Assimilation 101
I was asked to speak to my students about assimilation. Neither the Japanese teacher nor the class was ready for what I had to say!
Pt 1: This is my line!
For the last class of the Spring semester, my Japanese co-worker thought it would be nice if I talked to the senior students instead of playing an English game.
“Give them some advice about how they can be, you know, subarashii (splendid) in the future, like you!”
I knew she was gassing my tank. Usually, I take all compliments here with a grain of salt, anyway. But this teacher and I have talked about somewhat heavy matters in the past, and I know she’s read my books and reads both my columns in English and Japanese (and has commented on each at one time or another), so I smiled and consented...with reservations.
Me: But most of the students aren’t at a level where they can even follow a lecture in English.
Japanese Teacher: True. But it’ll be great, and I can translate the hard parts. They need to try anyway.
Me: How about if we make it like an interview?
JT: I interview you? Hmmmm.
Me: Sure, it's like a talk show. You ask questions about the things you know the kids are interested in or think they should be thinking about, so I don’t have to guess.
JT: Good idea! Let’s do it!
And we did.
Aside from the handful of students for whom English is a barbiturate that makes sleep irresistible, the interview was going swimmingly…until, well, I got a little too relaxed. With a captive audience, entertained by tales of my life at their age (15) in NY and some choice PG13 “fish out of water” anecdotes from my early days in their lovely country that never fail to please the Japanese crowd, I went a little deeper than I intended to.
The trigger was when Sensei asked me what my greatest challenge was in living in Japan.
Recently— as I wrap up my new book— I’ve been thinking a lot about the impact adjusting to life here has had on me, both positive and negative, and so the word just sprang out.
Me: Assimilation.
JT: Assimilation? I know that word from something I read recently. It’s like similar, right?
Me: Yeah, kinda. It’s like trying to make yourself similar to the mainstream of society, or at least less unusual. Try to fit in.
JT: I see. That must have been really difficult…
At this point — with the teacher’s eyes brimming with sincere interest and the rapt, innocent eyes of the students, eager to know what it’s like to be truly unusual in a place that often aggressively shuns the unusual, locked on me — I started feeling a certain, I dunno, urgency. I felt like I was amid a pivotal, even decisive moment, and these kids’ futures (as well as my own) lay in the balance.
Or maybe I had to piss. Seems I have to several times an hour these days.
Either way, Sensei must’ve noticed my distress.
JT: Are you OK?
Me: Yeah.
JT: I can change the question…
Me: No, the question is fine. It’s just…It’s really difficult, this assimilating business. It’s the most challenging thing I’ve ever done.
JT: Really? Tell us about it.
Me: Well, it’s a process, you know. And I can’t say it ever ends. Assimilation means fashioning a new you—one that both you and the new culture you’re assimilating into can live with in peace. It requires all kinds of reassessments, re-evaluations, compromises, and…
Sensei looked damn intrigued. So did the students.
JT: Can you give us an example?
Me: Sure, but you have to keep in mind that when I first came to Japan, I wasn’t a kid. I was a grown man already—38 years old, to be exact—fixed in my ways. And that’s not exactly the optimal time to mess around with the core aspects of your character.
Sensei laughed hard. She’s north of 38, so she got my meaning, but the teens didn’t, so she took a minute to explain to them the implications.
Me: Most people by that age, if they even live that long, are the person they are going to be until the day they die. But here I was, on the other side of the world, no less, questioning everything I’ve ever held true. Crazy, right?
There were plenty of nods. I cracked up.
Sensei wasn’t nodding, though. She looked completely taken as if I were telling her the secrets of life. I wondered if it was genuine. Some People can give you that look but not care a lick or even understand what you’re saying.
Me: I mean, you spend years figuring out where your line is, right? And then you draw that line. And you say to yourself and anybody who cares to listen: “This is my line! You see it?! Cross it at your own peril!”
JT: Peril?
Me: It means anyone who crosses my line, invades my space, disregards my boundaries, is subject to, well, my justice!
JT: Ah! Do you mean, umm, figuratively? Like an imaginary line?
Me: I mean both! Real and figurative.
JT: Oh.
Me: Assimilation, though, kind of forces you to redraw that line. You know what I mean? And, mind you, this line has been in place, in my case, for decades—a line drawn in blood and tears.
JT: Wow…
There was actually a collective “wow” once she explained it to the class.
Sensei wasn’t sure where I was going with this, but I could tell from her translation for the students that she understood the words at least and was all in—as were the kids.
So I went in.
Pt-2: Euphemism
Sensei huddled with the students for a moment where she fielded their questions. Most of them were variations on the idea of a line.
JT: Could you explain what a line is? Students want to know what that means.
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