Kabuki

Of course, before I leave for Australia, I have a few posts to make.

This one is about my experience on Tuesday 7/17 with Kabuki, Hiroko-san, and the group from Whitman high school.

On Tuesday, I walked to the post office with Hinata, Kamelija, and Nick, dropped off my package to be sent home, and headed to Nakameguro.

There, I met with Hiroko-san and she treated me to lunch at a pasta place.

Hiroko-san told me she was kind of worried about me in the future because I'm so quiet. She said maybe in Japan there would be a place for quiet people like you, but in America, you need to force your way out there and boast about yourself. At the time, I felt kind of worried about this comment, but when I told this to Hinata, she just laughed and said cynically how she loved how Japanese people acted like they knew everything about American society sometimes. When it comes down to it, the ones who live within America, know how American society works the best. Plus, Hiroko-san has just seen one side of me--the side that speaks Japanese, which is a lot less confident in several ways than the side that speaks English. Yeah, I'm shy, but if I have to, I can talk to people. I can't be the only one of my kind in America. There are tons of Americans who are shy, as well. So, I'll be okay...I hope...

Afterward, we went to the national theater to watch a kabuki play with Yuki-san and the Whitman class. Kabuki is a type of theater where the actors are all male (males play female roles as well) and most character's have their faces painted stark white with exaggerated eye make up. (The actors do not wear masks--that is called Noh.) It was a special performance for people who don't know much about Kabuki, especially high school students, so before the actual performance, there was a guy who told us about how Kabuki works and then an actor who plays a female part (onnagata) put his makeup and costume on in front of us. It was really interesting. Especially, once the actor had his make up on, he started using the female 'I', 'watashi', demonstrating that once he had put on a different face, he was already taken on the persona of his female character. Kabuki is a really interesting field to explore the definitions of gender and sexuality.

The actual play was extremely difficult to understand, because it uses old fashioned Japanese. Even Japanese people have difficulty understanding it. I was lucky enough to have a head set that translated what was going on, although it wasn't word for word translation. It was just a whole picture explanation, but with that and listening for words I could understand, it wasn't too difficult to understand what was going on.

This is the outside of the theater:

After the play, I was placed in charge of a taxi with 4 Whitman kids in the back and I asked the driver to take us to the US embassy in Japanese. I think because of that, when I turned to the kids and asked them in English what year they were in and how many years they had studied Japanese, one of them said, 'Wow, your English is really good.' 'Um...I'm American, ya know...' It may have also been partially due to stupidity. The Whitman kids seemed really stupid and so high school that it made me feel really old. Plus, they were really badly behaved and treated Yuki-san really badly. It's no wonder Yuki-san has grown so tough...

Stepping into the American Embassy, I was attacked by culture shock. It was just so American, it was hard to believe I was in Japan anymore. I actually felt kind of sick and really wanted to go home. Home to my room in Yokohama with my exchange student friends. I did however get to get a peak into the US embassy and agenda, so that was interesting.

Afterward, we were invited to one of the embassy staff's house for dinner, since he's the father of one of Yuki-san's ex-students. (Whitman kids are full of rich connections...) It was a nice treat, though, so I'm not complaining.

During the party, I had a serious talk with Yuki-san and Hiroko-san about my future and Yuki-san pretty much said that the traditional translation jobs don't exist anymore, because of the internet and technology, which is terrifying to hear. People ask me what I want to do, but I don't know what I'm going to do in the future. Sure, I want to do translation and such, but I don't know what kind or how or when I'll start...Listening to Yuki-san's advice was helpful, but scary, as well.

Today, at dinner, I was talking to Makoto and he asked me what I want to do when I graduate. I answered that for the time being, I want to be a translator, but I don't know if I even will be able to. After that, I'm really considering being a preschool teacher haha...Makoto and Hinata have both worked in preschool as well, so I'm like HEY, then we should just all make a preschool together with lots of different languages. Like CommuniKids but create a Japan branch or something. Yes, so that might happen...

In the meantime, I'll keep going forward and face what comes along my path.

Lately, I've really begun to hate the word 'ganbaru', because I feel it contains the meaning 'you're too slack; you're not working hard enough; work harder'. However, today, my friend wrote on my facebook page to say good-bye and instead of 'ganbatte' (work hard), she wrote, 'jibun nari ni ganbatte'. In other words, 'work hard in the way that suits you best'. You don't have to work hard because you're not working hard enough, but rather because you want to work hard to reach your own individual goals. I like that a lot better.

Okay, jibun nari ni ganbaru yo! (I will work hard in the way that suits me best)