It’s impossible to hate someone you never look at...
When I first started living with Nariyaki, the 23 year old son of my host parents (yes there is a large gap between him and Aoi), I was absolutely sure that he was on drugs. He usually mumbled instead of speaking, but what got me most is that he never looked up at the dinner table and barely rested his eyes on any moving creature. I dreamed about the future, in which we would get to know each other and he would tell me the number of his dealer.
But I have not gotten to know him. Instead, by reading about and noticing how the japanese never make eye contact with one another, experiencing the cool social situations at work and at home, and hearing many Japanese friends and acquaintances discuss their family lives, it has dawned on me that Nariyaki is not tripping his way through dinner after all. He is perfectly normal.
If you can’t beat ‘em…
I also hear that Japanese housewives are notoriously annoying for their pickiness, perfectionism, and overextended hospitality. My own host mother is particularly so. An interesting idea came to me yesterday on the train home from having dinner with a Japanese co-worker and her strikingly similar family. Maybe the only way to tolerate and live peacefully with an annoying Japanese mother, is to become a stoic Japanese child. I tried out this new theory tonight at dinner. It felt disturbingly natural to make conversation in Japanese while staring at a table. If I keep my eyes down I don’t grow angry with her as quicly as I usually do.
Yeah that’s right, join ‘em…
As for Nariyaki, I don’t think he’s said a word to me in about a month. I am growing to dislike him so perhaps I should avoid looking at him as well.
~me~ at 5:17 AM
Talk about yr date from hell…
Ok I will. I had a date on Saturday with this guy I had met at a dark and noisy club in Tokyo the weekend before. The good news is that he is absolutely gorgeous. But now for the bad. I’ve dated a couple of guys whom I had trouble talking to openly, but this was just ridiculous. I couldn’t talk to him at all. Literally. I knew that he didn’t speak English, which was ok cuz I’ve been on dates with Japanese men before and have gotten by fine, but my mistake was in thinking that he spoke Japanese. As it turned out, he is from Singapore and has only been in Japan for 6 months. I soon realized that the reason he wouldn’t send text messages to my cell phone (though I asked him too) is because he can’t read or write Japanese. I’m sure he could have been very nice, and maybe if we met at some other time and place where we spoke the same language it would’ve been different, but the other good news about this date is that it’s over now.
~me~ at 11:04 PM