Friday August 17, 1989
On the way to the store today we had a shock. We saw a foreigner! Some woman in shorts was walking up the street. I hadn't seen another gaijin in over a week. I had initially thought that there would be a lot of them, er...us, in Beppu-shi because it is a tourist town. (But it is mostly a tourist town for Japanese tourists, especially older travellers who come to take the baths.)
The first thing that struck me as we drove past was how strange she looked to me. She looked foreign. I can begin to imagine what we look like to the Japanese.
My second thought was to yell to Tonai-sensei "Stop the car!" and run over to talk to another (I assumed) American. I didn't, of course. I just stared.
Of course, there is no logic in my assumption. All the other non-American foreigners hate it that the Japanese assume that they are American. The Canadians are the most rabid in drawing the distinction: one I know has stickers of Canadian flag on everything he owns. My assumption wasn't based in any sense of American identify on my part--it was just that here, where I'm different in every way, any hint of similarity becomes a projection of self.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
August 17, 1989
Comments
Very interesting! It's somewhat like when I see Japanese that appear in foreign movies, I feel they look just foreign. It's "just that," really.
Comment by: Kiyo. Posted August 20, 2002 09:03 AM.
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Here, where I'm different in every way, any hint of similarity becomes a projection of self.