“I don’t get it. What do you mean, you’re afraid of animals?”
“I’m afraid of all animals. Definitely all of them.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re scary.”
Ayumi and Nana are walking to school beside me, and as is fairly normal, they’ve taken a break from attempting to speak English and have thus mostly forgotten I’m there. In the process they’ve also forgotten that I understand their Japanese. I didn’t know that Ayumi was afraid of all animals. Because I am bored, I keep listening:
“What about harmless animals, like birds?” Nana is incredulous.
“Unacceptable. If I see a bird on TV, it’s okay, but if the bird looks at the camera, I have to change the channel.”
“What about mice?”
“All girls hate mice.”
“Not me. I love mice. They’re cute.”
“Only Mickey is okay.”
“And Pokemon? They’re not really animals.”
“Pikachu is cute.”
“Is Pikachu supposed to be a boy or a girl?”
“Boy.”
“And what about Anpanman?”
“His name is Anpanman, not Anpanwoman.”
“His head is made of bread. What’s his body made of?”
“Plastic. Just a guess.”
High school students are high school students wherever you go. Not much changes as you cross oceans, and students still have the same wandering, pointless conversations they always do regardless of place. They speak for the sake of filling silence as much as anything else. There is no need for personal breakthroughs or deep meaning. The day before:
Risa: “Do foreigners get acne?”
Mika: “No.”
Shiho: “Of course they do. That’s why that weird Jessica Simpson lady is on those Proactive commercials.”
See? Mostly indistinguishable from American conversations, only with different cultural cues. That’s what makes today interesting. Today was the presidential election. Ayumi and Nana humored me about this and pretended (I think) to be interested, asking once an hour, “Obama win yet?”
When it was all said and done, they asked a more intriguing question: “Now, do you want to go back to America?” I told them I was here for now, then asked them if they wanted to visit sometime. Both shook their heads ‘no’, and when I asked them why, they made gun shapes with their hands and little gunshot sounds. “Don’t want to get shot,” said Ayumi, and the entire time that I was explaining that TV is sensationalist and that it’s perfectly safe to travel to the U.S., I was embarassed.
You can’t blame them, really. They have always known a country with a remarkably low violent crime rate. America’s murder rate is nearly 9 times higher than Japan’s, and it doesn’t help that some of the more popular American TV shows are things like 24, Prison Break, CSI, etc. It seems that the average person I talk to thinks we’re pretty bloodthirsty. They might be right.
A few times a week, strangers ask me where I’m from. I tell them I’m American, and every time I do I’m aware that I’m donning the fabric of these preconceptions. I say, “I’m from Tennessee, in the United States,” and I know that I’m simultaneously admitting to whatever preconceived notions they may have about us. This bothered me more a year ago than it does today, but I can’t say I like it.
The entire point of this is that an hour ago, a man waiting at the car shop beside me asked where I was from. I told him. He replied with: “I have hope for America. I think good days are ahead.”
I agree.