Hidoi

There are a group of six junior high school girls standing in a circle on the corner, their bags piled in a heap at their feet. As I approach, they are busy with a rock-paper-scissors janken game, one which is frequently used in Japan to decide things. Obviously they’ve decided something, because one of the girls screams “Hidooooi!!!” ‘You guys are so cruel’ and the other five slap hands and start to walk away, laughing.

The loser gathers up all six bags and begins to stagger up the hill after them. The bags must be quite heavy because as I pass her on the other side of the street, I can see she has a look of intense concentration on her face. As I draw level, she focuses on me, realises I’m a foreigner and instantly the mask of effort drops away and a huge grin spreads across her face, “Hallo, how are you?!!” she yells, in the one-breath “I’ve rote memorised this phrase” style that most junior high kids have. I reply that I’m good, how is she? “I’m fine thank you!” and as I go past, she grins once more then sets her jaw and concentrates on her load.

It strikes me that I have just come across Japanese culture condensed to a microcosm: the thirty second peek into what makes this country tick. The open and closed. Inside and outside.

Gaman (我慢) is a verb you hear quite often. It means to persevere. To stick with it. To exercise self-control. To be put in a shitty situation and still be able to turn around and smile.

I was in the optician yesterday, getting contacts done for the very first time and I was having enormous trouble actually getting the damn things in my eye. They seemed to stick to my finger like glue, stick to themselves with the slightest touch and do anything but actually go in my eye. The doctor had told me to use my right hand, and as I’m left-handed this felt really awkward. After about twenty tries I was getting visibly frustrated. His advice: “gaman suru.” My thoughts, “stuff it right up your pie hole.”

If I was walking up that hill, with those bags, I don’t think I would have smiled or said hello. Not in a million years. And that worries me a little.

Posted in Japan on Thursday January 12, 2006.