第10章
- Location
- Canada
Hold tight if there's something you don't understand from context! There's a lot of notes for this chapter, since we'll get the tip of the iceberg of a culture/language that requires a lot of explaining.
Squeezed into a subway car pushed to its capacity and more by a handful of muscled assistants, I spend the ride back home in a rather different kind of turmoil from the one that's become second nature to worry about. Even while half my mind is devoted to freaking out, which it's pretty much been doing for weeks solid, there's something kinda perversely refreshing about it. Instead of the overwhelming fear that I'm never going home, instead I get to panic about just what kind of consequences exactly having a parallel universe boyfriend is going to inflict on my efforts to get out of here. Then again, if things are really as serious as my other self's conversations with Yuka have implied, maybe I've only returned to get my house in order, either for him to come here or for me to return to Japan for good. In either case, whatever time I've set aside for diagnosing my exit strategies is potentially under threat, and thus far I have practically nothing to show for it.
The dim thought that I might need to be making arrangements for the longer term—not just for the sake of survival but for having any kind of life to live at all—grips my throat with scarcely fettered panic, but almost as frightening is the way it gets easier with every passing day. For the time being, I can justify myself—I'm just hedging my bets, right? If I do manage to find my way home, none of this will have mattered one way or the other. But if nothing comes of resting on the back of the supernatural to make my way home, then I need to consider my future—my fate may be living in this colder, harsher, crueler world, but then it's all the more important that I find understanding in the only family I may have left. They may never understand the life I led before becoming an unwilling dimensional slider, but then I hardly do anyway. So as I squirm my way out of the crowd, off the transit line and onto the lonely road home, I resolve that without an outlet for the more fantastical elements of my life, I can at least rely on the people around me when this life was left in progress for me to inherit it. Whether it's the dark mirror of my family, or Yuka, or—should things get to that point—maybe even Eijiro.
Opening the door to the apartment, I'm greeted with the unmistakable aroma of Western spices, which, as I'm learning, is a sign that my grandmother's in the kitchen. Things are still tense between my grandmother and me since our falling out, and her cool demeanour is a stark reminder that all the talk of resolution comes with more complications than I'd hoped—especially with my mother's work and my brother's baseball club and evening juku leaving me without someone I'd term an ally until late in the evening. But the taste of her beef brisket evokes a powerful nostalgia in me, and for the moment, emboldens me to break the silence that hangs over the table.
"Thanks for the meal," I begin, but rather than ending with it as if it's just me performing a rote obligation, I do my best to make nice with her. "You know, I missed this when I was in Japan."
She raises an eyebrow. "What, this? You always hated it growing up. You don't need to say that just to kiss up, you know."
For all I know, her skepticism is founded, but I find myself backed up for once by the memories of my own world. For all that I'd been grateful for the opportunity to travel to Japan, by the end of my time at Aoyama, I'd started to be reminded of all the things, from food to other minor conveniences and cultural dislocations that added up to a moderate case of homesickness. Given a brief taste of home—of my real home—that feeling comes rushing back a hundredfold. "No, it's—it's good. It tastes like home. After all this time, I needed something to remind me of it."
"Hah," she cackles, just a little more triumphantly than I'm comfortable with. "Maybe that little trip over there was good for something after all."
"Hey, I'm going to take that feeling when I can get it. Even if it's just sitting down to dinner a couple times a week." She nods with satisfaction, and I decide to press my chance. "I know you were disappointed, maybe because I still haven't found my way, or that I'm too naïve. But I want you to know that I'm not going to forget, no matter what else happens. No matter what I decide to do."
"What's this about now?" Her smirk fades, though she doesn't scowl like she did last time, when she tore me down to nothing, instead looking more intrigued, like she hadn't expected it of me.
I'm not sure I can blame her for that. I've been so caught up in a day-to-day survival mode for the past few weeks that I've turned myself inward, shrinking away from contact with this half-alien family. Maybe, for all the atavistic fear of finding myself trapped here forever holding fast, the stabilizing influence of a job and the promise of some kind of social life is enough to bring out a bit of the old me. "What did you imagine my life was going to be like, when I was born?"
"That's how it's gonna be, eh? Answering a question with another question?" She squints at her food, nodding along as she takes another serving. "Child, it can be difficult to feel any faith at all when you've seen what I have. But I can say that the time you were born, that was maybe the closest I've come to feeling it again. Of course then that slimy shit Matsui had to go and drag us all through the 50s all over again…" she trails off, the contempt in her voice telling me everything I need to know. "I know things have taken a turn for the better since then, but it doesn't take much for everything to fall apart again, Hannah."
A chilling thought takes the place in my mind that my grandmother's tale would otherwise occupy. If I were to find a way to return home, is there any reason to think it wouldn't happen again? More ghoulish still, could the safest thing for me to do be to try to ensure permanence here? It makes me queasy to even consider, but I force myself to press on with the idea that bubbles up in the back of my head. Yet, even disguised in half-truths, there's something exhilarating about being honest about my fears and troubles like this. "I guess… when I came back here, it didn't feel quite like I expected. Like instead of coming back home to the place I'd built up in my mind, I'd just come to another foreign country. Am I… really better off here than in Japan?" At least there, I knew that I was in a foreign country, not living out the rest of my days in the hollowed out corpse of my homeland.
To my surprise, my grandmother doesn't scoff at it like I've come to expect when it comes to matters involving Japan. Instead, a wide grin splits her face. "What happened to being homesick for brisket, eh?"
Forget the brisket—this I was homesick for, this playful back-and-forth ribbing the first sign of my real family I left behind in my world. "Well, I'd still miss the brisket," I say with a smirk. "But some things are more important than slow-cooked meat."
She half-chuckles, half-coughs, setting down her fork and patting me on the back. "I won't lie, I don't like it one bit. But you know, people my age, I think the war in our head never really ends. The Japs will always be the enemy. Maybe it's better though, that you kids don't feel it like that. Because the war ended a long time ago, and there's no point getting hung up on it."
She can't know it's still raw and raging in my head too, but maybe it will end one of these days. I hope it would never get to that point, and yet… wouldn't that be better, if it meant I could feel at home?
____________________________________
Back at Nishimura Tandai the next day and beginning to settle into a routine, I find teaching comes to me more or less naturally, or at least it puts to use my knack for remembering kanji stroke order to a lot more use than it was probably ever going to see in the world that I came from. I'm trying not to think too much at the idea that Japanese hegemony has managed to make my idiosyncratic talents a marketable skill; instead I turn my attention to my students, true natives of this world. The girls in my class seem to come from a variety of backgrounds, with an equally expansive variety of names to match—some have names suggesting a Chinese or Korean background, others Hispanic, others still Eastern European, in addition to the healthy contingent of generic English names, many of them interspersed with Japanese personal or family names.
Though their Japanese is largely fluent and natural when I prompt them with questions, I notice that in their offhanded communication to each other, they're speaking English, or at least something more like English than Japanese. When, after class, a girl comes up to me to ask a question about her assignment, her English is so thoroughly infiltrated by loanwords that I'm left totally in the dark as to what she means. It's mortifying to think I'd understand English worse than Japanese, but in the end I've got no other option but to affect a disappointed-teacher "speak properly if you're going to ask a question," which is probably gonna cement me as the most killjoy teacher in this stupid school—but hey, desperate measures.
Thankfully, after a set of classes, for most of the rest of the day I'm left to my own devices, and my workload means I don't have much time to contemplate difficult thoughts. As the end of the day arrives, though, thoughts of the life I have to juggle against a new set of Hirayama Hanna's acquaintances seep back in. I wish I could just shove it all aside and go back to eating that stupid, bland, nostalgic meatloaf with my grandmother, shooting the shit about the uncomfortably intimate relationship with the enemy I have little choice but to maintain, but fear that something will go wrong if I don't play along still trumps any kind of comfort-seeking impulse, so when I've finished up my work for the day, my first destination isn't the train back home but the library and its connection to the outside world.
As I enter the library's computer room, I notice I'm not alone. The man behind one of the terminals glances up at me, smoothing his tie and adjusting his collar before standing to face me fully. For a moment my mind pinwheels, searching for his face among the many I've faced recently, before it settles on one of the teachers I met at orientation. "Oh, Yoshida-senpai?"
It's difficult—though it gets easier every time it happens—to use a name like 'Yoshida' with a straight face with how incongruous it feels against the face of the blonde-haired white guy before me. He's tall, unusually so for almost everyone else I've encountered here, and carries an air of confidence. Like the other male teachers, he wears a suit, though he's discarded the blazer and loosened his collar, revealing the glint of a necklace underneath. With a grin, he tilts his head back and laughs.
"Didn't know you were one of those types, Hirayama-kun," he replies in Japanese, pointedly emphasizing the honorific like he's mocking me for it, before switching to English, or at least something like it. "Please, it's ridiculous enough we gotta play along all day, but it's shugie time, no need to get all kenjo about it. While we're at it, you can call me Simon. Simon Fairfield." [1]
Like the students from my class, Simon freely code-switches, using loanwords from Japanese that leave me scrambling to make sense of what he says. There's something refreshing, though, in hearing him dispense with the typical politeness register, and even with his own Japanized name, in favour of the almost foreign-feeling intimacy of a real, English-language conversation, so with a warm smile I decide I'll meet him on his turf. "Nice to meet you. I'm Hannah," I reply. "Hannah Friedberg."
"Whoa, you gotta accent on you," is the first thing he blurts out. It's not really so strong, is it? Briefly I regret opening up if it's just going to subject me to this ridiculous self-consciousness, but he quickly realizes he's gone out of line and course corrects. "Shitsurei!" he quickly adds with a sheepish smile. "Sorry, I guess I should nare it by now. So you musta gone all in on the immersion juku pretty quick, huh?"
There's too much context missing for me to be able to answer with the whole truth—to say nothing of the surprising struggle to follow his weaving back and forth into Japanese—but I go along with what he says nevertheless, thinking back to the encounter I had with my mother the night I landed in the Pacific States. "It doesn't help that I've been living in Japan for the last two years, but yeah, since I was eight."
He nods and peers at me searchingly. "I knew there was something a little Japan kay about you. That's sorta unexpected."
"What, you thought I'd be different? How am I supposed to be acting, huh?" I'm not sure what he expects of me, but I'm also unsure of where this conversation is leading me, and a small part of me feels a knee-jerk defensiveness over being categorized further as 'abnormal', worry swirling that somehow he'll see through my act.
"Hey, no shade," he says, holding up his hands and backpedalling slightly. "If anything, it's the reverse. I've lived in this town long enough that just another Baykay girl ain't all that surprising. I think it's kinda coy, you totally, y'know, niseteruzoku ppokunai na." [2]
I… think that's a compliment? In truth, as he speaks I'm slowly realizing that this world's English has changed as much as this world's Japanese—perhaps more—and so much of what he says flies over my head. How messed up is it, that right about now I think I'd prefer him speaking in Japanese over my own native language? Even still, beyond only understanding about half of what this guy is saying, a creepily familiar disquiet is burbling at the base of my gut, and I'm having trouble shaking the thought that this guy is just another pickup artist looking for a score. For the moment, an idea of how to diagnose it comes to me, and it might be reckless and risky, but hell, I'm at the point where I'll take what I can get. "Hey, so it was great to meet you and everything, but my boyfriend's expecting a message over Amici. I hope you don't mind if I get to that."
To my surprise, he doesn't flinch like he's lost a chance, instead nodding sympathetically. "Long-distance, eh? Is he back in Japan?"
"Yeah," I manage to say, though my voice wavers as I'm forced to reckon with the boyfriend I'm building up in my mind becoming more real with every reminder of the way the world contours around him. If I'm willing to use him as a shield against others, does that mean I've already started to take the relationship seriously? Even to someone I've never met?
"That's tough, huh… well, good luck. I know it's hell to get a sasho, but if you got one before, I'm sure you can manage it again." Bowing deeply, he returns to speaking Japanese, "It was a pleasure to meet you, Hirayama-kun," and then grins, sending me off in English with a casual wave and a, "see you tomorrow, Hannah."
And that's how my first meeting with Simon Fairfield comes to an end. As I boot up the computer before me, preparing to reckon with whatever the hell I'm going to tell Eijiro (and whatever he'll have to say to me), I'm halfway to dismissing it as a dead end, but something in me lingers on the thought of Simon. But much as I want to push him away, still wary that he might be eyeing me as a romantic pursuit, I can't help but feel like he reminds me of something, of someone, from another world. From my world. Maybe it's foolish of me to let myself hope for it, but I'm gonna cling to that damn feeling, evanescent though it might be. For the first time in weeks, I've got the ghost of a clue to follow up on.
____________________________________
Whew, there's a lot of Japanese loanwords and even 米製日本語 (American-made Japanese words) to get through here! Simon Fairfield is a pretty typical Anglo living in TTL's Bay Area, and his English, which I've tried to model as something between OTL Japanese and its ever-present English loanwords, and Hong Kong code-switching, is not at all outside the norm. A lot of these loanwords are starting to get more and more normalized, and thus pronounced more and more like they're native English words, though as newer words filter in, they often maintain a bit more of their Japanese contour in pronunciation, especially for fluently bilingual people. Without further ado, here's a non-exhaustive list:
Shugie – from 終業 (shūgyō 'end of the work day'). Its typical meaning is the same as in Japanese, but it's often used ironically to refer to overtime as well.
Kenjo – from 謙譲 (kenjō, 'humility', 'modesty'). Commonly used in Japanese in the compound 謙譲語 (kenjōgo, 'humble language'), a particular register used especially when speaking to superiors. In English, simply 'being kenjo' usually refers to using that register or acting (excessively) acquiescent and demure.
Shitsurei – from 失礼 (shitsurei, [an instance of] 'impoliteness'). Used in English somewhat interchangeably with 'sorry', but usually/especially after you've just said something insensitive/insulting/etc.
Nare – from 慣れる (nareru, 'to become used/accustomed to'). More recent loanword than the others, but it's a useful one as it replaces the clunky English phrasal verb 'be/get used to'.
Kay and baykay – from 系 (kei, 'style/system'), and 米系/ベイ系 (beikei, 'American style' or 'Bay style'). In English, the term often refers to a combination of personality traits, fashion, behaviour, language that typify a particular area or subculture. So 'Japan kay' is 'looking/acting/talking like someone from Japan', 'Baykay' is the same for (especially) the Bay Area, and so forth.
Coy – from 格好いい (kakkoii, 'cool', 'stylish', 'good-looking'). This generation's cool/neat/groovy/swell.
Sasho – from 査証 (sashō, 'visa'). Often referred to by its Japanese name, since it's part of the official government structure, and anyone interacting with the government on that level is going to have to be reasonably proficient in Japanese anyway.
[1] Those of you familiar with honorifics in Japanese might know that -kun is primarily used for men, but it's also often used to refer to men and women of equal or lower standing in workplaces.
[2] literally, "…(because) you're not like the faker tribe," more idiomatically "…well, you don't act like the rest of those basic bitches." In TTL, 似せてる族 niseteruzoku ('faker tribe') is a common way to disparage a certain group of middle-class white American women who try to copy particular upper-class Japanese trends, not always 100% faithfully, such that a recognizable subculture around this group has emerged.
A 似せっ子/偽っ子 nisekko is archetypally loud and gaudy, most often found with a cliquish gaggle of her compatriots, stalking around shopping districts she can't afford to buy from. She drinks matcha lattes, wears fashion-forward styles from Japanese streetwear like altered, non-traditional yukata, reads the fashion magazine Soen religiously, and can't speak proper English or Japanese without mixing one with the other. They often communicate in messages that are, to an outside observer, basically codespeak—偽文字 nisemoji ('fake symbols/characters') that include lots of rebuses, smiley faces, and visual puns. Think of it like a mixture of emoji, Cockney rhyming slang, and gyarumoji.
Reassuring Hannah that she's not a nisekko is a bit of a backhanded compliment from Simon since he's basically saying she's Not Like Other Girls, but then again, Simon's someone that a nisekko might accuse of being a "cherry guy" (from チャラい charai 'flighty, flashy, cheap, shallow').
第１０章
When fellowship unites a group of people
in the open country, great success is possible.
Benefit comes from crossing the great stream,
or for a noble man to maintain his character.
I Ching (The Book of Changes)
䷌: Hexagram 13 (同人, Fellowship)
When fellowship unites a group of people
in the open country, great success is possible.
Benefit comes from crossing the great stream,
or for a noble man to maintain his character.
I Ching (The Book of Changes)
䷌: Hexagram 13 (同人, Fellowship)
Squeezed into a subway car pushed to its capacity and more by a handful of muscled assistants, I spend the ride back home in a rather different kind of turmoil from the one that's become second nature to worry about. Even while half my mind is devoted to freaking out, which it's pretty much been doing for weeks solid, there's something kinda perversely refreshing about it. Instead of the overwhelming fear that I'm never going home, instead I get to panic about just what kind of consequences exactly having a parallel universe boyfriend is going to inflict on my efforts to get out of here. Then again, if things are really as serious as my other self's conversations with Yuka have implied, maybe I've only returned to get my house in order, either for him to come here or for me to return to Japan for good. In either case, whatever time I've set aside for diagnosing my exit strategies is potentially under threat, and thus far I have practically nothing to show for it.
The dim thought that I might need to be making arrangements for the longer term—not just for the sake of survival but for having any kind of life to live at all—grips my throat with scarcely fettered panic, but almost as frightening is the way it gets easier with every passing day. For the time being, I can justify myself—I'm just hedging my bets, right? If I do manage to find my way home, none of this will have mattered one way or the other. But if nothing comes of resting on the back of the supernatural to make my way home, then I need to consider my future—my fate may be living in this colder, harsher, crueler world, but then it's all the more important that I find understanding in the only family I may have left. They may never understand the life I led before becoming an unwilling dimensional slider, but then I hardly do anyway. So as I squirm my way out of the crowd, off the transit line and onto the lonely road home, I resolve that without an outlet for the more fantastical elements of my life, I can at least rely on the people around me when this life was left in progress for me to inherit it. Whether it's the dark mirror of my family, or Yuka, or—should things get to that point—maybe even Eijiro.
Opening the door to the apartment, I'm greeted with the unmistakable aroma of Western spices, which, as I'm learning, is a sign that my grandmother's in the kitchen. Things are still tense between my grandmother and me since our falling out, and her cool demeanour is a stark reminder that all the talk of resolution comes with more complications than I'd hoped—especially with my mother's work and my brother's baseball club and evening juku leaving me without someone I'd term an ally until late in the evening. But the taste of her beef brisket evokes a powerful nostalgia in me, and for the moment, emboldens me to break the silence that hangs over the table.
"Thanks for the meal," I begin, but rather than ending with it as if it's just me performing a rote obligation, I do my best to make nice with her. "You know, I missed this when I was in Japan."
She raises an eyebrow. "What, this? You always hated it growing up. You don't need to say that just to kiss up, you know."
For all I know, her skepticism is founded, but I find myself backed up for once by the memories of my own world. For all that I'd been grateful for the opportunity to travel to Japan, by the end of my time at Aoyama, I'd started to be reminded of all the things, from food to other minor conveniences and cultural dislocations that added up to a moderate case of homesickness. Given a brief taste of home—of my real home—that feeling comes rushing back a hundredfold. "No, it's—it's good. It tastes like home. After all this time, I needed something to remind me of it."
"Hah," she cackles, just a little more triumphantly than I'm comfortable with. "Maybe that little trip over there was good for something after all."
"Hey, I'm going to take that feeling when I can get it. Even if it's just sitting down to dinner a couple times a week." She nods with satisfaction, and I decide to press my chance. "I know you were disappointed, maybe because I still haven't found my way, or that I'm too naïve. But I want you to know that I'm not going to forget, no matter what else happens. No matter what I decide to do."
"What's this about now?" Her smirk fades, though she doesn't scowl like she did last time, when she tore me down to nothing, instead looking more intrigued, like she hadn't expected it of me.
I'm not sure I can blame her for that. I've been so caught up in a day-to-day survival mode for the past few weeks that I've turned myself inward, shrinking away from contact with this half-alien family. Maybe, for all the atavistic fear of finding myself trapped here forever holding fast, the stabilizing influence of a job and the promise of some kind of social life is enough to bring out a bit of the old me. "What did you imagine my life was going to be like, when I was born?"
"That's how it's gonna be, eh? Answering a question with another question?" She squints at her food, nodding along as she takes another serving. "Child, it can be difficult to feel any faith at all when you've seen what I have. But I can say that the time you were born, that was maybe the closest I've come to feeling it again. Of course then that slimy shit Matsui had to go and drag us all through the 50s all over again…" she trails off, the contempt in her voice telling me everything I need to know. "I know things have taken a turn for the better since then, but it doesn't take much for everything to fall apart again, Hannah."
A chilling thought takes the place in my mind that my grandmother's tale would otherwise occupy. If I were to find a way to return home, is there any reason to think it wouldn't happen again? More ghoulish still, could the safest thing for me to do be to try to ensure permanence here? It makes me queasy to even consider, but I force myself to press on with the idea that bubbles up in the back of my head. Yet, even disguised in half-truths, there's something exhilarating about being honest about my fears and troubles like this. "I guess… when I came back here, it didn't feel quite like I expected. Like instead of coming back home to the place I'd built up in my mind, I'd just come to another foreign country. Am I… really better off here than in Japan?" At least there, I knew that I was in a foreign country, not living out the rest of my days in the hollowed out corpse of my homeland.
To my surprise, my grandmother doesn't scoff at it like I've come to expect when it comes to matters involving Japan. Instead, a wide grin splits her face. "What happened to being homesick for brisket, eh?"
Forget the brisket—this I was homesick for, this playful back-and-forth ribbing the first sign of my real family I left behind in my world. "Well, I'd still miss the brisket," I say with a smirk. "But some things are more important than slow-cooked meat."
She half-chuckles, half-coughs, setting down her fork and patting me on the back. "I won't lie, I don't like it one bit. But you know, people my age, I think the war in our head never really ends. The Japs will always be the enemy. Maybe it's better though, that you kids don't feel it like that. Because the war ended a long time ago, and there's no point getting hung up on it."
She can't know it's still raw and raging in my head too, but maybe it will end one of these days. I hope it would never get to that point, and yet… wouldn't that be better, if it meant I could feel at home?
____________________________________
Back at Nishimura Tandai the next day and beginning to settle into a routine, I find teaching comes to me more or less naturally, or at least it puts to use my knack for remembering kanji stroke order to a lot more use than it was probably ever going to see in the world that I came from. I'm trying not to think too much at the idea that Japanese hegemony has managed to make my idiosyncratic talents a marketable skill; instead I turn my attention to my students, true natives of this world. The girls in my class seem to come from a variety of backgrounds, with an equally expansive variety of names to match—some have names suggesting a Chinese or Korean background, others Hispanic, others still Eastern European, in addition to the healthy contingent of generic English names, many of them interspersed with Japanese personal or family names.
Though their Japanese is largely fluent and natural when I prompt them with questions, I notice that in their offhanded communication to each other, they're speaking English, or at least something more like English than Japanese. When, after class, a girl comes up to me to ask a question about her assignment, her English is so thoroughly infiltrated by loanwords that I'm left totally in the dark as to what she means. It's mortifying to think I'd understand English worse than Japanese, but in the end I've got no other option but to affect a disappointed-teacher "speak properly if you're going to ask a question," which is probably gonna cement me as the most killjoy teacher in this stupid school—but hey, desperate measures.
Thankfully, after a set of classes, for most of the rest of the day I'm left to my own devices, and my workload means I don't have much time to contemplate difficult thoughts. As the end of the day arrives, though, thoughts of the life I have to juggle against a new set of Hirayama Hanna's acquaintances seep back in. I wish I could just shove it all aside and go back to eating that stupid, bland, nostalgic meatloaf with my grandmother, shooting the shit about the uncomfortably intimate relationship with the enemy I have little choice but to maintain, but fear that something will go wrong if I don't play along still trumps any kind of comfort-seeking impulse, so when I've finished up my work for the day, my first destination isn't the train back home but the library and its connection to the outside world.
As I enter the library's computer room, I notice I'm not alone. The man behind one of the terminals glances up at me, smoothing his tie and adjusting his collar before standing to face me fully. For a moment my mind pinwheels, searching for his face among the many I've faced recently, before it settles on one of the teachers I met at orientation. "Oh, Yoshida-senpai?"
It's difficult—though it gets easier every time it happens—to use a name like 'Yoshida' with a straight face with how incongruous it feels against the face of the blonde-haired white guy before me. He's tall, unusually so for almost everyone else I've encountered here, and carries an air of confidence. Like the other male teachers, he wears a suit, though he's discarded the blazer and loosened his collar, revealing the glint of a necklace underneath. With a grin, he tilts his head back and laughs.
"Didn't know you were one of those types, Hirayama-kun," he replies in Japanese, pointedly emphasizing the honorific like he's mocking me for it, before switching to English, or at least something like it. "Please, it's ridiculous enough we gotta play along all day, but it's shugie time, no need to get all kenjo about it. While we're at it, you can call me Simon. Simon Fairfield." [1]
Like the students from my class, Simon freely code-switches, using loanwords from Japanese that leave me scrambling to make sense of what he says. There's something refreshing, though, in hearing him dispense with the typical politeness register, and even with his own Japanized name, in favour of the almost foreign-feeling intimacy of a real, English-language conversation, so with a warm smile I decide I'll meet him on his turf. "Nice to meet you. I'm Hannah," I reply. "Hannah Friedberg."
"Whoa, you gotta accent on you," is the first thing he blurts out. It's not really so strong, is it? Briefly I regret opening up if it's just going to subject me to this ridiculous self-consciousness, but he quickly realizes he's gone out of line and course corrects. "Shitsurei!" he quickly adds with a sheepish smile. "Sorry, I guess I should nare it by now. So you musta gone all in on the immersion juku pretty quick, huh?"
There's too much context missing for me to be able to answer with the whole truth—to say nothing of the surprising struggle to follow his weaving back and forth into Japanese—but I go along with what he says nevertheless, thinking back to the encounter I had with my mother the night I landed in the Pacific States. "It doesn't help that I've been living in Japan for the last two years, but yeah, since I was eight."
He nods and peers at me searchingly. "I knew there was something a little Japan kay about you. That's sorta unexpected."
"What, you thought I'd be different? How am I supposed to be acting, huh?" I'm not sure what he expects of me, but I'm also unsure of where this conversation is leading me, and a small part of me feels a knee-jerk defensiveness over being categorized further as 'abnormal', worry swirling that somehow he'll see through my act.
"Hey, no shade," he says, holding up his hands and backpedalling slightly. "If anything, it's the reverse. I've lived in this town long enough that just another Baykay girl ain't all that surprising. I think it's kinda coy, you totally, y'know, niseteruzoku ppokunai na." [2]
I… think that's a compliment? In truth, as he speaks I'm slowly realizing that this world's English has changed as much as this world's Japanese—perhaps more—and so much of what he says flies over my head. How messed up is it, that right about now I think I'd prefer him speaking in Japanese over my own native language? Even still, beyond only understanding about half of what this guy is saying, a creepily familiar disquiet is burbling at the base of my gut, and I'm having trouble shaking the thought that this guy is just another pickup artist looking for a score. For the moment, an idea of how to diagnose it comes to me, and it might be reckless and risky, but hell, I'm at the point where I'll take what I can get. "Hey, so it was great to meet you and everything, but my boyfriend's expecting a message over Amici. I hope you don't mind if I get to that."
To my surprise, he doesn't flinch like he's lost a chance, instead nodding sympathetically. "Long-distance, eh? Is he back in Japan?"
"Yeah," I manage to say, though my voice wavers as I'm forced to reckon with the boyfriend I'm building up in my mind becoming more real with every reminder of the way the world contours around him. If I'm willing to use him as a shield against others, does that mean I've already started to take the relationship seriously? Even to someone I've never met?
"That's tough, huh… well, good luck. I know it's hell to get a sasho, but if you got one before, I'm sure you can manage it again." Bowing deeply, he returns to speaking Japanese, "It was a pleasure to meet you, Hirayama-kun," and then grins, sending me off in English with a casual wave and a, "see you tomorrow, Hannah."
And that's how my first meeting with Simon Fairfield comes to an end. As I boot up the computer before me, preparing to reckon with whatever the hell I'm going to tell Eijiro (and whatever he'll have to say to me), I'm halfway to dismissing it as a dead end, but something in me lingers on the thought of Simon. But much as I want to push him away, still wary that he might be eyeing me as a romantic pursuit, I can't help but feel like he reminds me of something, of someone, from another world. From my world. Maybe it's foolish of me to let myself hope for it, but I'm gonna cling to that damn feeling, evanescent though it might be. For the first time in weeks, I've got the ghost of a clue to follow up on.
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Notes
Whew, there's a lot of Japanese loanwords and even 米製日本語 (American-made Japanese words) to get through here! Simon Fairfield is a pretty typical Anglo living in TTL's Bay Area, and his English, which I've tried to model as something between OTL Japanese and its ever-present English loanwords, and Hong Kong code-switching, is not at all outside the norm. A lot of these loanwords are starting to get more and more normalized, and thus pronounced more and more like they're native English words, though as newer words filter in, they often maintain a bit more of their Japanese contour in pronunciation, especially for fluently bilingual people. Without further ado, here's a non-exhaustive list:
Shugie – from 終業 (shūgyō 'end of the work day'). Its typical meaning is the same as in Japanese, but it's often used ironically to refer to overtime as well.
Kenjo – from 謙譲 (kenjō, 'humility', 'modesty'). Commonly used in Japanese in the compound 謙譲語 (kenjōgo, 'humble language'), a particular register used especially when speaking to superiors. In English, simply 'being kenjo' usually refers to using that register or acting (excessively) acquiescent and demure.
Shitsurei – from 失礼 (shitsurei, [an instance of] 'impoliteness'). Used in English somewhat interchangeably with 'sorry', but usually/especially after you've just said something insensitive/insulting/etc.
Nare – from 慣れる (nareru, 'to become used/accustomed to'). More recent loanword than the others, but it's a useful one as it replaces the clunky English phrasal verb 'be/get used to'.
Kay and baykay – from 系 (kei, 'style/system'), and 米系/ベイ系 (beikei, 'American style' or 'Bay style'). In English, the term often refers to a combination of personality traits, fashion, behaviour, language that typify a particular area or subculture. So 'Japan kay' is 'looking/acting/talking like someone from Japan', 'Baykay' is the same for (especially) the Bay Area, and so forth.
Coy – from 格好いい (kakkoii, 'cool', 'stylish', 'good-looking'). This generation's cool/neat/groovy/swell.
Sasho – from 査証 (sashō, 'visa'). Often referred to by its Japanese name, since it's part of the official government structure, and anyone interacting with the government on that level is going to have to be reasonably proficient in Japanese anyway.
[1] Those of you familiar with honorifics in Japanese might know that -kun is primarily used for men, but it's also often used to refer to men and women of equal or lower standing in workplaces.
[2] literally, "…(because) you're not like the faker tribe," more idiomatically "…well, you don't act like the rest of those basic bitches." In TTL, 似せてる族 niseteruzoku ('faker tribe') is a common way to disparage a certain group of middle-class white American women who try to copy particular upper-class Japanese trends, not always 100% faithfully, such that a recognizable subculture around this group has emerged.
A 似せっ子/偽っ子 nisekko is archetypally loud and gaudy, most often found with a cliquish gaggle of her compatriots, stalking around shopping districts she can't afford to buy from. She drinks matcha lattes, wears fashion-forward styles from Japanese streetwear like altered, non-traditional yukata, reads the fashion magazine Soen religiously, and can't speak proper English or Japanese without mixing one with the other. They often communicate in messages that are, to an outside observer, basically codespeak—偽文字 nisemoji ('fake symbols/characters') that include lots of rebuses, smiley faces, and visual puns. Think of it like a mixture of emoji, Cockney rhyming slang, and gyarumoji.
Reassuring Hannah that she's not a nisekko is a bit of a backhanded compliment from Simon since he's basically saying she's Not Like Other Girls, but then again, Simon's someone that a nisekko might accuse of being a "cherry guy" (from チャラい charai 'flighty, flashy, cheap, shallow').