An Ode to Being Foreign

I went with "An Ode to Being Foreign" as my title, but almost chose "An Ode to Gaijin."

First, a bit of nuance.

I have always called myself an “expat” – meaning a foreign resident who will one day return home.

Except I won’t. I’ve been in for Japan forty-six years and have built my life here. I’ve hurdled a cancer scare and, with that, have penned my last-will-and-testament. Japan is where I’ll die.

So I guess I am not an expat after all. I’m an immigrant.

The term “gaijin” means “foreigner” – not "immigrant" – but for many Japanese such a distinction isn't easy.

Gaijin are those from the outside. They have a foreign face, a foreign accent and foreign ways. Perhaps they've lived here for years, perhaps they've just moved in or perhaps they're part of the recent surge of tourists brought on by the inexpensive yen.

It doesn't matter. All are gaijin.

Gaijin/immigrants and their issues are catching attention now, as a growing nationalist movement searches for bogeymen in regard to various Japanese woes, with foreign residents and visitors being an easy, defenseless and largely innocent target. Sound familiar with headlines elsewhere?

I have long years at this and know few immigrants mean anyone any harm. We all gain our footing little-by-little, one step at a time, often tripping, but always rising back, as we strive to find our way in our adopted home.

At the same time, we have a lot to offer. All gaijin do – no matter their location. It's part of the gaijin "calling." The outsider often sees, understands and is touched by what the insider cannot sense.

The column below was published in The Japan Times prior to Christmas in 2005, but I think it matches our present day rather well.

Read on – read to the end – and you will learn what a gaijin truly is. Read on – read to the end – and you might find that "you" are a gaijin too.

This ends my notes; the column, with its Japan Times title is below. 

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Born and Raised a Gaijin

Dec 24, 2005

The other evening after pushing my way onto the same train car as always, I hung there on my commuter strap and broke momentarily from my rush hour funk to find my reflection staring back at me from the window. There I stood with my shoulders sagged, my necktie loose and a work world of fatigue weighing in my eyes – exactly like the fellows on my either side.

Except for one difference.

"My gosh," I thought. "I'm a gaijin!"

Yet in no way should that have been a surprise. For I have always been a gaijin… from long, long before I entered Japan.

The Japanese word "gaijin" – which, like the English word "foreigner," literally means "outsider" – is one of those loaded terms that collects quite a different bang depending on who hears it when. The sound rings out loud with connotations, and few of them are subtle.

From the Japanese end, gaijin can be bullish, insensitive louts, often well-meaning, sometimes funny, but usually with their mouths open and at least one foot lodged firmly inside.

At the very same time, gaijin can also serve as symbols of freedom and beauty. They will evoke images of Hollywood and jazz bars and The Beatles and romance and courage and hope, and hence can offer the teasing promise of an escape from a plodding existence of groups, symmetry and overtime.

The truth – that oily devil – lies somewhere in between.

From the outsider's view, responses to the word “gaijin” can range from those who growl at the racial overtones of exclusion and discrimination, to those who embrace the goofy-but-lovable barbarian role to the max, and on to those who want nothing to do with the term whatsoever and only wish to sink silently among the masses and become as Japanese as possible.

For most foreigners, perhaps, all three of these visions hold true, each at separate moments.

As for me, I don't think that last option is feasible. For my gaijin-ness is too intrinsic.

Yes, there are times in the rigmarole of my daily routine when I lose track of where I am and drift into the fuzzed assumption that I am but one of the madding crowd about me, only to be roused back to reality by a Japanese voice at my shoulder or a telltale reflection in a windowpane.

Then I return to my gaijin-ness like a person shaking off a dream, not sure for an instant of my true whereabouts, only knowing that I am alone and surrounded.

That sensation, I have come to consider, is not Japan-specific. I have felt it all my life. If anything, the long-accepted notion that I am apart from any group has eased my adjustment to the curious and occasionally unwelcoming stares of foreign residency in Japan.

You see, I was born a gaijin. I was a gaijin as a kid in the Midwest, growing up in a divorced home as the only dad-less youngster on the block. I was a gaijin in school, yearning for friends like everyone else but a bit too sheepish to mingle. And I was a gaijin in the awkward years of adolescence, never feeling as self-assured as the other youths around me all seemed so dead-certain to be.

I was born a gaijin. I grew up a gaijin. I came to Japan a gaijin. It's always been as natural as gazing out a window and appreciating the attractive landscape, but not feeling part of it.

I fit in Japan because I matched the role. I was a gaijin from the get go. I suspect a lot of us here were.

More than this, I suspect there are many Japanese who feel like gaijin too, viewing themselves as enduring extras in their long-playing epics of life.

None of this is necessarily negative – as all "true" gaijin will understand. For there is much to be said for being a gaijin. 'Tis the season to be sentimental, so allow me now to bang the gaijin drum and recite the gaijin ode.

Gaijin, I believe, can identify with those who are different, for they know what being different means. Gaijin also care a lot for the "little guy" because they recognize that guy is just themselves in another suit of clothing. Gaijin also sympathize with those who suffer from discrimination, for they have sometimes worn those very shoes themselves.

Gaijin seldom look upon the world as "us against them" and learn to measure other people by their compassion and not by their nationality, skin tone, gender or pocketbook. Gaijin realize that every human soul is a minority of one.

Gaijin take care with language because they have struggled with it and because they have felt how language can hurt. Gaijin hate lies. Gaijin hate spin control. Gaijin know that truth has no relation whatsoever to wealth, power or status, and are disgusted whenever they discover veracity has been manipulated, ignored or bought.

Gaijin do not pick fights. Gaijin do not spout, "Bring 'em on." Gaijin are often the first to donate money, the first to volunteer, the first to weep and the first to forgive.

Gaijin are not perfect. Ask any gaijin and they will be quick to agree. They do not fit all the above attributes all of the time, but they manage most of them most of the time.

And, of course, gaijin are not limited to any one location. They live here, they live there, they live everywhere. They have learned to see the "outsider" in themselves no matter where they may reside, and that is their perpetual struggle.

And their perpetual strength.

I wish there were more gaijin in the world. We need them now, you see. We really do.

© Thomas Noah Wood

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