, shouted by little kids who pointed at me on the street. It's a label and sometimes an epithet. It's as much a fact of life in Japan as breathing secondhand smoke. As a gaijin, I stood out in a crowd, always afforded different treatment, and knew that no matter how long I lived in Japan, I would always fit the label: the eternal outsider. Some foreigners tried to counter the label by correcting, "That's gaikokujin, not gaijin!" As in, "I'm a person from an outside country, not an outsider!" Sorry, same difference. My favorite reaction to the "Gaijin da!" shriek was to effect a frightened expression, look wildly around and say, "Eeeeeh? Doko?" ("Huh? Where?") This leaves the offenders hilariously confused. On Being a Gaijin
Not that it's entirely a bad thing. I've seen how some Japanese treat each other, and knowing what I do, I can't imagine coping with the treatment I would receive if I were a Japanese woman. I had a good excuse to feel alone. My differences made me a pioneer and an adventurer; someone worldly and special. Many Japanese treated me like a guest. Total strangers invited me to picnics and parties, or came to my assistance if I got lost. I could strike up conversations with passersby and make friends with people who showed me adventures I never would have seen if I had just stuck with my fellow foreigners. I could stop babies from crying in an instant: They'd stare at me with wide eyes, trying to figure this weird vision out.
One continuous source of amusement was understanding enough Japanese to know when people were talking about you under your nose... and then busting them for it. Just a word or two in Japanese was enough to send the offenders slinking away, not chagrined for what they'd just said, but ashamed for getting caught saying it. On one occasion, I was riding the train with my coworkers and a marketer who'd come visiting from the US company branch. The marketer was third-generation Japanese-American and didn't speak a word of Japanese. The rest of my coworkers were obviously gaijin and spoke Japanese fluently. As we watched, the marketer was accosted by a drunken salaryman who told him how cool it was that he was bilingual and that he was putting up with us stupid foreigners. I leaned forward and whispered to the marketer, "Just nod like you know what he's saying." He did, and the drunk provided the group of us with entertainment for fifteen minutes.
However, I won't deny that it gets irritating and lonely. People point and giggle. Mothers push their children away as if you're dangerous. People won't sit next to you on the train. Real estate agents kick you out of their offices. Taxis won't stop for you. Some establishments post signs banning foreigners from coming inside. Some people, like one woman I came to refer to as, "The Neighbor from Hell," just want to be your friend for the shock value, because of what you are and not who you are. When you're with them, you feel like a zoo animal on a leash ("Hey, everybody! Come look at my pet gaijin!"). I've heard other expats refer to this as the "dancing bear syndrome." Some Japanese men seemed to think that because I was American, I was loose. Just like a Hollywood movie: Boy meets girl, then sleeps with her before the two hours are up.
But at least the blatant racism was easy to battle head-on. I either angrily denounced it or shrugged it off. But there's a far subtler form of isolation that I found impossible to fight, an invisible wall that forever separates me from the Japanese in everything but the most superficial of relationships. A wall that I can't attempt to break down without looking really stupid, and which never crumbles anyway. It seemed the longer I lived in the country, and the more people I talked to and the more I learned about Japan and its people, the less I realized I knew.
Part of it was the language barrier, I'm sure. I spoke enough Japanese to get by, but surely I was missing the nuances of conversation, in-jokes, gestures and slang. Should I take everything said at face value? The most obvious answer is no. But how should things be taken, then? I found myself at a disadvantage because I wasn't as well-armed with my words as my conversational partners, and never knew when I would make some hilarious mistake in my pronunciation or vocabulary. Another part of it was my appearance: so many people couldn't equate a Caucasian face with the ability to understand any Japanese whatsoever. In this regard, I did much better over the telephone until I tripped on some vocabulary or asked the speaker to repeat himself (in which case the speaker usually hung up). No doubt, my lifestyle was far better suited to someone with thicker skin than mine.
I had the roughest time toward the end of my years in Japan, at the time I was working for Sega. While the job duties could not be beat (where else do you get paid to play games?) and the benefits were fantastic (flextime, casual dress, brand new facilities, creative atmosphere), I had a terrible time fitting in. I had moved from an advertising agency where the staff spent many nights drinking together. Alcohol seems to thin the barriers. But in the Design Department, the staff never seemed to go out together unless it was on department-mandated occasions, such as welcome or farewell parties or team-building outings. It could have been the personality types in the department, mostly shy otaku who went home after work to quietly pursue their own passions. It could also be that the mostly industrial area around the office had almost nothing by way of decent restaurants or nightspots and nobody wanted to go far. But it seemed I couldn't get any conversation to proceed beyond the standard greetings. Was I unapproachable? Intimidating? Inferior? Was I ostracized for being an American woman? Were my language skills too awful to tolerate? Did they think me incompetent? My bosses never complained about my work, but for the most part, they left the gaijin in the department to our own devices. I withdrew, taking lunch at my desk and using the unpaid lunch break to work on personal projects. Company outings were painful, leaving me nobody to sit beside on the bus, and nothing in common with my coworkers. People who'd seen me eating at my desk or at the company cafeteria for years still couldn't think of anything to say other than, "Wow, you can use chopsticks." That drove me into a rage.
I had a gaijin rival of sorts. We were hired at the same time, yet he received much better treatment and more respect. He was more outgoing than me, and he was male. When we were hired, he was given a tour of the company grounds. I was instead immediately set to work. During our welcome party, we were both required to give a self-introductory speech. When he finished his, the other employees peppered him with questions about his background. When I finished my introduction, I was faced with a long silence. Finally, a single voice rang out:
"What's your cup size?"
That was one of the reason I returned to the United States. But when I finally made that decision, ironically, my coworkers warmed up. A couple of them asked me out to lunch and dinner when they didn't have to. I wanted to scream, "If you had done this earlier, I wouldn't be leaving!"
Well, maybe I would have left still. The unease following the Kobe quake, the deflation of Japan's bubble economy and a recent trip to the US had me thinking about how nice it would be to drive my own car and to have real furniture and work in a cubicle instead of a desk jammed against everyone else's in a long row.
The internet helped. I belonged to a newsgroup and mailing list called fj.life-in.japan, and between venting sessions on the computer, we'd have occasional dinner parties together. That island-in-a-storm mentality helped, and it would have cemented a few friendships, I think, if I had stuck around.
Two days before I left Japan, I visited the neighborhood kombini (convenience store) for a box lunch and to say goodbye to the owner. As I walked into the store, four high school boys hanging by the entrance saw me, sneered and giggled. I knew I'd get taunted on my way out. I'd put up with this for years in silence. Well, I thought, now I'm leaving and I don't have to tolerate it anymore. With my bag in hand, I walked out.
Sure enough: Giggle, snicker, "Harro. Harro. I am a boy. Ha ha ha."
I turned to them, and holding up my watch, said in my most authentic casual Japanese, "Neh, what time is it? Looks like my watch stopped."
Four mouths dropped open. Oh, if I'd only had a camera. "Uh... it's one thirty."
"What's the matter? You think because I'm a gaijin I don't understand Japanese?"
Silence. Then, very quietly, from one boy: "Gomen nasai." We're sorry.
I don't know if out there, four boys have learned from this, but I went home wearing a grin on my face.