I Am Still Me (And I Am Still Grateful)

One of my favorite quotes is from Lily Tomlin, who said, “No matter how cynical you get, you can never keep up.”

Here is an entry designed to let you know that I am, after six months in a country where cynicism has yet to gain a foothold in the general population, still me. I’m still me over here.

Out With The Old, Take One

In Japan, the New Year means cleaning. On the first day back at work, everyone cleans. The manager sweeps and the head teacher vacuums. The assistant manager wipes off all the tables and organizes the prep table that we all share. New Guy takes out the trash. I clean the white boards and clean up around the refrigerator and organize the shelves both the shelves in the back room and the shelves of magazines in the lobby. On top of one of the shelves in the back room, I find a box of business cards. They are near the interview sheets in the back room and not up front at the counter because we are supposed to present new students with our business cards after we interview them. These cards read Ben_____ ______.

That’s right, these are Ben’s business cards, a whole box of them.

I know that if anyone sees me holding anything unfamiliar, that it will invite some attention. I know that if anyone sees that I am holding Ben's business cards, that this will provoke some kind of extended nostalgia about Ben that I will have to participate in. I miss Ben, sure, but I'm just not the person who wants to stand around reminscing about the good old days (last month) when Ben was still here and we all were having such fun, weren't we? Weren't we all just having the best time? Don't you miss Ben? I sure do. Do you remember the time Ben--? And, yeah, Ben was great, wasn't he? He was such fun! It's just not the same without Ben around, is it? I sure miss Ben, don't you?

I am standing there holding the box of business cards when someone opens the door to the back room. My first instinct is to hide the business cards, but then I see that the person who's opened the door is the New Guy. New Guy comes into the room and I show him the box of cards and I do this kind of "Awww..." over them. Then, as he watches, I dump the whole box in the trash without showing them anyone else. He looks surprised.

“Out with the old,” I say, letting the trash can lid fall.

Out With The Old, Take Two

New Guy replaced Ben, a much beloved foreign teacher. I replaced Ellaine, who was also much beloved, but who only spent 6 months at The Kaisha branch where I work. Ellaine was an “emergency” (read: substitute) teacher because the teacher before, Tannaya (I’m sure I’m not spelling that right). broke her contract and ran after six months. (It took me a long time to get that story out of anyone, let me tell you.) Tannaya replaced Paige, who was, in terms of popularity, on the Ben side of things.

Paige was very popular and much loved teacher. I’ve gotten the feeling from students and from Ben that Paige was very touchy-feely, very outgoing, and had a very “I totally understand where you’re coming from” vibe. Because Paige was this way, I think students expect me to be this way and that expectation is not alleviated in the least by the fact that many students think that Paige and I look alike. (In fact, don’t laugh, but to many Japanese, we all look a bit alike.) The point is, I am often compared to Paige. And I’ll tell you, when it happens, I am very Japanese about the whole thing. That is, I smile very politely.

Teddy Who?

We are walking through Shimbashi, the Ex-Student and I, and we come across one of those make-your-own-teddy-bear operations, those mall businesses where you choose the unstuffed bear and they stuff it for you and sew it up and then you choose some cutesy clothes for the bear and they dress it up and then you take your little Frankenstein bear home to love.

I point to the display window and comment to the Ex-Student, “Oh, I want one of those.”

He says, “I don’t think so.” I ask why not and he says, “It’s not your taste.”

Paige

I’ve spoken to Paige.

After leaving Tokyo, Paige went on the Peace Boat, one of those operations meant to foster some kind of international good will. The Peace Boat takes a lot of do-gooders like Paige and it puts them on a boat where they sing songs and teach English and perform skits for one another and...what else? Um. Well, anyway, they foster international good will. I’m all for that. International good will is not necessarily a bad thing. But--and this is kind of a big but--operations like the Peace Boat foster this good will by sequestering people like Paige on a ship in the middle of the ocean (which, now that I think about it, may not necessarily be such a bad thing either), and I’m not sure how much good will a bunch of do-gooders can do on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic, you know? (Ah, probably more than they would be doing on land, now that I think about it.)

After leaving the Peace Boat, Paige went on to graduate school in Italy, where she’s getting a degree in business administration so that she can work for an NGO. That’s great, I think. That’s great. I want to help the poor and downtrodden too--which is why, just like Paige did before me, I teach English in the richest neighborhood of one of the richest cities in one of the riches countries in the world. See? I’m just like Paige. She did the same thing, too.

So, the point of my story was that I’ve talked to Paige. Paige was drunk somewhere in Italy and she called Ben and I was standing next to Ben and he handed me the phone. I’m all about a phone conversation with a total stranger, so I took the phone (Seth refused) and I talked to Paige.

Paige was Pollyanna, all glad voice and, oh, my god, I’m so incredibly happy to talk to you American California girl sunny and isn’t everything perfect and isn’t it great how we’ve never met and already we’re such close friends?

And it was like looking in a mirror. Because that’s me, right there. That’s my vibe. I can understand why people think I’m going to be just like Paige.

Tannaya

In fact, I’m probably more like Tannaya.

The five-year-old and I are standing on the balcony, smoking. I bring up Tannaya. I want to know what happened to Tannaya after six months (or during that six months) that she decided to break contract and run. So I bring up Tannaya.

The five-year-old does that thing, that thing that she does when she doesn’t really want to say something. At the time, I had been at The Kaisha long enough to know that the five-year-old, given enough lead, will hang herself. She’ll tell, and she’ll not always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but she always tells lies in such a way that it’s easy to extract the truth from them.

She inhales through her teeth, a kind of shushing sound that means that something is difficult. Then she tells me that Tannaya was quiet, she didn’t really talk to other people, she kept to herself and didn’t socialize and the students didn’t like her very much.

I nod as though I understand how difficult it must have been working with Tannaya, and the five-year-old is glad that I understand.

But that understanding is my lie. I understand that Tannaya was unhappy and I understand why. I understand the popularity contest that one has to play when education is a business, and that that popularity contest can be wearing on people who might otherwise make great teachers.

Later, I find out that Tannaya was very intelligent, had a degree from Wellseley, had studied Japanese and Chinese, and--wait for it--was African-American. And let me tell you, you don’t see too many African-Americans in these parts. The students are very shy about foreigners (only about one fourth of the students at the Kaisha choose to study English with native English speakers), and they seem to be most comfortable with white and white-ish faces. Why? My theory is that those faces are most familiar to them from the media and from advertising, and African-American faces are very unfamiliar and very different and therefore threatening.

So Tannaya was African-American, and I wasn’t told that, I only found that out on my own about a month ago, as I was looking through some books of photographs in the lobby of Paige’s going-away party. There was Paige, all happy smiles and bright future there was Tannaya right next to her, probably thinking (as I was on my first day), oh, my god, what have I gotten myself into?

Black Face

We are on the train to Okayama, the Ex-Student and I, and I am telling him about Ellaine, the drop-dead gorgeous teacher that I replaced. He wants to know who she looked like. “Julia Roberts?” he asks.

Let me explain that. In Japan, foreigners are so rare that they are often compared to actors and actresses from the West. You might think that’s funny, but I’ll tell you that I’ve been compared to Jennifer Lopez and Catherine Zeta Jones. In the West, that would be some kind of stretch, but in Japan--even in a city like Tokyo, where one would expect the population to be a bit more sophisticated than, say, in Sendai--making the leap from average Western chick to glamourous movie star is not making a leap at all. In fact, the Ex-Student was once shocked when I told him that, no, where I am from I am average looking.

The Ex-Student continues, “I only know Julia Roberts.”

I laugh and begin to list actresses that he might know, but they are all, in my mind, wildly different. “Reese Witherspoon?” I say. “Um, Sandra Bullock? Halle Berry?”

He stops me. “Halle Berry is black,” he says.

Yeah, I say. I am curious, so I ask, “What do you think about black women?”

He says, “I think they’re sexy.”

I am surprised. “Really?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, “like animals. They’re like animals.”

In Her Own Words

I am cleaning up and in the lobby I find a book of articles from some California newspaper. They turn out to be a collection of fun little articles that Paige thought the students might like. In the same book are several emailed missives from Paige’s nine-months on the Peace Boat. These artifacts have been assembled (by Ben I’m guessing from the handwriting on the cover) with a happy note that they are from Paige and that students should read them if they are interested.

The album was a year old, so I went through and tossed out all the articles and pulled out Paige’s emails. I put the empty album in the back room where the reusable office supplies are put, and I put Paige’s emails in my bag to bring home to read.

Ah. There was, I'll admit, a bit of jealousy mixed with my curiosity. I mean, I'm the tokyorosa in this picture, you know? And I was curious about how skilled a writer Paige was. I was curious in the way Hemingway was curious about the old Russian heavy hitters. By that, I mean, Hemingway used to compare his skills to the skills of the Russians (Tolstoy, Dostoyevski) using boxing metaphors. He wrote that his goal was to build up his skills to the point where he could go a few rounds with each of them---and win. And later, he wrote that he had done it.

He had few illusions, Hemingway. And that is partly the result of a kind of clarity of self that comes from battling demons, from climbing into the ring with one's own demons and testing one's courage against them. He had few illusions and that is a hard way to live, but I want to live the same way. And to that end, I battle demons. I brought home Paige's articles, and I put on my boxing gloves, and I stepped into the ring.

I Shouldn't Even Have To Say It

Let me tell you, I didn't need a full round--and even the gloves were a bit of overkill. Because Paige is a good writer. She is a good writer, but I am a better writer.

I am a better writer than she is.

Demons Derailed

I had been going to pick out a few quotes to try to illustrate Paige’s personality, but suddenly I am tired. This kind of cynicism is hard work, you know.

I am glad that there are people like Paige on this planet, glad for people whose earnestness is the most modern thing we have akin to purity. If there were still unicorns on this planet, there would be Paige sitting in some forrest (in the paisley velvet empire-waist gown she found in some back-street secondhand shop in Milan, her long dark hair held back with some cool bit of fabric she bought at some market in Nepal) a white, uni-horned beast resting his head in her lap.

Ah, I really am tired, and, ah, it really is hard to stop being cynical.

She is a happy person and I am not a happy person and she has her demons, and I have mine. One of my demons (admittedly a minor one) is that I am not Paige. I am The Demon Who Is Not Paige.

And I am glad and grateful, too. I am grateful to the universe for who and what I am, and grateful to the universe that there are people like Paige. I am grateful to Tannaya, grateful to the Ex-Student, grateful to Ben and the New Guy and Ellaine and the five-year-old. I am grateful for the new year, grateful for the opportunity to begin again. I am grateful that I have this time in Tokyo, grateful to be In Japan, grateful for a clarity of vision about myself that is the result of a long commitment to battling demons. I am grateful for cynicism and grateful for a dizzying lack of cynicism. I am grateful.

Tokyo is cold tonight, you all. But that is only incidental.