One Glass Eye

Fortunate One

I draw my fortune from my box of cowgirl quotes. Today’s fortune is:

“If you don’t cuss, learn how to shoot.”

I pick up my Hemingway and open it at random. This is the same thing as drawing my fortune. Hem is in the middle of relating a story. He is writing about a conversation he had with a Chinese general about another general, this one British. The Chinese general says that he will tell Hemingway a Chinese story, a new Chinese story, not an old Chinese story. Hemingway ga wakarimashita. Hemingway? He understands. The Chinese general says, “He [the British general] has one glass eye.” He asks Hemingway why the British general has one glass eye. Hemingway doesn’t know. The Chinese general explains, “He has one glass eye so that he doesn’t see more than he understands.”

Hemingway ga wakarimashita.

Watashi wa Nihon de tabun wakarimas’.

Of Japan, perhaps I understand:

We have a new teacher at The Kaisha school where I work. He is a tall Minnesotan who has been in Japan for three years and two years ago he (along with Ben-sama) was voted one of the three best-looking English teachers in Tokyo by An-an magazine.

Before he came, one of the exceedingly handsome Japanese teachers asked, “Is he good looking?” I replied, after seeing his picture, “He’s Western Guy In Japan handsome.” That is, no, he’s not handsome--but the women here will kill themselves to try to date him because every Western male in this country is a big ticket item to women here.

I explained that the new teacher is average in terms of looks. The Japanese male teachers asked about other teachers. I told them that the other male teachers from the West that I’ve come into contact with are average or below average in terms of their looks. I further explained that I’m average. Ellaine, the teacher I replaced, was above average. They asked about a teacher from another Kaisha school who had come out drinking with us one night. I didn’t quite go so far as to say (as I had to one of the male Japanese teachers who had been at the receiving end of her undivided attention) that she really fell more on the fat and ugly side of the attractiveness scale, but I did explain that she was below average. Way below average.

The male Japanese teachers that I work with are above average. I would put them, compared to all the men I’ve ever come into contact with, in the top five percent in terms of looks. One of them would fall into the top two percent.

The teachers to whom I was speaking--both male and female, but Japanese to a one--seemed sceptical until the former head teacher (who spent many years living in America) laughed and said, “You are being very honest!” Then they believed me.

Western men leave Japan thinking that they must be some kind of catch, when in reality, many of them would have not such an easy time getting dates in their home countries. Western women leave here, some of them, never having had a date--despite being beauties in their home countries. It’s an interesting dynamic, one that it takes practice and a kind of ruthlessness to navigate. What do I mean by ruthlessness?

I’ve written before about many women here being very childlike. Honestly, I know that that is a very ethnocentric opinion. It happens that there are childlike women in the States too, but they are further and far between. And I don’t mean by childlike women those riot grrlz who carry Hello Kitty handbags out of some sense of irony or desire to reclaim girlhood (or grrlhood) as a concept. No, when I say that there are childlike American women, I am talking about those American women who speak in high squeaky voices and who dress like streetwalkers in a lot of pink and who pile on the lipgloss and who are often assumed to be not very bright by most of the people who they come into contact with. Those American women are really Japanese.

The interesting thing to me is that the smart Japanese women here also have trouble getting dates. Many of them end up in relationships with married men or with men who one shouldn’t, anywhere on the planet, give the time of day to. These are the guys who say they’re going to call and then don’t and then make weird excuses later. These are the guys who clam up quick when you ask them what they did on the weekend. (And you can just move along to your next question, “Oh, so how is your girlfriend these days?”)

One woman in one of my classes said to me that I would have no trouble here. We were talking about getting dates. I said to her, “I’ve been here four months...” and she said, understanding, “Ah.”

Don’t get me wrong. There has been interest. The handsome married businessman has had some competition, I mean--but mostly from other married businessmen. A few young ones circle too, but--ah, chigao--twenty-three or even a few years older than twenty-three and I am pricked by my conscience.