I first arrived in Japan in the spring of ’84 to take up a job I had got while completing my doctorate on 18th century English literature at Edinburgh University. I had been hired as a “Guest Professor of English” by a new university located in a fishing village in northern Shikoku. Shikoku is one of Japan’s four main islands, but it is also the smallest, the most rural and, at that time – before the construction of bridges linking it to Honshu and Kyushu – the most remote.
Once the jet leg had faded and I took stock of my situation, it felt as though I had arrived on an alien planet. Although there were McDonalds and KFCs, high-rise apartment buildings and motorways, it quickly became clear that Japan was only superficially like a Western country. The customs were alien – everyone seemed to bow at the slightest provocation, for example, and there was a reticence, a quiet politeness and dignity that came as a surprise. Also, the population was nearly uniformly Asian with us Westerners sticking out like the proverbial sore thumb, attracting stares, and sometimes, in the case of small children getting their first view of a foreigner, we inspired sheer terror. Worst of all, nobody could speak fluent English, not even fellow English professors at the university let alone my students. I was one of only two Westerners resident in the village. Once I’d moved off campus into my own ramshackle little house nearby, children would gather outside my front window, curious about the gaijin – foreigner – in their midst. Sometimes they would even follow me as I made my way to the supermarket, which was a fifteen-minute walk away, often shouting out “Harro” – or “Hello.” Or sometimes they ventured on the one English phrase they’d been taught: “Zis iss a pen” – or “This is a pen.” I was desperate for company, for conversation, but the other Westerner in the village– a middle-aged American man – had a fond and jealous wife who discouraged our friendship. When I sometimes ventured into the nearby city of Takamatsu, I’d rush toward any Westerner I chanced upon to speak English to, to swap experiences with, to attempt to befriend.
Now, nearly forty years later, it is all very different. There are considerably more foreigners in Kagawa prefecture, including many young Western men who have married Japanese women. Nowadays when we gaijin catch sight of a fellow Westerner strolling in Takamatsu’s vast network of shopping arcades, we tend to look the other way, conspicuously ignoring each other. It’s partly a matter of pride. We old “Japan hands” like to think of ourselves as fully assimilated in Japanese culture. But, of course, that’s an impossibility no matter how long we’ve lived here or how fluent we’ve become in Japanese. The color of our skin, eyes, and hair and even our demeanor, the shape of our bodies, our posture and clothes mark us out as foreign. We have resigned ourselves to the fact that eventually the Japanese we meet will ask us where we are from, that is, where we are really from.
I have encountered very little anti-American prejudice in Japan. In fact, I can only think of one instance. It was perhaps fifteen years ago. I had cycled to a clinic to have painful sinuses checked and was just dismounting when an old woman approached, her face twisted with fury, and shouted at me. I was so astonished – especially given the Japanese people’s normally impeccable polite behavior – that I simply stood, gaping at her, just managing to grasp her rage had nothing to do with me personally but everything to do with my being a Westerner. In retrospect, I wonder whether she had perhaps lost family when the American Air Force bombed Takamatsu in the last weeks of the war – on 3 July 1945 – destroying 78% of the city.
As for the challenges I have faced, in this rural area of Japan I have had to learn to accept I will always be stared at. People will always ask me where I really come from, whether I can use chopsticks, and whether I help my husband (a Japanese farmer) with his work. I’ve had to learn to overcome my natural shyness. I can now paste an unmeaning cheerful smile on my face with no effort, with no consciousness of even doing so.
Given the isolation I’ve endured here, I’ve also had had to cultivate vast reserves of self-reliance and self-possession. When I first arrived, English-language newspapers were very hard to come by. Of course, the television and radio were in Japanese. The library at my university had only a small selection of English books and a few English magazines. The arrival of the Internet some fifteen years after I’d made my home in Japan had a huge impact – mostly beneficial – on my life and those of my fellow long-term ex-pats. Looking back, I sometimes wonder how we managed without it.
Another huge challenge here is being an American woman married to a Japanese man. Most international marriages here are the other way around, comprised of Western men married to Japanese women. It’s so commonplace that even now women in Japan – a traditionally patriarchal culture – tend to be treated as second-class citizens. I’ve escaped this fate somewhat through being a foreigner and, even more, because I worked as a university professor, a highly esteemed position here.
But I was not completely exempt from gender discrimination. In my long tenure at my university, I discovered that some of my Western male colleagues were given lighter workloads but were paid more than me despite having fewer or lesser academic qualifications. That hurt!
I was also envious of the carefree lives my male Western colleagues, especially those married to Japanese women, enjoyed. They could meet at night in town for drinks. On weekends, their time was their own. But the wife of a Japanese, regardless of her own nationality, is expected to do nearly all the housework and childcare. If she marries the oldest son in a family, she might have to live with her in-laws. In any case, she must look after her husband’s parents without complaint and sometimes act as their primary caregiver when old age robs them of the competence to live independently.
The disparity between how men and women are treated in Japan is the theme of the third of my so-called Inspector Inoue mystery series that I wrote while still living and working in Japan. While the first book, Imperfect Strangers (2015), dealt with the hierarchical nature of the Japanese workplace, and the second, Progeny (2016), with the traditional family structure in Japan, the third, Lady First (2017) explored the gender imbalance in Japan.
Still, I’ve felt incredibly fortunate to have been able to live in Japan for so many years. It has been an exercise in self-discovery and in self-discipline. The Japanese are phenomenally organized and disciplined in their everyday lives. Naturally, although bad old habits persist, I have been influenced by their example.
By the way, I want to inform readers of Dead Reckoning that my own Japanese husband is as unlike Gilly’s Toshi as possible. As I’ve mentioned, Takehito is a Japanese farmer – an orange grower. He spent three years in northern Kenya, teaching agricultural techniques to the inhabitants of a prison farm for the Japanese equivalent of the American Peace Corps. He is a talented artist but, best of all, is kind, truthful, and utterly reliable: my “rock.”
I am particularly grateful for our wonderful house and garden. He designed and helped build the house nearly thirty years ago – a large wood structure sufficiently unlike the typical Japanese house that we are occasionally asked by visiting Japanese (jokingly) whether they need a passport to enter. There are wood-beamed ceilings, a wood-burner and a piano and many bookshelves in the front room, and Takehito’s paintings and sculptures everywhere. The garden is a work in progress. It has trellises, arbors, flowers, bushes, and tall trees as well as a log cabin workshop with a turf roof.
Takehito can do anything with his hands but is a rather silent individual. I lack his manual skills, but I like talking and writing. Somehow, we complement each other: East meets West on the most amicable of terms.
© Lea O’Harra
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