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Deer Hunteresque Wife: Life in Japan
By fauxpas | January 21, 2010
My wife has become Robert Deniro in the Deer Hunter-enigmatic. I’ve become Christopher Walken, left behind in Nam gamgling my life away with Russian Roullette, only she doesn’t want to save me. A student wants to take me to a Sumo match, sure, but teachers have to call home first. Bumped my head in the school library. Got on the wrong train to work and on the wrong train coming home. Where am I?
I’m in Japan. I live here now. I’m making the most of it. That sounds normal. I keep coming to the conclusion that everything here is about control. Control what you show others, follow the heard. A friend related it to the new Star Trek, when Picard battled the Borg. I told him that I was Picard and my wife was Data or maybe society was like that. Anyway he got was I was saying.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be here. I have a job and my kids are happy being kids. It’s just that I’ve come to some impasse with my wife.
I’m optimistic.
I wake up at 5 a.m. and then leave at 6 a.m. hopefully and arrive at work after taking several trains, Kawaguchi to Tabata, to Takadanobaba, to Hagashi Murayama and then back again. It’s grueling. I think I read about as fast as some people text message inside the train. I’m an actor sometimes more than a teacher. I guess actors must feel like this after performing the same play play over and over again.
Hopefully we will talk again. I can’t say that sometimes I’m an asshole but I don’t think I’m the Ugly American. I’m respectful. I listen to my ipod and read Gogol on the train to and from work or maybe the International Harold Tribune. I stare out the window at the passing scenery. I try to keep a low profile though I know I’m being scanned like food at the check out counter. People are friendly, fashionable and helpful.
I want to connect but I don’t speak Japanese, which confounds a lot of Japanese people I meet but this is 2010. People speak English everywhere but I need to learn Japanese. I’m pushing myself to learn it. It will take some time. My son makes fun of me sometimes but he’s only three years old. I admire him a lot.
I love my wife but she is enigmatic at times. I can’t read her. She surprises me and maybe we have reached a new level in our relationship or maybe I’m just losing it or both. I’m patient. I can wait. I’m not in a hurry like the people in the metro every morning who all of sudden pick up speed as if Godzilla was attacking Tokyo. I can wait. I don’t have to run. I take my time. I’ve learned to move out of the way and position myself on the train, missing the blitz. I’m getting better.
Topics: Uncategorized |
January 22nd, 2010 at 4:20 am
Thank you for sharing your thoughts re the downs & outs of your relationship, life in general. Maybe the comedian W.C. Fields was right about marriage, he said ” I am weary of getting involved in something called an institution”……….