12/26/2010           Seven Police Officers, a Hot Businessman and a Fruitcake

My gym will be closed the next two weeks for maintenance and repairs. Because my gym has become an important source of entertainment, I thought I would try and find one of the other locations to use. A student of mine told me where the Kikuna location was and I thought I fully understood his directions. Because Kikuna is only a few stops from my station, I hoped it would be easy to find. I’m finding that directions given here tend to be slightly off, or maybe I just need more details. Either way, even hand written maps are difficult for me to understand, being that naming streets is not common practice in Japan.

After work, I hopped on the train, hopeful to find the gym. I wasn’t exactly sure where I was going, but I was sure I would work out details when I got there. Sometimes, I think I’m a little too optimistic when it comes to my ability to figure things out on my own.

When I arrived at the train station, I walked around, realizing there wasn’t much of a lead to finding this place. Two businessmen were outside smoking and watching my every move. I didn’t feel threatened, I’m used to being stared at and talked about.  It’s hardly ever a compliment, but I’ve learned that’s just the reality of living in a foreign country where the population of foreigners is slim to none.

As the businessmen watched me, I kept glancing back, wondering if I should attempt to ask for help. Eventually, after passing them a few times, I decided to give it a go. In elementary Japanese, I asked for help to find the address listed on my phone. All I had was an address pulled from the Internet, and I wasn’t even sure it was the correct address. The men spoke to each other in Japanese and both tried helping me. Eventually, the more attractive man of the two said, “Hurry, let’s go!” And started running toward the arriving train. “I like his style,” I thought. So I ran after him and boarded a train to god knows where to find god knows what.

I’m not exactly sure why I trusted him, but Japan is a place where one would hardly ever feel threatened or scared.  The only areas of Japan I’ve felt unsafe are the areas densely populated with foreigners. The foreigners are the ones I don’t trust.  In this case, a part of me felt the businessman was seeking the opportunity for adventure the same way I do. We could barely communicate more than, “My name is….” But I was able to understand most of what he was saying, by body language and expression. He was incredibly attractive and I just enjoyed the attention from an attractive man. I rarely get that here. My joke is Japanese men run from me. My Japanese friends tell me it’s because they are worried about sounding stupid when trying to speak English. Still, it wears heavily on my self-esteem and I’ve become convinced Japan is not a place I can seek male attention. As I’ve stated before, this is a good thing, knowing I’m not in a space to feel intimately vulnerable with anyone right now.  

As we rode the train, it was apparent how much effort this stranger was putting into helping me find the gym. I didn’t quite understand why, but I was thankful for his help. After arriving in Yokohama, it felt pointless to continue looking for this place because by the time I would actually find it, the gym would be closed. A part of me also wondered why this man wasn’t home with his wife.  Which brings me to the strange topic of marriage in Japan.

Many of my students, both male and female, have expressed extreme unhappiness in their marriages. This topic comes up a lot in the discussion portion of class. Many times, it feels I am mediating group therapy on the topic, not that I’m in any way possibly qualified to do this, but I appreciate their vulnerability and honesty. Feeling damaged from a broken marriage and a broken heart, I find myself yearning to understand other people’s perspectives on relationships. More importantly, why, no matter what country you are from, do many of us settle? And for those that don’t settle, is there such a thing as happiness and a love in a relationship?

This is not true for everyone in Japan, but I repeatedly hear that marriage is a financial agreement, not a commitment to love. To get married, one has to find the perfect balance in which a man brings home steady income to give to the wife. The wife manages the funds and seems to take on the dominant role in the relationship.  A few married men have expressed a fear of their wives. They say this in a joking manner, but I can’t help to think there is some truth in what they are saying.  Now, if the couple chooses to have a child, the wife dedicates her life to taking care of the child, while the husband dedicates his life to his income. I am repeatedly told infidelity is common with the men, but rarely talked about as a couple.  Like I mentioned before, this is not true for all couples here, but this is a list of what is shared with me during conversation.  I would honestly hope most of this information is false but I’m slightly doubtful. In addition, statistically, it seems Japan, Malaysia and China has the lowest frequency of sex per year.  Knowing this information makes me skeptical of finding a healthy partnership with someone some day, not because I’m in Japan but because I am only able to see the negative side of relationships at this stage of my life.  All these thoughts pass my mind as I sit next to the attractive stranger on a train ride into Yokohama.

When arriving in Yokohama, we ran around the station as if we were late for a boarding plane. I laughed the entire time at the ridiculousness of the situation. The businessman jokes a gesture for me to hop on his back to make it easier for us to stick together, but seeing that I was not much smaller than him and I had my hands full of stuff from work, I acted like I didn’t understand. It was too complicated to try and communicate my reasons why that was not a good idea.  Instead, I ran behind him and held tight to his jacket.

We stop at the local police box to get directions. There were seven police officers sitting in the police box. It didn’t seem to be an eventful evening for them. The businessman translates what I was looking for and they all got out their phones to look up the gym on the Internet. “Megalos?” They take turns asking me, which is by far the worst name for a gym. It sounded even worse when they kept asking me, “Why do you want Megalos?” It was getting more and more complicated to explain that Megalos is a chain of gyms, my location is closed, I’m looking for the location near Kikuna, but this kind man…I can’t remember his name…brought me to Yokohama thinking this address was near here, and did I mention I’m not even sure this is the right address?

We stood in the police box for at least 30 minutes going back and forth in attempt to explain why I was there. The businessman translated what he understood and the policeman looked at me wanting to figure out why it was so important for me to find this place at 11pm when it was already closed.

I kept saying, “Daijoubu, daijoubu desu” (slang for it’s okay, I’m okay) to let them know they don’t need to continue helping me, but I think they really wanted to understand what the situation was about. It was as if they already started helping me, so why not follow through until there is an answer? So, I just stood there watching as seven police men were on their phones looking for Megalos, an attractive businessman smiling and giving me the thumbs up in pride for helping me, and feeling like a stupid foreigner. I just stood there laughing quietly that I put myself in this situation. In the end, I never found the gym, but I did find the whole situation entertaining.

As we left, I thanked the businessman for helping me. I wanted to give him something because Japan is big on gift giving in appreciation. Earlier that day, a student gave me fruitcake as a holiday gift. Since I am unable to enjoy cake of any kind, I decided the fruitcake would be a nice gesture of appreciation. So I handed the businessman the neatly wrapped fruitcake, “Please, take this fruitcake!” I said. And forgetting touching is not common practice here; I gave him a hug and immediately felt him tense up. “Oops!” I thought to myself.  So, I quickly let go and just waved and bowed from a foot away. This was yet another reminder why Japan is my year of solitude. I’m too affectionate for Japanese men, but that’s okay. I can’t and won’t change that about myself. I do however; wonder if I will ever change my thoughts on the possibility of finding compatibility. I guess it will continue being an ongoing process. I am aware my thoughts on relationships is in a toxic state, but these small experiences keep me focused on a bigger picture and that’s to enjoy the small adventures in my life. 

12/13/10

After a long day at work, I look forward to going to my gym. The reasons aren’t only because it’s my stress reliever, but because there is always a guarantee for entertainment there. The gym atmosphere is much different here than my experience in the states.  It’s true that the gym becomes a social outlet for many people, but it is almost completely a social outlet for the Japanese, at least at my gym. Working out seems pretty secondary here. My gym definitely isn’t the Gold’s Gym of Japan. This may not be true for ALL gyms here, so I will specifically focus on the characteristics of what makes my gym so appealing and entertaining.

In America, gyms are usually considered a ‘meet market.’ It seems to be similar here, but as I mentioned in an earlier entry, the Japanese are obsessed with fashion, and rightfully so, because they can pull it off better than anyone else! So not only is it a ‘meet market,’ but it feels more like a fashion event. I’ve started going to a variety of classes because it seems to be the only way for me to stay motivated. Also, each class has a personality of it’s own that attracts specific groups of people I’ve become attached to.

I see the same people every night I go because we workout during the same time slots. So I notice different people by their outfits. There’s the guy who pimps an orange Megaloss T-shirt (Megaloss is the name of the gym I go to) with matching orange sneakers. Whenever I take a class with him, he is the most enthusiastic participant. I can always count on him to keep my adrenaline up because he yells on beat with the music something that sounds like “hee-ya!” Sometimes I wonder if he takes Karate and has forgotten we are doing a step class.

Then there’s my favorite little guy. He wears a skin-tight spandex muscle shirt and spikes his hair in different directions. He and I always end up near each other in class. We take a few different classes together. In hip-hop dance class, he really gets into the ‘pop and lock’ portion of the choreography. He is incredibly uncoordinated but dances as if no one is watching and this is why I adore him. He tries so hard. And it never fails; the poor guy always ends up tripping and falling. At first, I thought he only did this in the dance class, but he’s recently started taking a kickboxing class I’m in. He falls in this class too. Monday night is a step class. He has started showing up to this class as well. Last Monday he tripped on the step and went flying, almost knocking another classmate over. Everyone pretends not to see it. That seems to be the way of the Japanese, just pretend you don’t see something out of the ordinary happening.

Thursday night is the kickboxing class night. This instructor is very popular among the ladies, so I enjoy watching girls swoon and pine for his attention. The best part is how each girl has a face full of makeup and hairstyles that I would consider wearing to prom. This class is a full body workout, so I find is very impressive the girls can come to class looking amazing and leave class with their hair still prestigiously arranged. It must take a lot of hair product to create such a masterpiece. There is one young girl who is smoking hot that has the trendiest outfits. She is the only girl I’ve ever seen that can make parachute pants, skin tight tank tops and sweat-bands look sexy. She punches and kicks with her long curls bouncy like you’d see in a perfume ad. The instructor has definitely taken notice of her, but so has all the other men in class. She gets two thumbs up as the hottest gym member.

I’ve made one friend at my gym. He is an older guy who speaks conversational English pretty well. I usually talk to him while we are both using the elliptical machines. There is an AC vent that blows cool air on two elliptical machines in the corner of the weight room, so always find him there and hop on the machine next to him to chat about gym gossip. He updates me on who is dating who, people’s ages, job statuses, etc. It’s become my guilty pleasure talking with him because knowing these details about people help me feel more included. I’ve become used to feeling like the foreigner who doesn’t fit in anywhere. But with my gym pal, I feel less like a foreigner and more like I belong to something. He asks me about America and talks about his dreams of moving to California.

The gym has become my retreat. My job burdens me, specifically because there is enormous pressure to be perfect. I can never attain perfection and I’m aware of that, but the job culture here opposite of my work philosophies. So, as soon as my last class of the workday ends, I grab my sneakers and run out the door to a community that gives me the opportunity embrace the quirky personality differences that become accented outside a suffocating workplace.