colors in the world

August 10, I took the bus home from school, work, whathaveyou. Stopped at the AruPura (also known as AL Plaza) to pick up a disposable camera and the ice cream cone I`d been promising myself for days. Walked to my apartment, assembled a few necessary items in a shoulder bag, and then headed for the train station.

( the Uji Fireworks Festival )

Summers in Kyoto-fu are both hot and humid, moreso than at home. You have a choice, though: either you like the heat or you hate it. And if you choose to hate it, there`s nothing for it; you`ll suffer until the all-too-brief autumn.

I have chosen to like it, to enjoy the baking heat, the bright splendor of the sun, the feel of sweat cooling my skin on those rare occasions when the breeze finds its way to me. Certainly I don`t feel it as much as some; when I watch the sports teams practice, the kids are completely soaked. Every time one of the girls on the volleyball team dives for the ball, she leaves a wet streak across the floor.

I used to eat my lunch where I could watch the sports teams at their outdoor practices, the baseball and tennis clubs, at least. But lately I prefer to sit on the steps on the far side of the school, where I can look over the valley below, the cars on the skyway and the rice paddies, the houses and beyond them the mountains, the wide expanse of sky and clouds overhead. There`s a breeze there, sometimes, and an awning over the steps provides shade and shelter if it should happen to rain (a rare enough occurrence, but one never knows). It`s peaceful there. The students don`t go there very much, and the teachers certainly don`t, so I can relax and know that no one is watching me.

Anonymity is a luxury, I`ve learned, one that is denied to a minority group. And I am a minority in Japan, for perhaps the first time in my life. No matter where I go, no matter what I do, I can be fairly certain that someone is going to be watching, and people are more likely remember any action I take.

I am a minority, and with that status come any number of attendant advantages and disadvantages. For instance, any time there is another foreigner present, we are expected to immediately talk to each other (in English), get along, and want to spend time together. When Katayama-san in the main office heard from her friend Scott that he had seen me in the shopping center, she automatically assumed that I had spoken to him, etc. I had seen him, of course-- when you`re a minority, you stand out-- but I hadn`t talked to him. He was with two young children whom he spoke to in Japanese, and so I wasn`t certain if he spoke English or not. After all, not all foreigners do. For all I knew he might be French, or German, or Lithuanian, or Russian, or even Japanese despite the fact that he was obviously Caucasian, and perhaps we would not be able to talk at all.

So I hadn`t spoken to him, and he hadn`t spoken to me, and we both went on about our business. When I said so to Katayama-san, she was very surprised.

I could have talked to him, of course. And in this particular case, my worries were groundless; he was in fact an American, and could speak English and Japanese. By not speaking to him, though, I went outside of what was expected of me as a member of a minority group (an English-speaking foreigner living in Japan). Not that there were any bad consequences to this, of course, but nevertheless. One feels a certain amount of pressure to conform to the popularly-held view of one`s minority group; as soon as I noticed Scott in the shopping center I felt as if I should go over and talk to him. Part of that came from me; I`m a newcomer, a foreigner, I don`t have many (any) friends, and any foreigner is potentially a new friend. But part of it came from outside of me; the people watching, and thinking that if there are two foreigners in one place they are immediately connected and should talk to each other, most likely in English.