Fitting in

I'm in the writing mood, so you guys get a 2 for 1 bonus! Maybe it is the trance.....note to self, more trance!

So I've been in this country for a long time now, and I would say I am still very far from being an expert on Japan and such, but would also like to think that kinda know my way around Japanese society and such. So the question I want to raise is, how much do you change yourself to fit into a society? How much should I change myself, my habits, and my routine so that I fit into Japanese society. I have to say right now, that in my opinion, no matter what I do I would never be considered a Japanese. Even if I lived here for the rest of my life, naturalized, became fluent, none of that would matter to the Japanese people.

That being said, I have taken some steps to do what I can to fit in. Obviously I don't run around, acting like a fool, trying to get in to trouble, but at the same time some of my patience has been wearing thin recently. One of the things that is starting to aggravate me is having to take off my shoes in lots of different places. When I go to the gym, I have to take off my shoes to walk around inside. At lots of restaurants and stores, you might have to take off your shoes. Now I don't object to this at all when it comes to houses, but honestly, at a restaurant or at the gym, it is pretty ridiculous, especially considering the fact that I've seen some Japanese people NOT obey this rule.

For example, today at the gym, a kid took off his shoes at the entrance way, and instead of....standing on his shoes he just took off, stepping up, on to the level where you can only have sox on, and then picking up his shoes and putting them in a locker, he took his shoes off, stepped to the side, picked them up and put them in a locker (remember at this point he is standing on the same level where you walk with your shoes not your sox) and then proceeded to step up onto the level where you can only wear your socks! So the bottom of his socks touched the same place as the bottom of his shoes!! Isn't he supposed to burn for eternity and his offspring have bad luck for 10,000 years or something? I mean come on, it honestly makes no sense.

The gym...ALL parts of it, not just the place where you can walk with your shoes, is...incredibly dirty. I am really sure no one cleans anything in any of these places, and that is also starting to kind of get on my nerves. In the class rooms, you put your backpack down, grab the stuff you need for class, then class ends and you grab your backpack again, only to find that whichever parts of it touched the ground are now covered in dirt, dust, and grime. Restaurants aren't that dirty, but I still feel uncomfortable having to take off my shoes, that combined with the whole tatami sitting style, where you sit on the ground to eat. It is kind of fun the first 5 times you do it until you realize that it is incredibly uncomfortable to be in that position for longer than 30 minutes.

I'm also getting sick of the foreigner look. I know I am big, and sort of goofy looking, and look like I am angry sometimes, but honestly, some of the looks I get are just disturbing which is surprising because Japanese people try to avoid like, direct eye contact and staring, unless you are ancient, in which case you can just frown and do whatever you want at foreigners. Yeah, that's right, old Japanese women give me the dirtiest looks in the world. Sometimes I want to tell them their shoe is untied or something funny like that when they stare at me for an especially long time, just to try to distract them or something. I mean honestly I am not all that interesting, just buzz off. I guess I should be used to it by now, but on the flip side, can they really be that shallow that they dislike foreigners that much? I mean their entire economy is based on foreign countries buying their goods. They should be thankful I have come to their country and might some day work to better the connection between America and Japan.

This specific topic actually, has been raised by experts who have cited cases where companies have basically said F Japan, they are too unwilling to change and too stubborn and rooted in their old ways, and taken their business to other countries, say for example China. I don't blame them, honestly. In some of the places I have been there has definitely been simply an aura of dislike towards me, and I wouldn't want to do business in that kind of environment.

In the fall I went to a school in a rural area and spent the day with school children in the 8th grade, and it was a lot of fun. I might have another opportunity like that coming up again, but I had a sort of strange thought, possibly one that only I would have. The program would involve me making several short presentations on America, and having lunch with the students. Now this sounds like fun and a good experience and stuff, but I also just had the idea that I was being paraded around the school, like I was some foreign, rare specimen they had found that they were showing the kids.

Of course the kids wouldn't see it that way, and I suppose they do really look forward to meeting people from other countries, but it also just makes me sad that such programs in Japan exists, where they want people from other countries to come and explain their culture and history to the kids. I tried to think back to my school days if we had kids from other countries giving presentations in front of class, and the only thing I could remember was every year in middle school, we had inmates from the nearby prison come and tell us not to do drugs.

Which presentation would you prefer? lol