Grumpy Gaijin

Anyone who has ever lived in Japan and whose face is not Asian has experienced the familiar cry of "Gaijin," literally, outside person. This is not a post about some 6 year-old pointing a finger at me and crying out that word. Though, god knows, I've had enough times where that has happened. No, this post is about being a discontented outside person.

I teach two classes of 3 to 6 year olds every Friday afternoon. I spend 2 to 3 hours prepping for these classes. I make decent money, but it's not my life's calling. For the last two weeks, my student numbers have been dropping. Some of it is sickness, some of it is new interests. I combined my two classes into one so I could actually earn my per class rate. Now, the moms who help me organize it are saying that one class is going to be the norm. Considering that I never really wanted to teach preschoolers, I'm at the point where I want to quit. So, I'm grumpy.

It's these kinds of stupid everyday, "how many people will the resident alien alienate?" problems that make my head hurt. I already have another English teaching job lined up for Tuesday nights, so it's not like I need the money. It's just that I know that half the moms will apologize to me for their kids not showing up and the other half will dismiss the effort that I put into this in the first place.

And all of this just underscores how little I actually use my brain in this country. Or for that matter, how marginalized women are in this country. Most of the moms of my 5yo son's classmates work in low-paying jobs as sales clerks, drink yogurt sales, or as office temps. Women are always amazed that I used to be a computer programmer. The bar is set very low in Japan, but especially in my own Southern paradise of Hikari.

I need to leave here in another 30 minutes to go teach my one class. My heart is not in it. I do not want to go. I just want to eat cookies, read people.com, weep, and lash myself for the underachieving outsider that I am. Instead, I will play games, read books, sing songs and put on the Alex dog and pony show.

My dishwasher

I got a dishwasher last week. A bonafide, under-the-counter, overpriced, undersized drawer-type dishwasher. We paid more for the dishwasher than we paid for our one-way tickets to Japan, for all four of us.

It was almost a joke. How many Japanese does it take to install a dishwasher? Apparently, four. It was the electrician and his helper, along with the plumber and the contractor who set it all up. And while I appreciate my sparkly clean dishes, I can't help but think that the butt-cleavage Sears installer would have done it for way less. And as my loving husband reminded me, this isn't Seattle.

Alas, my Japanese dishwasher falls prey to the same problems that many Japanese fall prey to: a confusion about what to do with large foreign things. My 11" dinner plates fit in, but then you can't use the area next to it for salad plates or small bowls. My American-sized, Japanese-designed, made in Malaysia coffee mugs fit on the small top rack, but there is no way that 12 drinking vessels will fit if I use them.

So every night, I play a game of "Will it fit?" And every night, I attempt to make my combination of Japanese and American tableware fit harmoniously into one small-drawer type dishwasher. And I wind up washing a few odd pieces by hand. I kind of empathize with those few odd pieces.

Art or torment...

My 5yo saw a picture in the local free advertising rag showing a silver-plated jungle gym at the Shuunan Art Museum. He wanted to go. Not being the best reader of Japanese, I told him I thought it was art, but we'd ask Daddy when he got home. Well, Daddy read the article and not only is it ART, but it's small art, the size of a pizza box.

Have you ever tried to reason with a 5yo who is filled with disappointment? I tried humor, "Hey, we'll shrink you to two inches tall and you'll be the perfect size." I tried empathy, "Gosh, it's really a bummer that the cool looking playground is really just some twisted artist's way of tormenting small children."

In the end, my son took the article and ripped it up into confetti sized pieces. In the process, he also destroyed the article about the fire station festival in the next town over. And the ads for beauty clinics and laser skin resurfacing. And where to pawn your silver, gold or platinum. I guess if you are an artist and want to stir your viewer's emotions, you'd count this as a success. Otherwise, it's just another lesson in "things ain't always what they seem."

Happy Moo Year

It's 2009 and the New Year's postcards have been delivered and, once again, I've managed to not send out a single one. Damn. I was so looking forward to sending out a cow-themed, year of the cow, postcard to all of my friends. Alas, the picture postcard website I was using refused to display the text that I input. So, no postcards. No Christmas cards either. Zero for two on holiday correspondence.

So Happy New Year! I resolve to write more, eat fewer bean paste sweets, and maybe get the rest of our moving boxes from 2007 unpacked.