Conference Exercise

I wrote this today in a 3-5 min. quickwrite at the conference. We were asked to write about a time we'd been "other". This was an activity to tie in to the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, which if you've never read, you really, really need to go find. I was a little hesitant to pick my time in Japan for this because this being "other" is not my strongest memory of my time there. However, I'm posting this because the people in the meeting really seemed to like it. It's still a little rough around the edges, but...

When I went to Japan, I was the quintessential other -- Caucasian, tall, female, too big, too loud, moving my hands in an alarming fashion. I felt like a curiosity in a freak show sometimes. Children were pulled away by their mothers, old women moved down the train seat, and dirty old men ogled me from far too little distance.

It wasn't all bad. Often, I felt a renewed sense of myself in a positive way, especially when I managed to break through the culturized stereotypes of the dangerous, semi-domesticated gaijin.

Of course, I also changed during that time. As all pack animals do, without conscious effort, I adapted in the small ways I could. Nothing could be done about my size, but my voice quietened and my hands stilled some of their more dramatic flights.

Coming home was always jarring, like an overhead light suddenly switched on after hours spent in the twilight. I like to think I learned a lot there.