Heaven and Hell

Going into ¾ of my journey in Japan, I feel like I am petted by unbelievable hospitality of Japan but at the same time, am squeezed by solitude that verges mental torture. There were few incidents that hit me particularly hard in the last month:

1. There was a class that I took this semester of which I was the only non-Japanese student but it was supposed to be taught in English. The last class was rescheduled number of times and the class location also changed. Since I mis-read the announcement, I was late to the class by 20 mins. As I was looking for the classroom, I heard the professor talking behind the door and he was lecturing in Japanese. I froze at that moment and my heart sank. Knowing that if I were to step in the professor would have to revert to English instructions, I did not push the door and instead, walked straight into the bathroom. Many thoughts blazed through but a Japanese word flowed onto my head and wouldn't leave:  "邪魔"(a bother). I was the 邪魔 to the class. Should I just go home and not be the intruder that I hated even though I really wanted to attend the lecture? Or should I interrupt in the middle and had the professor lectured in English instead? In that mere 3 minutes in the bathroom, a gust of resentment got the best of me even though I was not sure whether it was directing to Japan or myself. I asked myself what I was doing there and why did I put myself into situation like this. Finally, I decided to go home. Yet, as I was about to leave, another Japanese student who was also late was about to enter the class and spotted me, so I tagged in from behind. The professor saw me, halted less than a second and immediately changed to English. I stole a glance from the student sitting across me – he gave me a funny look and I pretended that I did not know what was that about.

A little take-away offered by the local middle school students

2. I joined the school's ski tour a week back and had a wonderful time. The school's ski club members and OB were the host of the event and man, they really took care of us. From rental ski-wear to drinking snacks, shower arrangement to party entertainment, they arranged everything and we did not even have to inch our fingers. All we needed to do was to show up and have fun. I had some good talks with the OBs over sake and in times like this, I am skilled in playing the role of a foreigner to bring out interesting talks. We also stopped by to a local middle school on our way back and had a little interaction session with the students there. They were very shy, very reluctant to speak English but were pure like a piece of white paper. A girl asked me which Japanese singer I like most and I said, "Shiina Ringo, what about you?" ,"Arashi", she replied. It got me thinking how the mainstream entertainment industry shaped the likes of young children and these idol groups should indeed carry more social responsibilities.

3. Yesterday night I had the worst experience that tainted my 1.5 year stay in Japan. Around 9pm, alone on my way home from a school event, I was about to climb the stairs to get to the overhead, then from a dark corner, a guy with a wrestling mark emerged and stood only one body apart from me. I think he was only wearing some women' underwear and he looked into my eyes while playing with his stick. His eyes seemed rather innocent and revealed that he may be in his early 30s. Not knowing how to react, I merely frowned and hurried my steps. I wanted to yell at him but I could not utter a sound at that very moment. Half way on the stairs, I looked back and he was still there, swinging his thing and seemed rather pleased with himself. Hurried further, I looked back a few times and was very relieved that he did not follow, noting things could have been much worse. It was traumatizing. I still felt a little bit frightened this morning when i got up this morning. I don't know, this kind of craziness is different from those I saw in Berkeley/SF and it was the first time I sensed real danger. I suddenly want an accompany.