Gaijin

A hawk swoops down to
take the apple from his hand
I saw it happen

This actually happened a couple of days ago. Carolyn and I were walking along the big beach (Ohama) with a couple of new friends. Like us, they’re gaijin – foreigners. I had wanted to believe that the out-of-the-way neighborhood where we’ve settled for this month was a place that no other foreigner had found, but I wasn’t here more than a few days until I occasionally caught glimpses of blond hair and Caucasian features whizzing by on a bike or in a car. At first there is the subtle hint of recognition, sort of like what I always imagine it must be like when two African Americans catch each others’ eye in a crowd of white people. Do you go and talk, just because their skin is like yours? Finally the day came. Carolyn and I were walking down the hill, and just ahead of us about ten or twenty steps were two of them. Didn’t know whether to speed up and engage them in conversation (always at first with those few cautious words, “eigo ga dekimasu ka?” – “Do you speak English?”), or to slow down and stay immersed in the experience of being away – “We didn’t come here to meet Americans!” But they slowed down to look at something, and we caught up. Eyes met. “Hi, how ya doing?” “Great! What brings you to Shimoda?” And the conversation begins.

Darshan is in his early thirties. His mom, Shannon, is roughly Carolyn’s and my age – perhaps a couple of years older, probably an old hippie (...her son’s Sanskrit name, her San Francisco address, hmmm…), now a rather conventional middle-aged west coast suburbanite from all appearances. Darshan is married to a Japanese woman, and they’ve just had a new baby. He lives here in the neighborhood, and has lived in Japan for ten years. His mom is visiting for a couple of weeks, eager to convince her son and daughter-in-law to move back closer to home, especially now that her grandchild has been born. We talk for a few minutes, long enough to learn that he sailed from here to Hawaii last year, and that he runs an internet-based business of indeterminate nature, though we’re guessing real estate. He’s the one who clarifies for us that there are actually two cherry blossom seasons here, and that we have not missed out. He also tells us about the wild pigs in the neighborhood. We love the exotic bamboo forest just behind us, and the lovely palms at the entrance to the neighborhood – we didn’t know that wild pigs went along with it!

He asks us if we’ve met any of the other gaijin in the neighborhood. We haven’t. He says we’ll surely meet David Dix, an Irish handyman who is something of a presence in the area. When we ask about wireless internet access in the neighborhood, he tells us about an open network next door to his house called “Home” which we can surely use. The homeowner hasn’t been around for six months. Yeah! No more treks into Makudonarudo! We finally part with some final “see you around the neighborhood” comments.

Through the tunnels and down to the beach, we stroll casually, until the two of them catch up to us again. We stop to talk again, watching the surfers, and getting more local information.

And in a terrifying split second, a hawk that had been soaring above swoops down between us, and attempts to take the apple out of Darshan’s hand, which he would have accomplished – perhaps along with his hand! – if Darshan had not jumped when he did! Whoosh! I’ve never experienced anything like it. We stood and watched the hawk soaring above, then engaging another large bird in some menacing aerobatics, until Darshan unloaded his apple and we watched the raptor dive for it on the beach, finally taking his prize. The hawk gets his apple – Darshan gets to keep his hand. Not a bad deal.

Later the same day we were walking around Shimoda when we spotted another Euro-American-looking gaijin couple ahead. It’s not all that uncommon here in town, actually. In fact, I spotted a guy in a Boston Red Sox cap about a week ago. He was with a group of West Point cadets here for a week on Spring Break. But this time, Carolyn had had enough of the familiar for one day, and was probably afraid that I’d want to stop and talk (as, yes, I often do), so we crossed to the other side of the street and made our way to our next destination. I guessed they were Germans.

An hour or so later, there they were again. This time we were looking right at each other. “Eigo ga dekimasu ka?” A blank stare. “Hi, how are you?” This time a response, even though English is not their first language. They were Germans. When Carolyn asked them what part of Germany, they said the south, near Stuttgart. Carolyn’s eyes lit up. She’s been doing a lot of family genealogy the past few years, and her Shilling ancestors came from the Stuttgart area, where they used to be Schillings. She told the couple that her family had gone to the US from Heilbron about five generations ago in the 1840s. Now their eyes lit up. “That’s where we live!” Long-lost cousins? We ended up bumping into each other a couple of other time as we both made our way through Shimoda Park and its lovely vistas overlooking the city and the harbor.

The next day Carolyn and I each took our laptops in search of wireless internet, walking up and down Darshan’s street until we found “Home” in the network list. While I am usually loathe to be such a conspicuous gaijin, it’s a quiet neighborhood – mostly a weekend getaway for Tokyo professionals and summer residents – so we each found an outdoor perch where we got at least two bars worth of connection, and from where we could catch up on the news, pay our bills, and read our email. Sure beats going into McDonald’s. Later on, walking back to our place, I saw two gaijin, one of them perched precariously on the side of a hill with a blazing weed-whacker in his hand. I walked on by. The other stopped me with a “Hi, how ya doin’?” (I guess I’m the only one who starts off with the cautious, un-prepossessing “eigo ga dekimasu ka?” bit.) This was the famous David Dix – Irish guy with a US passport, married to a Japanese wife. He’d made his fortune with Dell, so they decided on a lifestyle change, and now live in a lovely home here in the neighborhood with their three kids. He runs a handyman business. Strikes me as a variation on the Dominican or Nicaraguan doctor or engineer doing yard work in Andover, except with a very different level of comfort and security. He invites me over for a cup of tea or a beer. He’s a very outgoing, friendly guy, and I’ll probably take him up on it.

That same evening, I went out for my customary walk. It’s getting dark, and I’m walking through the tunnel to the beach, now listening for wild pigs (thanks to Darshan), when instead I notice the sound of a bicycle coming from behind, through the dark tunnel, on the right side of the road (they drive on the left side in Japan). It’s either a drunk, or a gaijin, or both. I see the blond hair as he whizzes by. Makes me nervous. I emerge from the tunnel, and the bicyclist has stopped to rearrange his cargo. I stop and we introduce ourselves. He’s Tom, a twenty-something from Colorado. Over the next twenty minutes, the story pours out, while he’s nervously showing me pictures of his family back home that he just happens to have with him – his brother, his mother and father, and his sister – and their family vacation to Cozumel last November. Tom came to Japan right after that vacation to see the girlfriend he’s had since they met in college about five years ago. Ignoring the warning his father gave him before he left, he and Yasuko got married in December. No big wedding, just a civil ceremony at the US Embassy. Tom doesn’t speak Japanese, but is trying to learn. He showed me his books in the basket on the front of his bike. He also showed me the picture of him “playing the harmonica in a Buddhist church.” Said that his mother-in-law wouldn’t let them stay in her house after they got married unless he converted to Sokka Gakkai. Tom didn’t seem to know much about it, but I know just a little. It’s a very aggressive Buddhist sect – one of the so-called “New Religions” in Japan. Relative to the more mainstream Buddhist denominations, it has roughly the same place as the Jehovah’s Witnesses do in Christianity. He doesn’t like praying the chants for three hours at a time, which he has to do, or pray for his wife Yasuko to be restored to the faith as his mother-in-law insists, and he says he doesn’t really believe any of it, but it’s a price Tom seems willing to pay for now – keeps a roof over his head and food on the table for him and Yasuko until he can get their act together. Then it’s “so long, Sokka Gakkai.” Meanwhile, he finally got a job – doing yard work for this really nice guy named David Dix. Ah yes, the kid with the weed whacker on the side of the hill. David, he says, is not only giving him a job, but is teaching him a lot about life in general and about marriage. “He’s like a father to me…”

You go, David.

I can’t help being slightly parental myself, and I mention my concern about him riding on the wrong side of the road out here after dark. “Oh, yeah, I was just over at David’s house and we were having a few beers. Guess I kinda forgot.”

Yikes.

I move along as he continues to get his stuff together. Ten minutes later, he passes me again – on the wrong side of the road again. “Don’t forget, they drive on the left side here, Tom!” I yell after him.

Oh dear. All I can think about is Tom’s poor parents.

Enough gaijin stories for now. Tempts me to start crossing to the other side of the street.