Today, Monday, November 4, 1991 is a holiday here in Japan. It's also the final day of the three-day long Ohtawara Cultural Festival.
Today I'm in an emotional uproar as confusing thoughts race through my head. I'm not manic in a clinical sense, but I am feeling pissed off with the world.
I've been here in Ohtawara-shi, Tochigi-ken, Japan for 15 months to teach English to junior high kids... but I'm not internationalizing. I'm supposed to be hanging out more with the Japanese, and instead I find myself mooning over a bunch of dumbass foreigners who could give two flying figs about me. Why am I wasting my time?
And the Japanese... I'm their friend from another country... but they seem to know very little about Canada or my home life here in Japan, and don't seem to want to know more about me than my frivolous nature.
But at least the Japanese like me. And they do want to know about me.
I feel that just like last year, the AETs (assistant English teachers) on the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Programme have shut themselves off from the Japanese. With a few exceptions, they only seem to hang out with other foreigners.
Maybe I should shut myself off too... but from the other foreigners (with a few exceptions - like Matthew and Kristine).
Unplug the phone. Done. Quit being editor of the AET newsletter. Done. Don't be a joiner. Screw'em all! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! Let them do it all themselves! I don't care, I don't care, I don't care!!!!
No one understands how I feel right now. That snub at not being invited to those two AET parties this weekend just threw me back 10 or 11 years when I was always snubbed by the popular crowd back in high school. I'm not going back to that! I'd rather hide away than have it all fly back in my face again.
Maybe it's time to retreat and lick my wounds for a while and reinvent myself? I've done it before a few times, why not again?
People say that life as a teenager are supposed to be the 'best years of our life.' God, I hope not. I'm not really ready to go downhill just yet. I'm not yet 27-years-old!
No... maybe a step back... to find myself... to get ready for my return home to Toronto.
Man... do all these AETs think they are special because they are here? They sure sound special: "I'm going to graduate school when I leave here."
Why? So you can be more boring than you already are? Is that possible?
Well... says the emotionally tumultuous Andrew, now that you are in the correct frame of mind... let's go to the Ohtawara Cultural Festival.
I show up at 1PM - just in time to make a speech. Sure... what the hell... I've not prepared anything, but I feel talkative!
Martin, another foreigner from Quebec, but working through a local Ohtawara business exchange, goes first. His is on environmentalism - and he gives it in Japanese. He's effing amazing. I have no idea if his speech is any good, not knowing much Japanese, but the crowd gives him some very strong applause.
I still don't have a topic as I stand on the stage in front of the microphone.
Then it hits me! Talk about how I really feel today. Homesick. A stranger. Alone. Unable to read, write or speak Japanese. So I do.
I tell my captive audience how I really feel at this moment. How we all need to find our own true feelings for each other, and use that as a proper bridge for internationalization. It shouldn't be about the Japanese wanting or needing to be friends with the gaijin (foreigners) - it should be about wanting and needing to be friends with Andrew and Martin and Matthew. We're just people - just like you are to us. Just people.
(Yes, I purposely left out Ashley, my ex-girlfriend.)
As I finish speaking, my eyes begin to mist over with tears. I'm offered many hands to shake, but I don't even see from whom, as I'm in too much of a daze. Hunh. A standing ovation.
By jove old boy, you seemed to have crossed the line from assistant English teacher to a man who wants to internationalize! I think I touched my audience and myself. All in one fell swoop.
I slide my Rayban sunglasses onto my face before I cry, and walk out purposefully. It must have looked weird to everyone. Like I was being stand-offish.
I have this vision in my head of a cowboy riding off into the sunset at the end of a movie.
I continue to walk past everyone with my usual grin on my face - trying (successfully) not to drop a tear.
As I reach the exit of the festival at the old tobacco factory near my apartment, Mrs. Matsuda comes running up to me with some food and hugs me.
(Expletive! My eye's are misting over as I type this out 20 years later.)
Mrs. Matsuda understands, I think. God I hope they translated that correctly! She's just like my mom - which makes me feel better, but worse.
I go home, sneak out and rent some more movies. In the video store I see Ashley. She comes over and asks me how I'm doing.
I growl back "What difference does it make?"
She says: "If it didn't make a difference, I wouldn't have asked."
I hate her sometimes. Just not right now.
I go home and half-expect to see her waiting inside my place... but she's not.
Matthew, good old Matthew, comes over later. I explain my issues. He patiently listens and tells me to (rhymes with 'puck') all the AETs. And to not care what others think, as long as you think good things about yourself.
(Twenty years later, in some Otherland, I struggle with heeding his sage advice... but I am making progress. Thanks).
After Matthew leaves, Mrs. Ohno and Mrs. Matsuda come over and try, with that familial concern, to drag me out to the Festival party that's going on tonight.
I think I would like to go, but I'm feeling kind of fragile.
I think I just need to be alone right now.
Somewhere I feel like crying and do,
Andrew Joseph
Today's blog is by Yes.
Today I'm in an emotional uproar as confusing thoughts race through my head. I'm not manic in a clinical sense, but I am feeling pissed off with the world.
I've been here in Ohtawara-shi, Tochigi-ken, Japan for 15 months to teach English to junior high kids... but I'm not internationalizing. I'm supposed to be hanging out more with the Japanese, and instead I find myself mooning over a bunch of dumbass foreigners who could give two flying figs about me. Why am I wasting my time?
And the Japanese... I'm their friend from another country... but they seem to know very little about Canada or my home life here in Japan, and don't seem to want to know more about me than my frivolous nature.
But at least the Japanese like me. And they do want to know about me.
I feel that just like last year, the AETs (assistant English teachers) on the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Programme have shut themselves off from the Japanese. With a few exceptions, they only seem to hang out with other foreigners.
Maybe I should shut myself off too... but from the other foreigners (with a few exceptions - like Matthew and Kristine).
Unplug the phone. Done. Quit being editor of the AET newsletter. Done. Don't be a joiner. Screw'em all! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! Let them do it all themselves! I don't care, I don't care, I don't care!!!!
No one understands how I feel right now. That snub at not being invited to those two AET parties this weekend just threw me back 10 or 11 years when I was always snubbed by the popular crowd back in high school. I'm not going back to that! I'd rather hide away than have it all fly back in my face again.
Maybe it's time to retreat and lick my wounds for a while and reinvent myself? I've done it before a few times, why not again?
People say that life as a teenager are supposed to be the 'best years of our life.' God, I hope not. I'm not really ready to go downhill just yet. I'm not yet 27-years-old!
No... maybe a step back... to find myself... to get ready for my return home to Toronto.
Man... do all these AETs think they are special because they are here? They sure sound special: "I'm going to graduate school when I leave here."
Why? So you can be more boring than you already are? Is that possible?
Well... says the emotionally tumultuous Andrew, now that you are in the correct frame of mind... let's go to the Ohtawara Cultural Festival.
I show up at 1PM - just in time to make a speech. Sure... what the hell... I've not prepared anything, but I feel talkative!
Martin, another foreigner from Quebec, but working through a local Ohtawara business exchange, goes first. His is on environmentalism - and he gives it in Japanese. He's effing amazing. I have no idea if his speech is any good, not knowing much Japanese, but the crowd gives him some very strong applause.
I still don't have a topic as I stand on the stage in front of the microphone.
Then it hits me! Talk about how I really feel today. Homesick. A stranger. Alone. Unable to read, write or speak Japanese. So I do.
I tell my captive audience how I really feel at this moment. How we all need to find our own true feelings for each other, and use that as a proper bridge for internationalization. It shouldn't be about the Japanese wanting or needing to be friends with the gaijin (foreigners) - it should be about wanting and needing to be friends with Andrew and Martin and Matthew. We're just people - just like you are to us. Just people.
(Yes, I purposely left out Ashley, my ex-girlfriend.)
As I finish speaking, my eyes begin to mist over with tears. I'm offered many hands to shake, but I don't even see from whom, as I'm in too much of a daze. Hunh. A standing ovation.
By jove old boy, you seemed to have crossed the line from assistant English teacher to a man who wants to internationalize! I think I touched my audience and myself. All in one fell swoop.
I slide my Rayban sunglasses onto my face before I cry, and walk out purposefully. It must have looked weird to everyone. Like I was being stand-offish.
I have this vision in my head of a cowboy riding off into the sunset at the end of a movie.
I continue to walk past everyone with my usual grin on my face - trying (successfully) not to drop a tear.
As I reach the exit of the festival at the old tobacco factory near my apartment, Mrs. Matsuda comes running up to me with some food and hugs me.
(Expletive! My eye's are misting over as I type this out 20 years later.)
Mrs. Matsuda understands, I think. God I hope they translated that correctly! She's just like my mom - which makes me feel better, but worse.
I go home, sneak out and rent some more movies. In the video store I see Ashley. She comes over and asks me how I'm doing.
I growl back "What difference does it make?"
She says: "If it didn't make a difference, I wouldn't have asked."
I hate her sometimes. Just not right now.
I go home and half-expect to see her waiting inside my place... but she's not.
Matthew, good old Matthew, comes over later. I explain my issues. He patiently listens and tells me to (rhymes with 'puck') all the AETs. And to not care what others think, as long as you think good things about yourself.
(Twenty years later, in some Otherland, I struggle with heeding his sage advice... but I am making progress. Thanks).
After Matthew leaves, Mrs. Ohno and Mrs. Matsuda come over and try, with that familial concern, to drag me out to the Festival party that's going on tonight.
I think I would like to go, but I'm feeling kind of fragile.
I think I just need to be alone right now.
Somewhere I feel like crying and do,
Andrew Joseph
Today's blog is by Yes.
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