The issue of garbage

It’s not as though things haven’t been happening around here. Gregory Peck Sensei announced my farewell party to the staff room, I spent last weekend on a cluster of islands made famous by things like The Secret Christian Museum and octopus drying by the side of the road, and an old student, Ayumi, dropped by yesterday to interview a foreigner for a school assignment. She will write her paper in Japanese, but just to show that she’d learned something from high school, she wrote all her notes in English. She asked what has been difficult about Japan? What has been easy? And then the question that I stewed on all day: what have I not been able to adapt to?

Japan, I would say, is not a hard country to adapt to. It’s a hard country to really know, but it’s an easy place to live. Little children shout “hello”! on the street, you can buy fish and fruit at any grocery store, and generally a smile and a wink will get you pretty far. There have been certain exceptions: the driver’s exam being number on on that list, but overall no one tries to take advantage of you, no one steals your money belt, and there is indoor plumbing in every building.

What I didn’t notice, and what took me by surprise, was that I found my personality to be surprisingly, shall we say, flexible. I’d always been under the impression that we grew up and the chemistry set of our hearts decided we’d have a temper or a snappy tongue or a propensity toward laziness. And then if you’re thrown in with the Japanese jellyfish or the bears in Montana, you’re going to either be the person who whips out a revolver or the person who drops to the ground and covers their neck. “Japanese people often fall into two groups,” I tell Ayumi, “those who want to learn English and those who don’t have time for a foreigner to stumble around in Japanese.”

But I’ve found myself adapting to everything: The Big Kahuness’ rules, the schedule, the diplomatically indirect way people speak to each other. I bow. What is interesting to me about this is not that I’ve picked up the mannerisms of The Sensei, but that even though speaking directly is considered rude, and I’ve untied the wires in my brain that force me to do this, I want it back. And I want it back badly. The trouble for me is that there is no easy way to do this in Japan. Or at least I don’t know how. Are there really only two options for me: cutting my losses and being a part of the group or being that person who refuses to pay the tea fee every month?

Yesterday, T-Rex Sensei, who is in charge of the cleaning brigade, told Praju, “maybe you don’t know this, but please do no throw personal garbage into your garbage can. You must take this home.” After finally rescuing our small red can from the clutches of the vice-vice-principal, we’d filled it with banana peels and nut shells and yogurt containers. I’ve been doing this for almost two years, and every afternoon the students dump it into the big garbage sack and take it out to the incinerator pile. I guess I was a little riled up after yesterday’s interview with Ayumi because when Praju told me that we have to take our grape stems and used kleenexes home with us, I balked.

“No,” I said, “I will not do that. I am putting my foot down.”

Perhaps too many opportunities such as this have already passed me by, and I’m feeling that I’ve been swept up in the wave of Japanese cooperation. What I really feel is that it’s a situation that I would usually give in to. I would take a sack of old peach pits and moldy cherry skins home every afternoon. I would put only crumpled notes in the red garbage can; the occasional discarded extra homework assignment. In a week, in a month, this would just be another habit, something to laugh about when I hand Johnathan my sack at 4:30. The point I’m trying to make is that: it’s not a big deal. But when Ayumi asked me if there was anything I couldn’t adapt to I realized that I’d somehow adapted to everything. I get a little riled up when my plans are thwarted, or when a kink is thrown into the schedule, such as an extra Oral Communication class today, but I’m not the blustery blunt person I once was. I go with the flow.

And you know what I’ve realized? This makes me very boring. There is no sizzle. I’m not having meetings with T-Rex Sensei on the side. I have no grand stories of shouting at students. Instead of putting my foot down about the garbage issue I’m wondering what I should do. I’m thinking about things from both sides. This makes me very diplomatic. How do I explain that carting my garbage home is a little humiliating, a little nomadic? Or, more importantly, can someone explain to me why we do this?

What I wish I could tell Ayumi today is that I didn’t know NOT adapting was an option. I wasn’t aware I had a choice to make, and that somewhere in the tumble of months I’ve been here, I made one. Was it possible for me to simply choose to tell people, “yes, no, you’re wrong,” instead of, “maybe, let’s see, hmmmm…”? And if I did, what would the consequences be? I’ve been here for two years, and I feel like I’m only beginning to learn how to be myself in the world of the Senseis.