Gaijin in Nagasaki | by Claire McCurdy

“The legs of a dog:”   the gaijin (foreigner) in Nagasaki

So what is this word – Gaijin.?  A word I came to hate. . A truncation of the word “gaikokujin”, literally “foreign country person,” the literal meaning is anybody who is not Japanese and who thus behaves as no Japanese would behave.  Although it sounds neutral in this clumsy English translation, used by a Japanese person it  could be casual, edgy, or have  the angry derisive negative force of “nigger.”  Little Japanese kids used to taunt us foreign teachers yelling “Gaijin! Gaijin, gaijin! ” And they merrily threw rocks outside our windows.  I came to find the word deeply stressing and distressing.  I thought, perhaps it would be good to cultivate tolerance. At other times I just got furious and yelled back,—“Damare!”  (Shut  up!”) It seldom had the desired effect.

Those of us who were gaijin in Nagasaki came to use the word almost defiantly—actually, not unlike African Americans with the word “nigger. “  We used it about ourselves, with a bit of irony, and finally without any irony at all- it came to be almost natural.

So who were we gaijin?  Who were the “normal” gaijin as opposed to the “henna gaijin”  There were two classes of gaijin in Nagasaki:

The “normal” gaijin, who came to Nagasaki, took up their duties as teachers, had a little (discreet) fun with the locals, behaved in their own eccentric clumsy inappropriate foreign ways, thereby entertaining the locals… and eventually went home.

The “henna gaijin” who desperately wanted to become Japanese, took on as many of the local personal characteristics as possible, trying very very hard to fit into local society, ideally marrying into it.. but often failed to find a permanent spot. And went home. A few henna gaijin didn’t go home—they met Japanese wives or husbands and stayed in Japan. So, possibly no longer “henna..”

The “Henna gaijin”: “Strange” or “crazy foreigners.”   Interesting deal—“strange foreigners” often proved to be people who were trying *really* hard to become Japanese.  Who had had painful and screwed up lives in their country of origin and found Japan ideal as a way of starting fresh.   A place where they would be treated kindly and given automatic respect – of a sort. In other words, they did not see themselves as “strange”—they thought they could become “normal” foreigners.  Or even, almost completely “normal” Japanese.

Furthermore, female foreigners in Nagasaki at the time were often treated as a special brand of henna gaijin — some strange in-between category, not like Japanese and not even quite like the foreign females in the movies.  Blondes were the object of most unwelcome public attention.  There were foreign women however, who actually loved this kind of attention, and some who loved Japan so desperately that they tried to become Japanese in order to become totally accepted in society- as no gaijin could ever really be.  Jane, my predecessor at The junior college, was a good example of the truly henna gaijin. .  She appeared to have taken our office lady as her model.  She ran about in backless sandals, in a shuffle.. She bowed head, eyes, shoulders;   she salaamed; she spoke intensely colloquial young ladies’ Japanese, and she got either complete adoration (students) or indifference (almost everybody else.)

Then there was an even stranger subset of this “henna gaijin” category.   Some Western women attached themselves to Catholic priests resident in Nagasaki and became housekeepers/ secretaries/slaves to them.   Susannah, a Quaker, attached herself to a Mexican Catholic priest in self ordained celibate adoration.

I wondered what on earth these women did when they went back home to the US.  They would have had to relearn Western behavior; find a job; find a husband, maybe a defrocked priest?  To my eyes both they were so strangely adapted to Nagasaki  culture, speech, physical behavior for young Japanese girls that they could be no other than completely out of whack back home. Who knows what happened with them.

But henna gaijin worked hard to consolidate their positions. I learned that Jane, whose contract overlapped with mine for a few months, used to gather her sweet naïve students together in the quadrangle and tell them they could never love me as they had loved her.  God!  undoubtedly Jane meant it.  And undoubtedly her students agreed with her at the time.   But fickle young ladies that they were, after her departure they soon decided I was wonderful and politely forgot Jane… just as I am sure they forgot me speedily on my return to New York, in favor of my successor.   One wonders—did she really believe she could somehow delay or truncate her departure from Nagasaki if I failed to win her students over?  I will never know.

“The legs of a dog”  – one type of gaijin.

Living alone. – So how was it for me to be a single female foreign teacher, in Nagasaki?  Well, my downstairs neighbor Elena called me a Mexican epithet, saying I “had the legs of a dog”—which means (or so she told me) “you are always walking, always restless.”  That is to say, I was indeed lonely, often out of the house, visiting people, looking for company, while she was inside taking care of her household.  I’m sure she didn’t realize how much I envied her –that it was so much easier to have a family, a sister and a husband to come home to, like her. She was able to shut out the world outside entirely, and preserve her home and culture almost as if she were still in Mexico.

I realized that loneliness could have resolution.. that this was the time in life for people to pair off with a boyfriend or husband.  I considered getting a roommate instead but the hassles seemed to me to outweigh the plusses. Sometimes I did have a very exhilarating sense of single freedom, of living in my own space. I could cough all night. I could let the dust pile up. I could suit myself turning on my extremely tiny TV with the poor reception and watch bizarre game shows or Sesame Street for a shot of English while eating Ritz crackers (the way, I’m afraid, I spent my first melancholy Christmas), without consulting anybody else’s convenience.. But at other times, these pleasures didn’t seem to counterbalance the loneliness.

Why did I not manage to acquire a spouse?  Well, if I didn’t it wasn’t  for lack of trying on the part of my Japanese friends. The ladies at my college, a very marriage minded group, their minds busily wheeling through possible combinations of unmarried people, advised me to cruise through Mitsubishi, a giant manufacturing conglomerate and presumably a great hunting ground for foreign men.  It was a little unnerving.  I tried to tell them that I didn’t come to Japan to find a husband and they smiled wisely as if to say “likely story” and then they mentioned hopefully that they knew this very nice engineer…  Well, it didn’t happen.  I was too shy and obtuse to be aggressive in this area and frankly, if I had attempted to find a husband he would have been Japanese not gaijin. (Luckily, I did not blurt this out…. At least, not to this crowd.)

But it was considered very odd and unusual for people in Japan to live alone.  I encountered pity and incredulity so often. This was definitely a family oriented society — 9 months to the day a couple got married they were expected to produce a child. Contraception was a taboo subject (well, it can’t have been that taboo. I got hit twice by door to door salesmen wanting to sell me condoms).   If the pregnancy was really undesirable getting an abortion was relatively easy. But no one who got married was supposed to limit family size.  If the woman did not get pregnant the husband’s family would become furious with her.    Every single girl nevertheless longed for this desirable existence.  Anything was preferable to the shame of being single.  It was hard to argue for the pleasure of the soul selecting her own society.

Bad gaijin behavior. Flouting college custom.  The Lobster Quadrille- Adapting to the customs of  The junior college was no easy ride either.  They often bore the flavor of surreal. The school’s sports match “for the purposes of exchanging courtesies with our neighboring junior college’” bore a strong resemblance to Lewis Carroll’s Lobster Quadrille. “Meet- bow- exchange lobsters- return. “ And exchange courtesies – not play sports– is just what we did.

Seating was as follows: one school to the right, one to the left, facing each other.  Silence was observed; no intermingling until the signal was given: “Please talk to each other across the table.”  First a teacher at the other school introduced all the teachers. We, as the home team,  introduced ourselves to the visitors.  Then the oldest members at each school began a series of questions and answers such as “What sports are strong at your school?”  “Do you find that ladies are able at sports?” “How many male students do you have?”  To describe it as a ping pong match wouldn’t be far from the truth.

Then a sign-up sheet was passed out for a baseball game.  As I was in nylons, heels, and a skirt, I declined.  There was general indignation on all sides.  “You must play!” they stated.  I replied acidly that if I had been warned in advance I might have dressed for it.   As it turned out there was no need either for acidity or for indignation.  We all trooped out for the game…  which I never actually saw take place.

I got into a conversation with the American from the other school.  “Here’s the field.  When do we start?”  “Well”  he drawled, “as you’ve been here for two years you should know that it won’t start for at least two hours.  They got to look at the sky, exchange courtesies, take off their sports jackets, warm up, look at the ground, and chat.  I was in Africa with the Peace Corps;  in Africa they make one decision a day!  and that slowed me down a lot until I was ready for this country.” He was quite right.  That was 2:00 p.m.; when we left at 3:30, the time given for the end of the festivities, they were still ostensibly warming up.

Even worse gaijin behavior- Flouting local custom!   Yes, I was truly a difficult (though certainly not henna) gaijin.   Furthermore, I frequently encountered direct public negative criticism for my behavior.  It never occurred to me that to avoid criticism and intervention, I could have attempted to join the crowd and do as the Japanese did.   No, I was powerfully stubborn about doing what I pleased and then shocked at how much negativity my behavior elicited.

I was living in a tiny village within the city of Nagasaki, so this was less surprising.  The town was rural and insular.  The local housewives had been instructed by The junior college to keep tabs on foreign GT teachers/residents of the machi.    So they were avidly curious about foreigners and their strange ways with a view to stepping in firmly at the right time to stop them from wrong behavior.

Example:  at around 9: 30 a.m. one morning, wearing a cotton sleeping kimono, a yukata, I went outside to turn on the ofuro geyser.  Loud, unrestrained and repeated cackling and giggling — astonishment of neighbors in the street.

Neighbor:   Waaah!  There’s the gaijin!  In yukata!  She is shameless!  I can see all the way up to her…. Her bobo! (her delicate lady parts. mad cackles, giggles of glee)

Another neighbor:  She’s not the only one!  There’s another foreign teacher at The junior college who’s called “Bobo— Bobo-chan!  He is a funny man!  He is a crazy man! He is truly a gaijin!  He likes his name!  Bobo-chan!   Waaahhh!”  (more cackles—tee-hee-hee) What do you think his *wife* has, eh?  A chin-chin! (no points for guesses on this one.  more cackles)

Third neighbor:  Why is the gaijin taking her ofuro in the morning?  She’s crazy!  She should be cooking breakfast for her husband! But she hasn’t got a husband!!  What does she do at night when she should be taking her ofuro, eh?  I bet  I know!!”  (more cackles)

First neighbor, very indignant- no joking now:   Gaijin are all crazy, everybody knows that.  Why only the other morning she left her futon (bedding ) to air on the railing overnight, and it got all wet.  And it was still hanging there wet in the morning for all the neighborhood to see! I had to go and take it into to my house so as not to embarrass myself in front of the neighbors.

And do you know what she said when I came and showed her all the wet bedclothes?   “Thank you!”  That’s all!  “Thank you!”     Then she said she was working!!

I ask you!  *I’m* the one who’s working!   She’s just “teaching Ingurish!”  I gave her a piece of my mind but she didn’t understand, not one bit.   Well.  And of course she lives alone…(no cackling this time.. as they soberly contemplated this sad state of affairs….)