A Different Land
Kimchi Bowl Chronicles
Two weeks ago, the world shook. 9.0 earthquake struck Japan. Then Tsunami came. Then there was a nuclear blowout. Japan became a 4-D version of 2012. On Friday, two weeks ago, I got stressed out by earthquake news, so I went out with my friends. The next day I did the same. But no matter how hard I tried to ignore the post-quake reality, no matter how hard I tried to stick to my study-abroad fun plans, the effects of the disaster were omnipresent – friends fleeing from Tokyo, food shortage at supermarkets, fear of blackouts, fear of after-shocks. On Wednesday, I left for Seoul with my friend Caitlin on a planned spring vacation. On the way to the airport, we joked about not coming back to Japan….
Last Friday, US embassy started evacuating American citizens. I had to withdraw from Nanzan and was told to remain in Korea. The joke about not coming back was to become a bitter reality. Without saying bye to my friends and teachers, I left Japan. There will be no more Disney parties at Aratamabashi, no more complaining about DAGANE food, no more bento dinners at AEON mall. You might frown upon me saying the following – but for a 23-year old, one year is a very long time, it’s an era. And the earthquake definitely marked the end of an era for me. The era of being in Japan.
Now, I’m in Seoul. As usual, I am blessed enough to have found kind and generous people who have been willing to help me out. I’m staying with my friend’s family, the Baes, the paragons of hospitality. I could not be any luckier. I don’t have any plans. All my perfect planning (internship in Tokyo, research in Kanto, JLPT, etc) has been shattered by the quake. And so now, I’m just waiting for others to decide what I should do. Yale has been generous enough to offer me free housing and free food in New Haven, but considering the fact that I could not take classes for credit (after all there are no more than five weeks left), being housed and eating food would stand for my only two activities in New Haven. I guess I could read books at Sterling but trying to keep my mind on a single page might prove a bit hard…just like trying to keep the party going when the world’s been shaken.
I really appreciate Yale’s efforts. Somehow, however, before I dive into the world of New Haven craziness, I think that I need more time to reflect upon what had just happened, more time to think about Disney parties at Aratamabashi and bento dinners at AEON mall. And who knows, maybe I’ll realize that the DAGANE food wasn’t really that bad – after all.
J-Girls
MGs came to Nagoya. This week, a group of 16 Japanese girls from a woman’s college in Sendai flew to Nanzan to come hang out with us. They call themselves MGs (I am not sure what the acronym really stands for, but it surely makes me thing of a car company). They came under the premise to help us with our class projects. But since our class project is a joke (“find a place in Nagoya and talk about it”) and since these girls had to pay a significant amount of money to fly all the way from Sendai, I have been puzzled as to what the real motives behind the MGs’s visit are. Japanese people are very nice, for sure. But no one is let’s-spend-$1000-hanging-out-with-gaijins nice. Today, however, I finally understood what brought the MGs all the way to Nagoya…
For our class project we were divided into eight groups, each receiving two MGs as our peer advisors. Due to a lack of boys in my class, several groups were exclusively female. I noticed a strange aura of disappointment among the MGs who ended up in all-girls groups. There was something very tragic in their facial expressions. It reminded me of the time when I bought a very expensive laptop only to find out that the “L” key was missing. Not a worthwhile investment… Furthermore, I was a bit surprised by the fact that the MGs seemed to enjoy taking pictures of me. Snap, snap, snap. After each shot, they exclaimed collectively: Kawaiiii! I got really proud of my “cuteness” but then I noticed that they were, in fact, taking pictures of every male in our class. Hmm…. Today, during our presentation, I had a really hard time focusing – a group of MGs sitting in the first row starred at me with an odd, dreamy expression.
The puzzle seems complicated, doesn’t it? Well, not until you plug in the last piece. Everything becomes sparkling clear. Seeing the MGs in action served as this very last piece of the J-Girl puzzle. I entered the dining hall only to find my dear Sendai friends to be laughing in the most effortful way at a table of random white boys. The boys had no connection to either our class or project. Their Japanese was terrible. And so was the MGs’ English. But somehow the communication seemed smooth. The puzzle was complete. The MGs were on a manhunt.
Whether I ( and the other white boys) were cute or not was of no significance. What mattered the most were our marriage-properties. I understand that the above statement might potentially be very offensive but bear with me. Here are four reasons why a non-Japanese man is of high interest to the J-Girls.
a. Most Japanese guys consider girls marriageable until a certain age.
b. Japanese guys just don’t seem that interested, to be a single man is ok. To be a single woman is not.
c. It’s very hard to have a career as a woman in Japan, the wage is bellow 50%, companies are not willing to invest into female employees because they know they’ll leave sooner or later; till 1969 a woman had to leave work after she got married. Legally obliged, to be precise. So if a girl wants to improve her life-prospects, the only thing she can do is to improve marriage prospects. Becoming a housewife is the ultimate goal – and in fact 60 % do.
d. Japanese guys suck. They have too much choice so they don’t put in any effort; plus they know that the girls are desperate. When they eventually marry they never come home before 11 PM; on the weekends they play golf with their clients. And this is not just a bunch of stereotypes. Ask anyone who ever did homestay in Japan, how often did they see the dad?
Alright. So a Japanese girl needs to marry quick, and Japanese guys suck. What does she do? She goes West (in direction of Nagoya). She tries to break the vicious cycle of getting more desperate as her marriage-ability decreases. A non-Japanese man presents an immediate solution – he grew up with mommy and daddy sharing equal roles; he does not expect her to stay at home; he actually likes playing with kids; and the only time he’d consider overtime is when he gets his hourly rate times two. He’d rather gossip with his wife than go drinking with his colleagues every day. He cares. He’s not a bigot. He’s perfect. And so westward J-Girls go.
And so, all of sudden, I’m being taken pictures of, I’m being admired even on my bad days. I’m being pushed into the role of the perfect prince charming who’s going to save the MGs from a desperate housewife’s destiny. Plus, I go to Yale….
Wait. I’m being stared at by a random woman from across the Starbuck’s. Wait. She’s fixing her hair, standing up, walking in my direction. She puts on the so-effortful-so-well-known smile. She starts talking to me. “Sumimasen. Excuse me. But where are you from? America? No? Europe? That’s ok too! Do you wanna get coffee together?! Let’s go!”
Little does she know that I just want to talk.
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