If you're reading this without reading Part One, I seriously suggest you go read it now. You my find yourself a little lost without it.
Where did I leave off? Oh yes, am I gay, no, blah blah blah. Right.
The whole tone of the interview, along with the little giggles and reactions from everyone involved, gave it a distinctly abstract feeling. I couldn't imagine that this was a real interview, and maybe it was just some elaborate joke on the gaijin (foreigner). Where were the TV cameras? Thinking back, I can definitely see this kind of thing happening on some comedy/variety show in Japan. However, had it actually been a television show, at least I would've had a moment of fame! No such luck.
The president meandered through another "normal" section of the interview, his segues between questions like "Are you gay?" and "tell me about your design skills" executed with masterful straight-facedness. Then he came to what I still consider "the winner" of the interview.
He asked me (of course in Japanese): "Do you like to do 裸族 in your apartment?"
He'd used a word I'd never heard before. "Excuse me, do I do what?"
"すっぽんぽん."
Ah, this was a word with which I was familiar. Roughly translated, it means "butt naked." Wait. Do I go butt naked in my apartment?! Naturally, I was utterly shocked into answering completely honestly. "Well, uh...I...my town is the hottest town in Japan, so sometimes it does get awfully hot..." Everyone laughed. But what possibly could that sort of question have to do with my ability to properly do my job? You can imagine this wasn't the first time I had second thoughts about exactly what kind of job I might be doing.
The interview itself wrapped up not long afterwards. It was explained to me that in the line of work that they do, it is relatively common to be dealing with gay men and selfish women, as they have dealings with celebrity and artistic types. Go figure. It helped explain part of the interview, but certainly I was still left wondering why it mattered if I liked to get naked in my apartment.
The president brought the interview to a close and brought me around the rather small and very cluttered office. He announced me to the staff who were still working at 10PM (virtually everyone), including the fact that I was currently girlfriendless, looking actively, and love Japanese women. Never mind the fact that it wasn't necessarily true, everyone seemed to take it in stride. He then proceeded to introduce me to all of the single women in the office. First off was a woman who'd studied in the States and therefore knew a bit of English. He told her to introduce herself to me in English. I've changed the name, but this is exactly how she introduced herself:
"Hello, my name is Mayuko. I lived in the States for a few years. I've divorced three times!"
Upon which I promptly replied, "Oh...nice to meet you! Your English is excellent." What else to say, really?
I met two other single women in much the same manner, minus the divorce and English. The last one had such a fake smile during the exchange, it was kind of painful and not a little uncomfortable. The president told us to exchange business cards, so we could "get to know each other" or something. But...I'm not even working at the company, and nor do we even like each other...so why would I want to do this? We obliged of course, no doubt both thinking similar thoughts: "yeah right." He was, after all, her boss and my potential boss.
I remember thinking as we walked back out into the oppressive humidity that there was no way I'd take the job.
Three weeks later, I took the job. Go figure!
I think enough time has passed since this experience to let the trauma settle a little bit. At the time I didn't quite feel this way, but I can now say with not a small amount of pride that I had a job interview that was probably far stranger than most people will ever experience.
Through the good graces of a coworker at my school, I had managed to secure an interview at a small advertising and marketing firm in the heart of cool: 表参道 (Omotesandou) in Tokyo. On a rainy and sweltering evening in June myself and my coworker decked ourselves out in full suits and took the train down to Tokyo.
Let me give you a short background on interviewing in Japan. There, if you are lucky enough to have a connection who gets you an interview, you actually go to the interview with that person. At the interview, your person (a sponsor, really) will give a spiel about you for a little while, and then the interview will turn over to you, where you will give a little prepared speech about yourself and why you want to work at the company. This explains why I, my contact, and his contact all ended up in a very small meeting room with uncomfortable plastic seats.
I came into the interview knowing it was going to be different. I had been told that we would be meeting with both the company president and vice president, something that doesn't happen often in Japan. Usually, you see, you meet with an underling. In any case, as we sat waiting, all three of us in our full suits, I'm sure we all felt a tad jealous of the VP who had just come in looking a little dumpy in his khaki slacks and a polo shirt. The real moment of truth, however, was when the president himself walked in. His white t-shirt had some outrageous print on it, and his jeans (jeans!!) were ripped quite liberally. His hair was spiked. Oh, this was definitely going to be a different sort of interview.
Things progressed smoothly enough. First my coworker's contact gave his little speech about me, then my coworker did the same. I couldn't help but think about how great this was. Here I was at an interview, and it had already lasted a half hour without me saying a word! One could only hope that it would only contin-
"So," the president said, turning his puffy sleep-deprived eyes to me, "do you by chance play rugby or practice boxing?"
Knowing that many companies in Japan sponsor rugby teams, I thought maybe he was asking about my interest in sports. I practice neither, so I volunteered what I do practice: "No, but I do practice Tae Kwon Do..."
"Ah!" He sat back with the look of a mystery solved. "So that's why your nose and teeth are crooked!"
Now, I'm pretty sure a comment like that would end an interview in the States, perhaps with the interviewee walking huffily from the room. I, however, was astounded into silence. My two sponsors laughed a little, so I figured maybe this was some sort of icebreaking strategy. I never thought that icebreaking by way of pointing out physical flaws was particularly effective, but there are innumerable differences between my opinions and Japanese society as a whole.
Believe it or not, the interview continued in much the same fashion. The president did most of the talking and asked me most of the questions, concentrating for short stretches on relevant topics such as my skills, my interests, my love of Japan, my love of the women...what?
Among other things, he asked me if I had a girlfriend (American interview no-no #1). I told him no, we had broken up not long ago. He expressed that after the interview he would introduce me to the single women in the office. He asked me if I liked Japanese women, and being that his manner and questions were so shockingly direct, I couldn't think of anything to do but to answer. It happened time and time again, and every time I was a deer in headlights, unable to do anything but answer honestly. I tell you, giving well-considered, strategic, perfect answers is entirely out of the question in this sort of situation.
After we got out of the way that I loved Japanese women and was desperate for a new girlfriend, (What? Even I wasn't aware of that...) we moved on to more mundane job-talk. Not for long, though, I assure you. There was a short pause before he switched tack again.
"Do you like selfish women?"
Again, being that I had hopelessly lost all ability to answer cunningly, I pondered for a moment my dating history. "Well, it would seem that I do..."
"Are you gay?"
"Um, no..." Didn't I just say I liked women?
"Do you like gays?"
"Well, I have a few gay friends, so yes."
Satisfied, he returned once again to talk of the mundane. A little breather, no doubt, before the next wave of shock and awe. Stay tuned for Part Two, in which we explore the nuances of discussing nudity, as well as the interview's aftermath!
There has been a pair of Brazilians at the gym for some time now. Being that foreigners often tend to ignore each other unless somehow forced to interact, we haven't exchanged any more acknowledgment than a brief nod.
Being that The Dude has started to latch onto them, we now have a common enemy. It gives us excuse to converse.
I spoke to one of them last night, ostensibly in order to invite them to join the soccer team I'm trying to get together. Much to my surprise and dismay, we were barely able to communicate beyond "How long have you been here?"
You'd think that for two people who have been here using the same language for three years, we'd be able to get a little beyond that. Sadly we did not, and the conversation ended rather awkwardly.
To top it off, they don't play soccer! I thought all Brazilians play it in the womb!
Yesterday each class at school was carefully herded outside so that pictures could be taken for the yearbook.
What this means for the students is that they're required to dye their hair back to their natural black, and remove all makeup and piercings.
I was oblivious until I noticed the startlingly high number of girls without eyebrows.
The 選挙 (senkyo: election, vote) has begun. In Japan that means one thing: A solid week of armies of vans and trucks driving around, blaring little speeches out of oversized PA speakers.
It's an interesting (and unsurprisingly, loud) time, because every town it seems is blanketed by these roving shouting advertisements from precisely 8AM to 8PM. They vie for your vote by driving around and waving at anyone who will take notice, with a chorus of "thank you" and Japanese that has no literal translation.
What I find interesting is that no one seems to care that very few of the politicians running for office actually state what their platform is. I have yet to hear one (though admittedly my echoey-PA-listening skills are subpar), and when I inquired my coworkers agreed that it's rather rare. So how do people decide who to vote for?
Probably just like back home: appearance. And that's what the signboards are for! In a designated area in each section of town (towns are broken into distinct sections) has been erected a massive board with space for each candidate's picture. I couldn't imagine that anyone would actually pay attention to these things, but while playing wiffleball next to one yesterday I witnessed dozens of people looking closely. But what for? None of the pictures have anything but a catchy slogan and name written on them.
A Japanese mystery indeed.
Today I partook for the first time in a mild craze that has been in Japan since just after I arrived: jelly drinks! It's being marketed mostly in the sports drink category, but the particular kind I tried is labeled "For Beauty." Note that I did not buy this product of my own volition; I received it as part of a gift package.
VAAM Jelly (as it is so called) is bizarre. The drinks are all packaged in a plastic/metalized bag with a hard plastic...teat. The experience of "drinking" the stuff isn't particularly pleasant. You suck as hard as you can to get slightly-liquidized Jell-O to blast into your mouth. As this was my first VAAM experience and I didn't know quite what to expect, the sensation was slightly distressing. I got used to it, but I can't see how this could possibly be marketed as a sports drink. When I'm hot and sweaty and thirsty, probably the last thing I would want is sweet curdled chunks washing down my throat. Regular liquid for me please!
Really I just like the drink's name, which I suppose must mean something along the lines of "Here it comes...Wait...VAAM!!"
Today on my way to the bank I saw something I never thought I'd see anywhere in Japan, much less in my little town of Gyoda: A protest! Here I was for three years thinking I lived in pretty much the most apathetic country on Earth, but this is an obvious sign that such is not the case.
Granted, they were protesting a tax hike (when do people not protest a tax hike?), but it was a bit refreshing to see Japanese people get up and fight something they don't want instead of shrugging and accepting it with the obligatory しょうがない (shouganai: roughly it means "can't be helped").
Pictures to come, if I can get the pictures off of my phone.
Today on my bike ride home I witnessed the everyday occurrence of a woman picking up her dog's droppings.
Only she was doing it with chopsticks.
More appropriately, this post could be titled "Japanese things that should be but aren't the same as back home" but it didn't really have a very appealing ring to it.
There are many things here that by all practical purposes should be the same as they are back home. Naturally between countries things vary considerably but there are things that often I wonder why they're different at all. This post has actually been sitting in my "draft" folder for months now waiting for me to compile a good list, but I'm left with only one. So I might as well just talk about that.
Here, when you open a bottle of soda (pop, coke, carbonated beverage) it makes a different sound than back home. I figured things like Coke would be especially similar between countries, since its production is controlled at some level by the all-powerful Coca-Cola god.
I know this sounds stupid, but really, it makes a different sound. Back home you open a bottle and it makes something of a "fizz" sound. I'll approximate it by saying "fwssshhh" because that's the sound it makes. Here, you open the bottle and it literally goes "pop!" A single sudden popping sound, no fizzing, and that's the end of the opening experience. I can only assume it can be attributed to differences in carbonation tactics but still...
...weird eh?
NOTE: JLPT stands for "Japanese Language Proficiency Test"
Yesterday I somehow became immersed in a conversation revolving around the uvula. I explained that many English speakers don't even know what the uvula is called, and if they do it's only after a certain amount of memory-jogging. As a result, most people end up simply referring to it as "that thing that hangs in the back of your throat." Upon hearing this, every Japanese person thus far as replied "that's way too long."
As it turns out, Japanese is similar. Almost no one knows the medical term for it (the Japanese equivalent of "uvula"), so pretty much everyone simply refers to it by its much weirder but more common name: 喉ちんこ (nodochinko). Well, it's certainly shorter than the English version.
Regardless, I still can't get over how a vast amount of people can with a perfectly straight face refer to the thing in the back of your throat as "throat penis."
Last night I was watching TV and stumbled across (well, sat there passively as it flickered on the screen) a rather amusing advertisement for plaque-control toothpaste. Apparently in your mouth, plaque is just a bunch of tiny dudes dressed up in puffy-looking costumes, all hanging out and having a party.
But lo! All is not well in plaque-land. Suddenly, an earthquake rumbles through and everyone panics. The plaque-people all run to the nearest gap between teeth and seatbelt themselves in to ride out the coming storm. What is it? What will happen to these slightly-cute-slightly-scary creatures?
Zoom out to the very cute woman who's about to use the special toothpaste. With the utmost in dramatic skill, she squirts the paste onto her toothbrush and begins her task.
Zoom back inside her mouth. Catastrophe! Mayhem! Morbidity! Puffy plaque-people go flying, their (apparently not UL-approved) seatbelts dissolved like nothing. Hot damn, this toothpaste really works!
Zoom back out to cute lady, grinning cutely despite the genocide she has just enacted.
Naturally I laughed, particularly tickled by the plaque people and their reaction to the coming destruction. I sat there for a moment, warmed by a geniunely entertaining commercial. It's these (far more entertaining than the usual offal that they call programming) that find me turning on the TV on occasion.
But then I realized. Inside the cute Japanese girl's mouth, the plaque-people were all gaijin.
What the hell?
So either gaijin are a tenacious and unsightly growth on the otherwise pristine surface of Japanese society ... or they just make better panic-in-the-face-of-destruction faces. You decide.
UPDATE: I just found the commercial online, you can view it at the LION website. Or just click on this link.
I know this may not be something you want to read, but I have to speak up. It's an oft-mentioned but rarely* blogged topic: Japanese Pubic Hair.
In Japan, grooming of pubic hair doesn't seem to be a top priority. In fact, it's not a priority at all, since nobody seems to do it. If you're stuck back in the west without access to a public bath for evidence, just go out and download some amply-available Japanese porn and see for yourself. The porn reflects the reality, I can tell you that. If you're here in Japan, I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about.
It's as if out-of-control bush carries with it some sort of unspoken bragging rights. I go to the gym almost every day during the week, which involves public bathing. Not like I'm actively checking out other men's equipment, but it's kind of obvious when there's friggin pubic bonsai** springing out at you. I apologize; bonsai are finely-trimmed, carefully-controlled things of beauty. The bush of pube, so to speak, is obviously not. Apparently people are more concerned about pruning said miniature trees. And why not? Not like anyone (including wives and girlfriends) is actually going to look...
The end result is that everywhere you go you'll find pubes. This is especially true in public toilets and baths. I can't vouch for women but I imagine it's not any different. Go to a urinal, and most of them are probably festooned with pubage. The floor of the gym's bathroom, though cleaned hourly, is frightening for its array of pubic hairs. I remember going to an onsen last year with a friend's visiting boyfriend in tow, and we had to apologize to him and explain that usually we don't have to refer to the baths as "pube pools." To this day, the place is known in our circle as "that place with all the pubes."
I wonder how such a fastidious nation could have developed such a disregard for that particular area?
Footnotes:
*I completely made this up. I have no idea if anyone has blogged about this.
**blatantly stolen from the most excellent film, Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle.
In Japan, many "deli-style" places that sell food have a little section in front with samples for you to try. Japanese people haven't the slightest qualm about munching down on one or two samples and moving on to the next booth without a thought. Apparently, people on vacation have been known to actually fill themselves this way in lieu of meals (*cough* you know who you are).
Maybe this is a personal thing, but I can't take and eat a sample without feeling at least some semblance of guilt for not taking interest in the store in question. Perhaps it's a waste of my time and energy, but I feel some sort of obligation to show an interest in the store's wares. I see all the time people walk to a booth/store, take the sample, and walk straight away without a backward glance.
Is this just me, or am I carrying with me some sort of cultural guilt?
I don't usually go for Engrish-themed clothing...but yesterday I got one I couldn't pass up.
Click the link below (you may have to scroll down, as the weird part is at the bottom of the picture).
I bought a shirt the other day (big-time sales here, woohoo!) and received some sort of re-usable bag with it. Whatever.
I was staring at it today in some sort of reverie, and realized it was supposed to be a word in English.
Can you figure out what it is? (Click the link)
Today upon leaving for lunch a group of students asked me if my hair was permed. It's long and foofy now, leading me to resort to desperate measures to control it, but hardly permed. I told them it was my own natural hair upon which they launched into a chorus of "ooh jealous" and so on.
Japan is one of very few countries in which such a question could be posed to a straight male and still be considered reasonable.
Today one of my teachers asked me "do you know the word implode?"
"Of course," I replied. "You mean like a black hole?"
His example was a submarine at high pressure, but the effect is the same. It turns out there is no direct single-word translation for "implode" in Japanese.
The usage is 内側に破裂する。 (uchigawa ni haretsu suru). It translates as "to explode to the inside."
Today as I was biking back from lunch I overheard two junior high school girls talking about me. The conversation went like this:
Girl 1: "Isn't he hot?"
Girl 2: "Really hot."
Regardless of the fact that they are probably 15 years my junior and also know very little about what criteria make a foreign man "very hot," it managed to perk me up just a tad on an otherwise dreary day.
It's the small things in life.
Last night I had a conversation revolving around the plethora of so-called "soap land" massage parlors in Japan. As far as I can tell (I'm not very well versed on the subject), they're basically legalized brothels. You go ostensibly for a body massage, and you end up with a penis massage. They have them at home too, but not as blatant as far as I know.
Anyway, I was asked why I never tried one. I replied that I have a girlfriend and that would be cheating. Not so, I was told. The reason given was that massage-pooches and others in the business of pleasuring for money are "not normal people" and are a "business." That being said, even having sex with a straight-out prostitute constitutes little more than a business transaction. If you have sex with a "normal person" (I'm still not really sure what that entails) other than your girlfriend/boyfriend, that's cheating. As lonng as you've paid for it, it's not.
What? I can't possibly believe that this is an opinion that reaches beyond the one person I talked to. If it does, then no wonder this country is so bizarre. I must continue researching.
Yesterday I was getting ready to leave school when one of the teachers in my room asked me "Justin, will you be here on Wednesday?"
An innocuous question enough, and of course my answer was "yes." Where else would I be on a work day?
His follow-up was "Can you eat my lunch for me?" I thought he meant the lunches that students from the cooking classes bring sometimes to be evaluated by teachers. Again I told him yes. But I asked him if it was from the students.
"No, the last time I ate my lunch, something was wrong with my body for more than a day."
Have I become a faculty taste-tester or something?
Today I was biking to the post office to buy a stamp. On the way, I saw an old codger shaving...in the street.
Chalk that up to the list of things I probably won't see back home.