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One angry man's resolution to change his life. |
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AN APOLOGY I experienced a revelation. I will change my life. I will shine, as my wife told me to. I will have my revenge. |
| I could have forgiven you. In fact, I was thinking about it. I was thinking of aborting this course. You remembered our anniversary. You asked me what we should do, bearing in mind we are trying to save money for a trip to the States this summer. "Nothing special," I said, knowing you were busy, and our schedule this week was super busy. "Just a small dinner at home, with the three of us." So I spent a week looking around for a gift for you, something you could use and be happy with it. I think I made some good choices. And I wrote you a card--wrote a poem on a card for you, plus a nice, fitting, quote about marriage (there are no anniversary cards in Japan). You liked the gifts when I gave them to you this morning, and the card made you smile. But you got me nothing, not even a card. "You said we weren't going to do anything." I said we shouldn't do anything special--not nothing. And you went to bed just now, without so much as a hug. Certainly not a kiss. Do you remember what you promised after our latest blow-out last week? You promised to show affection, because you said you didn't want the marriage to end. You have shown no affection. Yes, you hugged me twice this week--but only because I hugged you. You have said nothing nice to me, either. Ah, but you didn't forget our anniversary. You made of point of saying that--as if it is something special. I have gotten you gifts and cards every anniversary. What have you done? Ah, yes, last year you made a reservation at a restaurant nearby. That was a first. I could have forgiven you. |
| Yesterday, son asked me ignore the "bad boys" at his school. By that, he means all the kids who come up to me as I am waiting for son to leave school on Mondays, and speak to me rudely in English or, worse, ask me rude questions in Japanese. On Monday, a boy had come up to me and asked: "Nani jin desu ka?" Translation: "Where are you from?" Literal translation: "What kind of person are you? What's your ethnicity?" So I asked him what his ethnicity was. "Japanese," he said. "How do you know?" I asked. "Do you remember being born here?" That confused him and his cohorts. I let it go, but unfortunately my son saw the exchange. He's seen this happen a lot in the past, as I try to help these kids understand, in a variety of ways, the questions and comments they give to people who don't look Japanese are not polite. But, my son has asked me to stop. So I will. I will shine. I will appear just the way every here wants me to. As I am already Caucasian, tall, blond(ish), and blue-eyed, the only thing that remains for me to be a "true" foreigner is to smile constantly and be super energetic--oh, and to never, ever, get upset at anything a Japanese person might say, because Japanese people are an "island people, so we don't know how to deal with people from other countries." Sorry, but I call bullshit. It's the twenty-first century, and we have airplanes, TV and Internet. Many people in Japan know more about most countries and other peoples than most Americans I have ever met. But I will shine. I will be exactly what they want me to be. Having tried to help these people, to educate them in multiculturalism, has gotten me nothing and nowhere. Just lots of frustration. To those of you who don't know, I will explain. I make this resolution not simply because my son asked me, but also because he is getting embarrassed by my attempts to help these kids understand what he understands by having grown up multicultural. And also because I've been living in this country for fourteen years, and yet no one seems to be able to think I might actually speak their language or know the first thing about their culture--or that I didn't just fucking arrive on the damn airplane yesterday and will be "returning home" tomorrow. I have made Japan my home, and it was a helluva difficult decision, but one that I made for my family's benefit, not my own. But they and their children continue to treat me as an outsider, someone who can be talked to rudely and treated as if they have no feelings--and nothing I have done these past fourteen years has seemed to help. I say "they," but in this pronoun there are so many Japanese I do not include: my family and my friends, for example. But this other "they": They do not want me for who I am, but for who they believe I am. This is, perhaps, human nature, but some humans deal with it with more subtlety, and thus earn more respect. So: time to take the easy path. Well, perhaps not so easy. I am not skilled at smiling and letting things slide. My true nature is dark and brooding. This could be difficult. Ah, a challenge! To shine! |
| Because I want to feel good. I want to feel pleasure. Because I've been a nice guy all my life, and that's gotten me nowhere. Since the youngest age, I've seen myself as a nice guy, even though I've been aware that I might be nothing more than an evil bastard parading around in the simulacrum of some nice-guy skin. I grew up Christian in a Christian family, attended church on Sundays, Christmas and Easter; even attended Sunday school and served as an altar boy for a few years (and, no, I was never touched by a priest). I did many community projects as a Boy Scout and received my Eagle Scout award at the rather young age of fifteen. I never got into fights. I won most of the chess tournaments I entered, read books, and helped my mother with the housework. I was a nice kid. When I got older and left religion behind, I made it my personal moral code to never hurt anyone knowingly. When I look in the mirror, I see a nice guy staring back. Being nice has gotten me a minimum wage job with no prospects for advancement, no prospects for changing jobs. Being nice has gotten me shafted by the company I served loyally for seven years when it stole all our students money, didn't pay me for three months, and then went bankrupt due to incompetency. Being nice has had me married to a physically and mentally abusive woman who feels no desire or obligation to show the slightest affection, and has not shared my bed since the baby was born--a woman who feels it is permissible, even necessary, to lay the worst insults and accusations upon me whether or not our child is in the room. Being nice has left me lonely, depressed, financially insecure, and contemplating suicide on more than a few occasions, and far too close to the lips of alcoholism. But now I have reached the proverbial mid-point in my life, and it seems I have reached my peak physical condition, and, though unlikely, my peak mental condition as well. Now I want to know so many things I'd so long denied myself wanting to now, experiences and feelings I always convinced myself I could do without, or was better than to need. I want to savor some of the Alpha scene. What better time than now--and I am an accomplished chameleon. |
| Alright. I've got all these ideas in my head for things I want to do, to change about myself,but they all require some combination of the following three things: courage, time, and money. The first two are going to be the most difficult for me to manage. I've got one idea about the third. Two days a week, I take a train to one of my jobs. The company pays me an extra 14,500 yen per month so I can spend it on a monthly train pass to cover the cost of this commute (they do not, however, pay me for the other two days a week I have to drive to work, but I'll work on that problem later). So, I get 14,500 yen extra per month in my paycheck. However, like almost every married man in Japan, I give my entire paycheck to my wife each month--because she handles the expenses and refuses to let me help her with their management. The wife gives me a monthly allowance of 15,000 for my personal expenses, plus 14,500 to buy my train pass (plus another 10,000 to pay for the monthly rent for my lesson room). My allowance used to be 10,000, but I managed to get her to raise it y 5,000 after much bickering. (In case you're wondering: 15,000 yen is about 150 U.S. dollars). I want that 14,500 yen. The train pass works this way: I flash the pass at the station agent as I walk through the turnstile. I flash it again at my destination when I exit the station. Occasionally (and this might be the rub) I have to show it the conductor on the train dung a random inspection. My thinking is this: those agents at the station have to look at hundreds or thousands of these passes every day. There's no way they can be inspecting everyone's pass closely. In fact, given what I know of human nature (thank you, forty-two years on this planet) it is more likely that the agents are paying little if any attention to the form of the pass, and more to the action of showing it. If I scan the pass into the computer, and then move some numbers around on the date of the pass, it should pass a fairly close inspection, just so long as no one pulls it out of my wallet and takes a look at the back. But, no...I could print a copy and paste it over the front of an old pass, to preserve the legitimate backing, and then shave the edges flush with my razor. At work, I just make a photocopy of the pass and give it to our staff. They fax a copy of that photocopy to the head office for confirmation, and the fee is added to my monthly pay. In all those copies, noise gets in the system, the picture gets blurry. No one's going to give a shit if the copy looks a little odd. I'll just shuffle some of the serial numbers around a bit just to be sure. And my age (it's on the pass): I'll have to keep that updated, too. Okay. That's a plan. I just have to figure out what kind of paper to print it on, because my usual copy paper isn't going to cut it, especially if the conductor takes a close look. |
| I skipped work a couple days ago to take part in an arm-wrestling competition at the mall where I teach*. Entering the competition had, I’d thought, represented a huge step for m, in many ways, the first of which was my physical appearance: for roughly the first forty years of my life, I was skinny, even scrawny, which complimented my bookish and extremely, even devastatingly, shy persona. Almost a year ago now, I undertook a focused program of weight training and diet, the results of which continue to have me slamming my expanded shoulders or triceps into doorways if I don’t focus on where I’m going, and have turned my previous chicken legs legs into sensuous tree trunks of muscle*. Luckily, I have always appreciated physical beauty, both female and male, so I can see, shedding a certain amount of ego, what I am turning into. And I like it. I really like it. So, I decided to enter an arm-wrestling competition. My first. In high school, I had fantasized about doing something like this—probably inspired by the Stallone film “Over the Top,” and now I’d reached a level of physical performance where I thought I might stand a chance of, at least, not getting my ass handed to me. I even allowed myself the brief, tantalizing vision of bringing home a first place trophy to show my athletic son, which would’ve been a first such achievement for me. I decided to ask my dad’s opinion. "Don't do it," he said. Turns out two of my older step-brothers have been competing for years, and have massive joint damage to prove it. "Come back home and wrestle them; it's like trying to move a house. But they can't raise they're arms above their heads without pain." I had a month between talking to dad and signing up for the competition. I'd also run the idea by the wife. "Eh? Why would you do that? You have to work. I don't want you missing work for that." "But I've always wanted to do something like this, ever since high school. And now...look at me. I can do this." She remained adamantly opposed. Nothing new there. Anyway, I signed up, sent my 6000 yen to join the Arm Wrestling Federation of Japan (so I could compete officially), arranged the day off from work. It coincided nicely with my father-in-law taking my son to handball practice in another town and my wife having a big conference. Also, work wanted to cut me for half the day because of low student reservations, so no problems, and no money lost. I'd been nervous about being the only foreigner competing, but as it turned out I wasn't totally among strangers: one guy, with friggin huge arms, I recognized from one of the gyms I frequent. We smiled and bowed to each other as we stood in line to wait out turn. The wrestling stand was on a stage at one end of the mall. About three dozen or so seats had been set up for people to watch us, but those had filled quickly, and there were another twenty people standing behind them. As a veteran teacher, I was accustomed to being observed, but this was new. What if I got my ass handed to me right from the start? That would be damn embarrassing. As I looked at the guys standing with me, I realized I might have a chance. Most of them had skinny arms, no muscle. I won the first three rounds no problem. After each win, I smiled and shook the hand of the guy I'd just beat, remembering the look of trepidation they'd had stepping up to me at the start, and the quick flash of anger when I slammed their hand against the mat (my dad had taught me the tactic of quick, powerful starts). I didn't want them to hate me. I wanted to be a good sport. But then came the guy from the gym, and he was not smiling. His grip was like iron, and when we locked hands, he kept grunting and tugging me towards him. Aggressive as fuck, and it felt like he almost broke my wrist when the referee said, "Go!" I held him up just long enough for our grips to slip, and the ref to blow the whistle. We stepped back to rest, and then tried again. This time, though, as we locked hands, I did the same as him, but drew myself up to my full height. I wanted to win. I fucking starred right into his eyes and, when we started, shouted...something, I don't remember what. But it worked. Either he'd gotten tired, or my performance had freaked him out a bit. I'm not sure which. But it worked! From thereon out, the competition was more about performance than strength. Every trick my dad had taught me came rushing back, and I used all of them. That guy from the gym had been the strongest, but the best technically. Each time, I psyched-out the other guy; it was easy. I was this foreign guy, and they'd all their stereotypes about foreigners to play on. It was my turn to shine, and I shone. Fuck, it felt good. It felt real good. The trophy sits in its box on the top shelf of my closet. No one in my family knows, and I hope it stays that way. But I know it's there. And I know what I accomplished. And it was more than just a performance, but the performance was key. This I have learned. This I will exploit. *Most people have no idea what this kind of physical change can do to one’s mental state. While I had never been exactly unattractive, I had always thought and felt so--and had been given almost no reason to think otherwise. But now… :) now I catch the furtive hunger glinting out of the quickly diverted almond eyes of all these Japanese women surrounding me—and the mothers. Especially the mothers. I have a way with children that makes me popular as a kids teacher, and its the mothers who stand in the windows watching me teach, and its the mothers who surround me after the lessons to thank me for helping them. |
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