Live from Japan!

sit next to me?

Today I had a first-period class and I decided to take the bus to work. When I arrived at the bus platform, the line of people was deep. Luckily I got myself a spot in line which would, virtually, guarantee me a seat once the empty bus pulled up. Score!

As I waited the five minutes for the next bus to arrive, the line got longer and longer. Just looking at the line, I knew it was going to be a full bus and we were only at the first stop. It would surely fill up even more with each stop we would make.

Once the bus pulled up everyone boarded in an orderly way. I was able to snag a window seat near the front of the bus and I scooted in as far in as I could, putting my bag on my lap, allowing more than enough space for another passenger to sit beside me.

EVERY seat on the bus filled and the aisle became crammed with passengers. Yet, no one would take the seat beside me. I even offered the seat to a few of the passengers standing in the aisle near me, and not a single one would take me up on the offer. One woman, who had refused my seat when offered, was quick to fill the seat right in front of me when that passenger got off the bus.

This is not the first time I have had this experience, and I know it will not be the last here in Japan. But, somehow, it is the first time that it really bothered me and made me angry. After being here for a year, and figuring my way around things, I sometimes forget how much of an outsider I am. I guess I don’t really forget, so much as I have stopped noticing.

But today, with something as obvious as an entire bus filled with people refusing to sit next to me it was crystal clear. I am still the scary foreigner and people would rather stand for their entire ride than have a seat next to me.

And today it really bothered me. It really hurts to blatantly experience discrimination in my daily life. I know many people and many groups in my home country experience this same phenomenon, and I honestly, truly, feel that I can empathize with them in a way that I wasn’t able to before coming to Japan. I am glad that I have developed this sort of empathy, but also frustrated and sad that I have had to.

I am frustrated and sad that I live in a place where no matter how hard I try I will never be able to fully integrate into the culture. Even if I become fluent in Japanese, I will always be looked at as a foreigner, an outsider, a stranger.

While I know that discrimination happens in my own country, often in flagrant and vile ways, it is also a place with so much multiculturalism that it is difficult to readily identify the outsiders. And I guess that that is one thing I really like about America.