bobbieandchas.com / stories |
To Blend Or Not To Blend; (Is It Even A Question?) |
The most frequent question I am asked by friends and family is, “How do you fit in?” I have many responses to this question. The most truthful is, we don’t. The average Japanese male is slightly shorter than I am. The average Japanese female comes up to my ears. Chas is 8 inches taller than I and some of his friends are a couple of inches taller still. By definition, westerners do not fit in. In a conversation with a friend prior to moving to Japan, I was advised to choose clothing and outerwear in dark colors; black, brown and grey, rather than pastels, so I would “blend” in with the Japanese people who tend to wear clothing in subdued colors. I laughed. At 5’6”, with blond hair and blue eyes, I have no hope of blending in; regardless of the colors I choose to wear. Soon after arriving in Japan, we began to notice that, being the only westerners in our section of Koriyama, we drew stares. We expected that. What we did not expect was the strange effect we had on small children, Chas more so than I. A rambunctious trio of brothers running amok in a depato (department store) suddenly skidded to a stop at Chas’s feet (see dust flying and hear rubber squealing). In predictable cartoon manner (the roadrunner comes to mind), 3 small heads slowly looked up and up and up to confront the bearded, gaijin (foreigner) face. Shrieking in terror they seemed to catapult themselves back down the aisle and onto their mother’s back. My guess is that their mother is still laughing and using the specter of the giant gaijin yokai (loosely translated as scary things that go bump in the night) when the boys misbehave. |