Beth Matuska - Gaijin Girl: Stories of a Curly-Haired Sensei

Gaijin Girl

Stories of a Curly-Haired Sensei

Beth Matuska

2017 Beth Matuska

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Foreword

Let me start out by saying that when it comes to Japan, I am no expert. I haven't done much in-depth study of its history, and my ability to use the language often provided a great deal of laughter for those involved. In other words, I was just a regular person trying to make my way through life in Japan without having too much of a clue as to what I was doing. But, along the way, I experienced so much, learned so much that cannot be found by taking a week or two vacation in Tokyo. To really FEEL Japan, you have to live it. I would like to share some of my experience being a gaijin in Japan.

Why Japan? That was the question most often asked of me when I went. What drew me to a little country so far from home? In truth, this is the most common question foreigners who live abroad in Japan are asked, perhaps second only to do you have a boy/girlfriend? And in truth, there are so many reasons that it is impossible to choose just one.

So why DID I choose Japan? Well, to begin with, I wanted to see a different part of the world, experience new things, and perhaps see things through a different perspective. While I, like most people out there, enjoyed the familiarity of my home in the U.S., familiarity can lead to a lack of appreciation, and I needed a break.

Safety was also a consideration. Having lived in small towns and cities all my life, the idea of being alone in a non-English speaking country was somewhat daunting. Nothing makes you feel more insecure than not knowing how to deal with an emergency in a country where you don't speak the language. The reputation Japan has garnered for safety and security was well-deserved. Rarely did I ever feel unsafe, and I was able to deal with any trouble fairly easily.

Not all of my reasons were are philosophical, though, as I will admit that the opportunity to have a vacation in Japan at almost any time I wanted appealed greatly to me. When you grow up in a lower-income household, the idea of world travel is something that happens to other people, not you. Being able to casually take a weekend in Kyoto, fly down for the holidays to Okinawa, or just relax at an izakaya (bar) after work was the ultimate mix of budget vacationing and exotic holiday.

Now that we have covered the reason why I went, we should look at the reason why I STAYED. In a word, the people. No matter where I went, or how well I was able to communicate, the people were open and helpful, welcoming and cheerful. If I was struggling, someone would stop and help me. If I looked lost, the same. And if I was walking in the rural countryside, I could almost count on a kind stranger to stop and offer me a ride. Any effort I made to use Japanese was praised, though I know how terrible I was at it. I truly felt like I was part of the community, In a large part, the people were a large factor in my decision to return to Japan for a second time.

In this book, I would like to share with you some of my experiences from the eight years I spent in Japan. As I am not the most linear of thinkers, I will be sharing stories thematically, rather than chronologically. I hope you enjoy reading about my experiences as much as I did living them. Thank you!

Arrival and Mistakes

To start with, I spent around eight years in Japan, broken up into two stays, the first of which was just over two years long. The first time I went to Japan, I was clueless. I knew practically nothing about the country I was going to be living in. I had a total of two weeks basic Japanese instruction, but being able to say Anata no kuruma wa kakui desu- your car is cool- wasn't going to help me much. And as for reading the language, well, considering that there are three alphabets, and I only had about half of the hiragana characters memorized, I wasn't exactly able to read a menu.

Upon entering Japan for the first time, I was so jet-lagged that, to this day, I have little recall of my first evening in Japan or how I got to the hotel. To get there cheaply, I took a long route- driving from my house in Idaho to Spokane, Washington- 2 hours- then a flight to Seattle- 1 hour- and a 12-hour layover followed by a 2-hour flight to L.A., a 5-hour layover, and finally, a 12-hour flight to Osaka. On top of that, going back to my aforementioned lack of reading skills, I was very thirsty when I got to the hotel, so went to the vending machine. Unfortunately, while the beer was labeled in English, nothing else was. So, going by the pictures, I chose what I thought was lemonade. This turned out not to be the case. Unfortunately, 4% alcohol Chu-Hi was the last thing I needed or even remembered that night. Lesson learned: If there is beer in the machine, everything else is alcohol too! Find another machine.

The next day, I took the train to my new home- Sunny Heights Apartment in Ono, a really small town. My first impression of the place was cemented by the sight of my neighbor across the way- sitting at a sink in the alley, gutting an octopus. The houses all around were sided in tin and crammed so close together that you couldn't walk between them, and the only roads to the place were alleys. Just two buildings down from me was a giant warehouse. This warehouse had seen better days, and, in fact, did not appear to have been in use for a long time. Rust streaked down the metal siding like bloody tears, windows were dusty and cracked, and should you peek inside, you you find a dark and gloomy space, filled with rusty chains. All-in-all, the place would have been perfect for the scene of a cheap horror movie.

Not everything in the area was dark and gloomy. Nearby, there were shops filled with friendly people, little restaurants and even a temple. It was at the restaurant that my lack of Japanese came into play once more. My new roommate and I decided to go out for a snack, and I remembered having seen a small restaurant down the street. The big clue as to it being a restaurant was the door curtain and multitude of crab shells on display outside. The restaurant was tiny, with small tables and a tatami (woven straw) floor. Unfortunately, there were hints that we weren't in the right kind of place- no plastic food outside and no picture menu. Instead, there were boards on the wall with kanji, and that was all. To complicate matters, no one spoke English. All of these were signs that the restaurant was going to be out of our price range and ability to order.

In an effort to get something that was small and not too unusual, I attempted to ask for tempura- one of the few things I knew how to say at the time. Unfortunately, the server asked a few questions, and I must have nodded at the wrong moment. In addition to the large platter of tempura, we were served large plates of sashimi, including a large raw sea snail. It wasn't quite what I wanted, and the snail was just too adventurous for me at the time.

Later, two men joined us at our table- and older man and his son. They wanted to practice their English, and insisted on paying for our meal. This was a good thing, as it turned out to be very expensive. They invited us to go out with them for either one drink or karaoke. It was a bit strange, but the restaurant owner vouched for him, being a good friend of his. So, we ended up in a small bar with them, meeting a lot of people we never actually saw again. Still, a nice night.