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Friday, July 14, 2006
5:41 PM
i walked into mos burger, the japanese fast-food burger joint, with shin today because he was hungry. i had already eaten so was just accompanying. upon entering i spotted a colleague of mine sitting in the far corner- and actually i kind of knew he may be there because i saw his car parked outside, this red jeep-y kind of thing, but a yellow plate so not some terrible oil-gas-guzzler that we all hate. (americans, mind you, well-known for adoring these types of vehicles are slowly buying less of them, i read in the NY times last week. they appear to finally be reacting to the rising oil prices. hallefuckingluyah.)
so anyways. spot the teacher, and walk on over for a chat. he is a good guy, really sweet and nice and obviously diligent, seeing as he was marking papers and i was just standing there with a stack of freshly-rented dvds.(this is, by the way, in the middle of a normal working day for both of us. we were spared, however, due to a typhoon and not being able to take a ferry to our island school). we chatted a bit and shin came over, and then this is when the real shit happened. basically, i can't remember exactly how but we got onto talking about the environment. oh yeah, i was saying that at family mart, a japanese convenience store, they really OVERDO it with the plastic bags. like they will give you a separate one for every single thing that you buy, so they don't touch or some ridiculous shit like that. and then i added that another big one japan, environmentally speaking, is the overusage of 'waribashi', or disposable chopsticks. people use them all the time and its really maddening.
shin immediately piped in saying that vinyl really wasn't that bad for the environment, or at least not as bad as the disposable chopsticks. this is where i had one of those 'ok what-the-fuck-don't-forget-to-breathe-japanese-moments'. i try and explain to him nicely about things like biodegradability, waste disposal and renewable and non-renewable resources. but my japanese is shitty and his english isn't so great so we don't understand each other and the conversation gets heated. and meanwhile, of course, my poor innocent co-teacher is just sitting there, trying to not look freaked out by shin waving his tattooed arm at me. the best part was when shin tells me that i should really BE CAREFUL, and then started telling me about the japanese KKK and what they would do if they heard me saying shit about japan. i hate it when he pulls that bad-ass attitude with me. as if there is someone spying on my every move.
we managed to exit the building and get home without killing each other and then sat down with some dictionaries and somewhat got through to one another, but it wasn't easy let me tell you. shin mentioned that i would be offended if he said something bad about canada, but the fact is, as i told him (which surely fired him up even more), was that no, i wouldn't be pissed but rather open to the fact that no country is perfect, with canada certainly included. i am not proud of canada's water craze (we are one of the top fresh water users in the world) nor strict refugee policies, for instance.
so here's what: living in a country like canada i have been priviledged to get to know diversity first hand, which is obviously not the case in japan. as such, perhaps this makes me more open to not only world problems, but my very own. shin and i parted on a good note, and he even apologized. it may be a language thing, it may be a culture thing, but there is a deep separation that definitely exists in a clear way. maybe its just a question of how one chooses to approach it, or, as it may be the case for me and shin in the future, how one chooses not to.
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