Beth Matuska - Gaijin Girl: More Stories

Gaijin Girl:

More Stories of a Curly-Haired Sensei

By Beth Matuska

2017 Beth Matuska

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For my new sister-in-law and my three nephews: welcome to the family! And for my brother as well, just because.

Introduction

Not long after I graduated from university, I was looking for a little direction in my life. I was wondering what would come next, now that I was entering into the real world. That was when an old teacher I happened to run into suggested looking into teaching in Japan. About six months later, I was on a plane and headed off to a whole new life.

Just like the average person, I had my fair share of ups and downs while in Japan, though I always thought that the ups far outnumbered the downs. I made a lot of friends and had a lot of wonderful experiences that I still treasure to this day. I explored, got myself into and out of trouble, and ate a lot of totally different food. In the end, I think it was the people, more than anything else, that brought me back for a second stay, bringing my total number of years in Japan up to eight.

Following up my previous collection of short stories, Gaijin Girl: Stories of a Curly-Haired Sensei, I'd like to share several other stories and recollections that linger on even though I have returned to the United States. It is not necessary to have read the first book to enjoy or understand this one, but it would be appreciated! As usual, I would like to say that I am not always a linear thinker and have arranged stories thematically, rather than chronologically, as that has a better feel for me. I hope you enjoy this book, and as always, please feel free to let me know what you think. I always read reviews left for me! With that being said, let's get started.

A Kind Stranger

During my time in Japan, I found that people were consistently kind and thoughtful, even to strangers. Perhaps especially to foreign strangers, who tend to be more frequently lost and confused. When you are not used to a place, things happen that make it difficult to get around, and frequently you end up stuck or in trouble.

Less than a month into my first stay in Japan, I got caught out in the rainy season. It was so unexpected, I wasn't ready at all for it. That day, it rained. More accurately, it RAINED. I was caught out before work with no umbrella, and no idea that the downpour was even coming. It was like someone had turned on a faucet. Of course, with a typhoon having recently come through, I should have expected it.

That day, I was visiting a local stationery store on my way to work. Coming out of the store, I was confronted with the downpour, and no way to keep dry. I was going to have to go to work drenched head to toe. But then, in front of the store, a woman did one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for me- she GAVE me her umbrella. She didn't speak a word of English, but she was still very clear. She had gotten to work, didn't need her umbrella and saw that I didn't have one. So she loaned me hers. I am fairly certain she knew where I worked- I was a foreigner and about five minutes from Saty, a large supermarket/shopping mall chain, so she would have have no worries about getting it back.

During my lunch break, I bought myself an umbrella and returned hers. I didn't want her caught without one, not as a result of her generosity. I bowed to her and used my limited vocabulary to thank her. Simple acts of kindness like hers made the town I was living in feel so welcoming and homelike.

Food and Cravings

Food has always been a big part of my life, having taken cooking classes from a young age. Food is very...centering. You know a lot about who and where you are by the food around you. It may sound strange, but for me, it's true. And food was something that continued to surprise me throughout my time in Japan, both what was there and what was not. From the things that were familiar, to things I had never even thought of.

Food packaging frequently threw me off during my time in Japan. So many things APPEARED to be the same, only to turn out to be completely different inside. It could turn the simplest shopping trip into an adventure. The very first time I went to buy milk was no exception.

It was just an average day, and an average purchase. A carton of milk. Nothing could be simpler than that, right? I went to the supermarket, found the refrigerated shelves with the drinks and there they were: the ubiquitous paper milk cartons! Simple, white, universal. Right? Well...no.

To be sure, I hadn't had much experience with reading Japanese at that point, so I was relying on design and color. I chose a reasonably-priced white carton, simple in design, with no pictures of fruit on it, so I knew that it wasn't juice. Well, at least I got that part right.

When I wake up in the mornings, I mostly resemble a zombie until I get my first cup of coffee in me. I have to have it. I can function on autopilot until then, but beyond the basics, no one's home. So that next morning, I put on the coffee pot, waited for it to percolate, and breathed in that smell of fresh NEW coffee. Of course, I was still going to smooth it out with milk and sugar; without them, coffee just didn't deliver on the promise it made with its smell. I poured my first cup, one spoon of sugar, a good splash of milk....HORRIBLE! Though certainly not juice, what I had just poured into my coffee was NOT in fact milk. Unfortunately for me, there are many products that are sold in paper cartons, and this one just happened to be liquid yogurt!. There are no words for what THAT tasted like mixed into coffee. I learned a valuable lesson that day: be careful with labels, as things aren't always what they seem. Sadly, it was a lesson I was doomed to repeat, though always with different products. Sweet bean drink when you are expecting hot chocolate is not the most fun thing either, and even worse is a fish egg and cheese doughnut. If there is anything to be learned from this it would be to always read the labels. Always. And if you can't read them, use Google Translate or even ASK. You'll save yourself time, money and stomach pain.

Soup. Soup...in a can. Soup...in a can...from a VENDING MACHINE! It sounds so wrong but it was oh so right! Why? Because on a cold winter day, standing on the train platform, there was nothing better than chugging down a nice hot can of soup. One thing that always amazed me about Japan was the variety of items found in the vending machines, but particularly the fact that most drink machines offered hot selections during the winter season. That was something that I had never experienced before coming to Japan. I was so excited to see all of the choices and no matter how good (or bad), I had to try it at least once.

The first one I found was corn soup. Now, most people, myself included, like corn. It's tasty, especially on the cob with butter. But in a soup? Well, for me that wasn't something I could really deal with. The one that I chose looked to be the simplest, plain corn, which might have been the problem. It tasted like canned corn, only slightly thicker with more liquid. I would have been better off with the fire-roasted corn and cheese soup I spotted in a machine a few weeks later. But by then it was too late. I was already dead set against trying any more corn soup.