a not so good experience in japan
Please post it if you want. All experiences, good and bad, are welcome. It gives others a slice of life in Japan and, as we all know, experiences are not always pleasent.
Alright then. The story I'm about to tell is one about a person who is, in my eyes at least, a very manipulative person. Something that in my eyes demonstrates Japanese hypocrisy extremely well. I've tried to give an account that was as detailed as possible.
This incident happened to me about 2 years ago when I was studying abroad in Japan for a year. I remember it was July 2007 and the lessons at my language school had finished, so we had about a two week break or something. I decided to go and visit some friends and my former hostfamily (from when I had previously been in Japan a few years prior).
I spent a day or two there, and then I also went up to Tokyo to visit the son of my hostmother's friend (let's call him Shin), who was a university student, about a year younger than me. He lived in an appartment in Machida, near Tokyo, which is where I stayed for about three nights.
I actually saw him the day before he went back to Tokyo, in his hometown (which was the first place I visited). He was the one who picked me up from the station, but he was accompanied by his friend, who was the driver. I stayed at Shin's house for the night since my own hostmother seemed ill at that the time, so Shin's mother let me stay at her house instead. Shin's friend, the one who picked me up the station, also joined us for dinner with Shin's family that evening, and stayed overnight as well. We had a good time. We ate, drank and just chilled. That evening, I knew Shin was going back to Tokyo the next day
because he had to attend classes, and I asked him whether it was OK for me to join in on one of his university classes, because I wanted to see what classes in Japan were like. Shin said that he'd ask his professor and see whether I could join in.
The next day, I woke up in the morning and Shin had already left for Tokyo. I took the train for Tokyo in the late afternoon and arrived at Machida in the evening. Once arrived at the station, I went over to his appartment, which was just a few minutes from the station on foot. At his place, we ate pizza together, which I had offered to pay since they had been so nice as to let me stay at their house, and because Shin would let me stay at his appartment and all. I noticed that Shin was quite relaxed, surfing the internet, watching videos on youtube, listening to music, smoking, and drinking his alcohol. I later found out that this is how most university students actually spend their evenings.
Afterwards, Shin said he had to go to the supermarket, and I decided to join him since I also had to get some stuff for breakfast the next morning. So we hopped on his motorcycle, one that was quite large as I remember it, and quite noisy too. I put on my helmet and hopped on the back, and off we went to the supermarket. I had the feeling that he was driving a bit fast, but then again, I hadn't ever sat on the back of someone's motorcycle before. When we got to the supermarket, we walked around a bit, he got some stuff he needed, and I got some breakfast cereal and milk for the coming days. We then also passed by the alcohol aisle, and he introduced me to this 'nigori sake', something I hadn't heard about before, but wanted to try out now that he had told me about it. So I took one of those nigori sake bottles from the shelves and put it in the cart he was carrying. After we had paid for everything at the cash register, we put all the stuff in bags. I recall that we had two bags, one heavy and one less heavy. I also noticed that he had bought quite a few bottles of booze. Since he was the one driving, I'd carry the heavy bag while he carried the lighter one so it would be easier for him to drive. When we got outside and hopped back on his motorcycle and were ready to drive off, I told him 'don't drive too fast, alright?'. I mean, I did have the feeling that he was driving pretty fast the first time, let alone now with two heavy bags. There was no compartment to store the bags in or anything, it was just me holding a heavy bag in one hand while grasping on to his motorcycle while he had tied the other bag to the handle of his motorcycle. He still drove back at the same speed as the first time, and I was seriously scared. Also come to think of it, I never did ask him exactly how fast he was driving.
Eventually we got back to his place, and while sorting the things from the bags, I paid him back for the nigori sake. I remember giving him a 1000 yen bill. I don't remember the exact price of the bottle anymore but I assume it was slightly under 1000 yen.
We spent the rest of the evening watching a Japanese movie on his TV. I remember the movie was called 'alzheimer' and was about this man who was diagnosed with alzheimer, and how it impacted his personal and professionnal life. Both me and him dozed off halfway during the movie, and finally we decided to go to bed. He slept on his bed, and I slept in this narrow pantry where he had laid out a mattress for me. Just 4 x 1 meters or so. Quite narrow, but I managed to get some sleep anyway.
The next day, I woke up, had breakfast, and Shin said he had to go to class. He seemed to be in a hurry, so he was going to go there by motorcycle. I asked him if I could sit behind him like yesterday, but he said that I couldn't. His university didn't approve of students going to school by motorcycle, it upsets them (yet he was doing it anyway). Instead he told me to take the university bus from the station. It was free for university students anyway, and there was a bus leaving every 5 minutes or so. Since he was in a rush to get to school, I decided to take the bus since it was free anyway. So I went over to the station, got on a pretty packed bus, and about 5 minutes later, I arrived at his university. I tried to look around and see if I could find him. I thought about calling him for a moment, but since he seemed in such a hurry that morning to get to class I decided not to call him and just let him be. Since I didn't really have any place to go, I walked around campus a bit, checked out the different buildings, and went for a stroll around the area just outside the university. After that it had gotten close to lunchtime, so I decided to get something to eat. Afterwards I went back to the university and went to the media center to surf the internet.
The reason why I was in the media center in the first place was because I was waiting for an email from one of my Japanese teachers at my language school. My attendance rate in class had dropped over the past month and a half, due to a number of personal reasons. I had emailed him to try and explain my situation to him, but when I finally read his response, it said that it wasn't possible for me to move up to the next class seeing as I had a very low attendance rate. I was very upset about that because my teacher didn't understand my situation. He didn't understand what I had been through, what the cause was of my attendance rate significantly dropping. I printed out the email that he had written to me and put it in my bag. I then took my cellphone and mailed Shin to ask him if he was still in class. He mailed back, said that he was on his way back to his place, and told me to get on the bus. So that's what I did, and about 10 minutes later I was back at his appartment.
When I arrived, he was getting ready to go to work. Apparently he worked part-time at a cram school a number of times a week as an assistent-teacher or something. He also had one of his friends over at his place while he was getting ready. I only exchanged a few words with his friend. Shin and him were planning on going to Tokyo the next day, and I said that maybe we could meet up all three of us. Our conversation pretty much ended there, and Shin and his friend left the appartment and headed off to work. Shin wouldn't give me the key to his appartment, so I had the choice to either stay in his appartment or go to a manga cafe nearby until he eventually came back from work. I chose to stay at his appartment. It was in the afternoon that he had left for work, and I remember spending the next several hours watching TV, sleeping, and reading over my Japanese teacher's email again.
I then did something I would come to regret very much. After I had read my teacher's email and thought about what I was going to do, I nonchalantly left it on Shin's table in the main room. As I continued to just chill in his appartment, I sortof forgot about the fact that I had placed that paper on the table, not thinking that it wasn't a very smart move. I should have put it back in my bag immediately.
Shin came back later that evening from work, and he had brought dinner for us. One of those soba kind of lunch boxes you could get at the local combini. While eating, he said that another friend of his would be coming over soon. For some reason or other, he told me to go out for a walk to get some fresh air. I didn't think anything of it at the time, since I was actually in the need of some fresh air anyway after sitting in his appartment for all those hours, but looking back at it, it did strike me as odd. Why would he want me to go out for a walk before his friend shows up? Was he trying to hide something from me?
Again, at the time I didn't think too much about it and just put on my shoes and went out for a stroll.
I was just going straight on in one direction all the time, trying to walk as far as I could, looking at the Japanese style houses in the night, observing the stars in the dark sky, and telling myself how lucky I was to be in Japan.
I must have been away for at least an hour, probably an hour and a half when Shin mailed me and said that his friend was at his place now. I mailed him back and said that I would return to his appartment right away. About 20 minutes or so later, I was back at Shin's place.
And so I met his friend. He was Shin's senpai at the juku where he was working. Although I never really asked him his age, I could clearly tell that he was a few years older than me and Shin. He seemed like a nice guy. We started off talking about music, what he liked, what I liked etc. and eventually we were showing each other songs and videos on youtube that we liked. I had noticed that Shin's friend didn't really speak a whole lot. My observation was that he was a good listener, and because of that, I was very enthusiastic about showing him more of the stuff I liked.
I can't quite recall when, but during the time his friend had come over, Shin said that he had read the email from my Japanese teacher and asked me if everything was OK at school. I was shocked to hear him ask, because it didn't concern him. But I was equally shocked that I had been so nonchalant and left that email that was very personal, on his coffee table instead of putting it away. I was a bit irritated and told him that it wasn't any of his business and that he shouldn't go off reading people's personal stuff. He just replied with 'but it was on my table'.
A little while later, Shin's friend left, and me and Shin went to the door to see him off.
It had gotten rather late. I was tired and wanted to get some sleep, but Shin started asking me a bunch of questions about what he had read in my email. He asked me what was going on at school, why I had been absent so much lately. Of course, even Shin didn't know my actual situation. He was only seeing it through the eyes of my Japanese teacher, who himself had completely missed the point. Shin started lecturing me about what was right and wrong, about the fact that I shouldn't be begging my teacher to let me move up to the next class since that was 'hazukashii'. He started talking to me in a rather hostile tone, as if I had just commited some kind of crime, or as if I had just insulted him pretty badly. I didn't talk back to him or try to explain my entire situation to him since I was very tired and just wanted to sleep, plus explaining everything to him would take far too long and I didn't feel that it was any of his business anyway. After his lecture, he told me to go to sleep. But as I turned in, Shin turned on the stereo in his room and started playing really loud music. I didn't understand what he was trying to accomplish by doing that, but I could tell for sure that he was doing it do annoy me, and quite frankly, I thought that was very childish.
The next day we were supposed to go to Tokyo and meet up with Shin's other friend. As we walked towards the station, Shin said that he didn't want to talk to me until I had made a change of mind. It was starting to tick me off now since whatever my problem was at school, it didn't concern him for a minute. I couldn't understand why he wouldn't stop making such a big deal over this. It was my problem afterall, not his or not anybody else's.
He said that he had some stuff to do in Tokyo and that we could meet up in Shinjuku afterwards, so we split up. But even when we met up again, he wouldn't stop hassling me about it. I got annoyed all the more, but kept hoping that he would just forget about it.
However, now he started saying that he would call his mother and my former hostmother to tell them all about what had happened to me...
I had to get to the bank in Shinjuku to withdraw some money off my bank account. I entered the bank, and a staff member told me that I needed to be on a lower floor for my business. Shin sat in a chair waiting on the ground floor while I went downstairs. It was pretty crowded. It took some 10 minutes before I was being taken care of by bank staff.
Suddenly, I got an email from Shin saying that he was leaving because it was taking too much time and he had work today. We had planned on hanging out in Tokyo together, and then all of a sudden he tells me he's leaving me behind and makes up an excuse. I was getting really sick of him acting all stupid about this, I really was. But I wasn't going to lower myself like him, I thought. So I mailed him back saying 'well, okay, I'll just be around in Tokyo til you get back from work'. Just when I thought that this entire charade was finally over, it got worse.
He mailed back and said that I didn't have to bother coming back. I was wondering, was this guy serious? How far is he willing to go? It's incredible...He then lashed out at me saying that I wasn't a thankful person, that he was very angry at me for my actions and whatnot. At that point, I had the feeling that things were going to get worse before they got any better. On top of that, there were some kanji I couldn't read in the mail he sent me, and when asking him what they meant, he said 'oi oi, ore ha america de nihongo wo kiita koto ha ichidomo nai zo. amaeru na'. Honestly, the more he talked to me like that, the less I cared about what he had to say. The last thing Shin said to me was 'I'll talk once you get back'
So now he had left me behind, and I was alone in Tokyo. I was going to meet with some friends that evening in Shinjuku to have dinner with. We went to a Chinese restaurant. There was my friend, and some of his friends I hadn't met before. While eating, I discretely told him about the messages Shin had sent me that day and explained what was going on. I thought perhaps he could help me explain Shin's unusual behavior. So my friend told me that Shin was worried about me, which is why he was so angry. He also said something about Shin being a 'special' person. But he added that I didn't need to worry about it, that it was going to be OK.
I then 'tried' to understand Shin's way of reasoning, and so I thought that it was going to be OK in the end, I thought that we could put this behind us once I got back to his appartment.
However, I was wrong, again. Once I got back was when the worst things happened.
I came back to his appartment, and pressed to bell beside the door. Nobody opened. I then wondered if he was doing this on purpose, because I knew that he had already gotten back from work. I called him, he picked up the phone and I asked why he didn't open the door. A few seconds later he opened up, and I asked why he didn't open the door the when I rang the bell the first time. He said he was wearing his ear phones and didn't hear the bell. I seriously doubted that, and thought that it was another one of his shenanigans.
I entered his appartment, and sat down on his couch. He was sitting on his bed, and I sat across from him in the room. There was only one light in the room that was lit, and it was the one right next to his bed. Other than that, the room was pretty dark, since it was probably past 11 pm.
I wanted to know once and for all why Shin was so upset about everything. Then I came to understand that he was angry over two things. The first one being my so-called 'bad' behavior at school (which let me remind you, he knew nothing of), and the second one, my behavior in the past few days since I was visiting. The second bit took me by surprise, I had absolutely no clue as to what I could possibly have done wrong in the past 3-4 days, but I was about to find out. Before he would speak up, though, he explained about the words I didn't understand in the mail he had sent me earlier that day. I said he could have not been a ***** and explained it to me so I could understand what he was talking about. But get this, he said 'this is Japan, we speak Japanese here. It's very strange if you speak English!'
Next thing I knew, he got up from his bed, grabbed something that looked like a teddy bear, walked to the middle of the room, raised his voice, and hysterically screamed 'iikagen ni shiro temee' while smashing the teddy bear as hard to the floor as he could. He went on and told me that he had already informed his mother and my former hostmother about what had happened to me at school. I asked him exactly how much he had told them, and he said 'I told them everything'. I didn't like that. Especially not since I knew my hostmother was ill, and she didn't need to know about this. But his sorry argument was that she was my 'second mother', which was true, but not that even my second mother needed to know everything I did.
He started explaining to me that he found my behavior towards his friends very insulting. I seemed to have forgotten to thank his friend for the ride he gave me when he picked me up at the station a couple of days before. That, and the fact that I hadn't talked to his friend in formal Japanese when I first met him. Indeed, I guess I had forgotten to thank him for the ride. My bad. The formal Japanese thing, I didn't use because his friend didn't use it to me either. To that, Shin answered 'that's because you didn't use it'
....
Next, he said that I also hadn't used polite Japanese to his friend I briefly met that day I came back from his university and Shin was getting ready to go to work. He continued saying that I also hadn't used polite Japanese to his senpai from work. He said that it was extremely surprising that I hadn't learned to speak polite Japanese to people I meet for the first time after having been in Japan for almost a year. The truth is, I knew darn well to speak to strangers using polite Japanese, and I've already had Japanese people speak to me in casual Japanese while I addressed them politely. But the main reason why I hadn't used polite Japanese to his friends was because I thought his friends were my friends, and there wasn't any real need to be so polite. I had also noticed how with some of my friends who would meet each other for the first time, one of them would speak polite Japanese, while the other one wouldn't, and it seemed to be OK. Maybe I should have spoken to all of them in polite Japanese from the beginning, especially Shin's senpai. However, I thought it was actually OK not to use polite Japanese to Shin's friend that accompanied him to work since he was younger than I was. I thought, if anything, he should have spoken polite Japanese to me, not the other way around.
Moving on, he said that Japanese people don't see me as a foreigner, but as Japanese person, which is exactly why he thought my behavior was so strange. And he said he had asked his senpai what he thought about me the next day he had gone to work. Shin asked
me 'you wanna know what he thinks about you? He thinks your behavior was very strange! He said 'nanda sono taido...', that's what he thinks about you'
Next thing that Shin brought up about my 'bad' behavior was the fact that he said I seemed to disregard other people's opinions. Whenever he said something, I would always contradict him and say that he was wrong, and that only my opinion mattered.
That made him mad.
Next he said that he didn't appreciate that evening we went to the supermarket together. He didn't like it when I just took the sake bottle from the shelves and put it into his cart. It made him feel as if he was going to have to pay for it. Furthermore, he didn't like it either when I told him not to drive too fast. He said that he was the driver, and he had a hard time already driving and holding on to one of the bags, so my comment was not appreciated. He also said that he wasn't driving faster than the speed limit, which was 30 km/hour.
Meanwhile, Shin had gotten himself something to drink. He also poured me a glass of rum coke and said 'rum coke, nome', and went back to his bed and sat down. He then lit a cigarette and smoked it while continueing the confrontation. I felt like I was some sort of criminal who had just committed a series of serious crimes and was being questioned by a police inspector, especially with the light shining behind him. That's the kind of atmosphere I was in. I'd also like to add that Shin kept speaking to me in a very hostile tone. My gut eeling told me he wanted to tear me down instead of pointing out my mistakes and try to help me.
Then he tried to link my behavior from the past few days with my absence at school. He was claiming that this was the product of my bad attitude. He then went on and told me that I had to tell him I'd finally gotten a change of mind. If I said I hadn't, he would beat me, because if words wouldn't make me understand, force would have to make me understand. I was terribly shocked when I heard that. Why on earth would he even think of hitting me? He continued by giving lectures on life and on what he does to be a good person, by talking and listening to people's opinions, reading books, attending debates, and respecting his superiors. All the stuff that I, according to his humble opinion, didn't do. He gave me compliments every now and then, saying how great I was, followed immediately by insults. I remember him calling me a brat for my unacceptable behavior.
His excuse for making it okay to insult me so badly was, and check this, because I was like
a brother to him. In his own words, 'kyoudai no you ni shinpai shiteru'.
After almost two hours of torture, he must have felt that I had had enough, and we went to bed. I thought to myself 'is THIS what Japanese culture is all about? Is THIS what Japanese people are really like? In that case, they're all monsters. All of them. They're absolutely insane and a very dangerous race, a threat to humanity. There's no excuse...'
The next morning, I got woke up, took a quick shower, got dressed, and we left the house.
I had asked him for some directions on how to get to Nihonbashi because I needed to get to the bank yet again, and he quickly looked up how to get there on his cellphone. I then thanked him for letting me stay at his place, and gave him a solid handshake. He told me that I shouldn't give hard handshakes to Japanese people. It's not considered very polite in Japan. I said I'd take note of that, and he started his motorcycle and headed off to class as I went my own way.
This entire experience is something that I will not forget. It's something that will probably stay with me for a long time to come. Looking back at all of this, I would like to express my own opinion on this matter.
First of all, I can say with certainty that I have lost every ounce of respect I've ever had for Shin. He literally treated me like dirt with all he put me through. My conclusion is that although some things that he said may have been true, the way he said it on, and the extent to which he complained, is what made me lose all my respect for him.
He kept going on about how wrong I was and how I should take him as an example, but look at him. He drinks alcohol every day, hardly ever studied (at least not from what I saw), smokes all the time, takes his motorcycle to school even though he's not supposed to and even though he could get to school for free by bus. All he ever did in his appartment was listen to music, watch videos on youtube, play his guitar, drink and smoke. And this guy is trying to lecture me? Give me break. Furthermore, I really did NOT appreciate the fact that he went on and told everybody about my so-called bad behavior at school. This was no one's business but mine, but that SOB spread the word around to everyone.
And then there's the bit where he said the Japanese people don't see me as a foreigner, well I can tell you that's probably THE biggest lie I've ever heard. Because we all know that Japanese people don't see us as one of them. Even those who have been living in Japan for years and speak Japanese to near fluency, even those are never really considered to be one of 'them'. So his comment that Japanese don't see me as a foreigner is total BS. All the other Japanese people I had met in Japan always kept on telling me that I didn't need to worry about Japanese customs too much because I was a foreigner. I would be forgiven for it most of the time.
On that matter, when I think about when he said that I disregarded others' opinions and only thought of my own opinions as the correct ones, well, just look at him again. Did he show any respect for my opinions? Did he value them or anything like that? No no no and no, he did not, he disregarded every single one of them. Everything I ever said was wiped off the table, as if my opinions had no value, only his. And what about when he said that in Japan you have to speak Japanese, well again, HE was the one who actually spoke English to me on several occasions. Like when we were walking to the bank in Shinjuku, he started talking to me in English because he thought I didn't understand him (which wasn't the case), and I thought man why is he speaking to me in English, that's weird. Also, he never ever contacted me since I left Japan 2 years ago. And yet he was going on about how much of a brother I was to him. That's sheer hypocrisy for you....
And about all the other things he complained about, at the supermarket, the sake bottle, his motorcycle, etc. is just beyond my comprehension. I don't know how this guy could live a normal life if all he could ever do is complain about every little thing he encounters. If I had to go through life like he did, I'd have committed suicide with all the things I'd complain and worry about.
I've often thought that there was something wrong with me after all he put me through, but reflecting back on everything, I refuse to believe that I was at fault. It's his fault, and he gives Japanese people a bad name, a very very bad name. Even now I'm still extremely angry at him for all of this. It's still very much beyond my comprehension how someone can just turn on you and become a complete inhumane monster. I never talked or heard from him since I left Japan.
This was one of my bad, if not the worst experience I've had in Japan. It goes far beyond anybody's belief of discrimination in Japan. Hypocrisy is the word, pure sheer hypocrisy, tyranny. I sincerely hope that no one ever has to go through what I've been through. But in case anyone ever experiences something similar, I'd like to give you a piece of advice: stand your ground, fight back. Don't just sit there and agree with a Japanese person that is treating you like this, because they're pure hypocrits, and they deserve to be contradicted all the more. And if they go as far as threatening to use violence on you, then you go ahead and get physical if you have to, because that's what they deserve.
As of now, I hope I never have to see him again. But if I ever do, I'll know how to salute him...
:13:
