Here, There, Me

in Articles Publishing by geadmin2 — May 22, 2010 at 3:37 pm | 0 comments

“Here, There, and Me” is a compilation of stories and reflections from a new generation of mixed cultural heritage children who grew up in Japan. Due to be published in paperback through Emic Press, Global Ethnographic’s partner publishing house, the book consists of twenty short essays from the young people that are the subjects of the book.

Global Ethnographic will be featuring some of the essays that appear in the book.   We start with Sarah Thomas.

“Here, There, and Me” by Penny Kinnear will soon be available for pre-order.

by Sarah Thomas

Everyone has their own stories of times when they have encountered a society new to them, cultures different from their own, or traveled to different countries.  Often, when people have these encounters they find adjusting to new ways, or being accepted a hard task.Yet, for most people these new adjustments regardless how often they must be made are still a small part of who they are, for they have a hometown, a city, a country where their own culture has developed and flourishes.  Being intercultural and biracial the biggest difference I find between myself and those with a single nationality is that I don’t quite fit in to any certain country.  If I travel to the States there are always the people who question me as if I were completely Japanese, and while I am in Japan those who don’t know me look at me as a foreigner.

At three I went to a small Japanese pre-school.  I clearly remember my first day.  Equipped with my lunchbox and indoor shoes, I walked through a large blue gate onto a small open playground.  For a moment I stopped to capture the new environment.  I scanned the playground, happy to see a shiny silver slide, monkey bars, and a chalk drawn miniature running track.  As I busily investigated the small preschool campus, I hardly noticed some of the other preschoolers slowly wander towards me.  They too, overwhelmed by their new surroundings started to investigate, however their process of investigation differed from mine.  While I carefully studied the buildings and playground they decided to study me.  They stood there in awe not moving a muscle not saying a word.  Recapturing themselves they ran back to their parents and asked why I was so abnormally tall.

On the day of the school’s undou-kai or sports day, I ran my first race ever.  After crossing the finish line ahead of all of the boys my teachers and classmates clustered around me,

“Why on earth can you run so fast?”

“Why do you run in such a funny way, with your hands straight as boards instead of in a fist?”

I stood lost and confused.  My height was perhaps a bit on the tall side but that was only to be expected because both my Japanese mom and American dad are tall.  The way I ran was exactly the same way I had seen my sister and everyone else run.  So what if I ran with my hands open rather then clutched in a fist?  I never quite understood why such small things like my height or the way I ran caught the attention of so many people who then picked me apart bit by bit trying to understand how I work.  Even as I grew older I encountered similar situations where I was “studied” because of my nationality.

At age ten I went to my first ever basketball camp in California.  I remember being absolutely horrified.  I had never left my parents for more than a couple nights.  All of the sudden I was snatched out of my relaxing summer and dropped into a huge college campus, with huge camp counsellors, and a huge group of kids.  Upon arrival, I carefully stayed behind my sister who also attended the camp.  Each step she’d take, I made sure I was right behind her so that if anything were to happen she could handle the situation for me. Then the dreaded occurred and the huge counsellors pulled us apart into different age groups.  Separated from my one defense against everyone else, I was tossed into a team, the crocodiles or the lizards or something, I remember standing there helplessly amongst fifteen or so other ten-year-old girls wondering if I was ever going to survive five whole days of camp.  I stood there completely in my own world. My body was numb with all I had to take in, and I could not hear a word of what my counsellor said, when someone tapped me on the shoulder.  Startled, I looked around to see a small blonde girl looking at me curiously from head to toe.  When she saw that she had got my attention she tilted her head to one side and said,

“Hello, where are you from?”

A little relieved at the simplicity of the question I smiled and answered,

“Tokyo, how about you?”

Instantly I had five girls swarm me.

“Can you speak Chinese?” one girl asked.

Chinese? I remember thinking to myself.  Why on earth could I speak Chinese?

“Can you fly?”

At this I blurted out, “Fly!? I wish I could.  Why can you?” These girls must be insane.

The girl looked at me as if I were the stupid one and said,

“Of course I can’t fly, I just thought you could, you know like ninja’s do when they go from rooftop to rooftop”.

Three years ago, my family and I took a trip to Boston, Massachusetts to visit my aunt’s family.  A couple of days into the visit, while enjoying a wonderful afternoon on the front lawn with my aunt, three cousins, and their black lab, Dodger, a friend came from across the street to chat and say hello.

“This is my niece, Sarah.  She’s half Japanese and she’s come all the way from Tokyo to visit us,” my aunt introduced me.

The neighbour smiled,

“Oh!” She paused. “I would have never guessed.  Well, you look like a normal teenager.”

This remark has stuck with me ever since, not because I found it insulting but because I found curious what the lady considered normal.  From her perspective, yes, I probably was abnormal, just as I had been strange to the girls at camp, or my pre-school classmates.  So I am a stranger in both of my home countries, but only when I meet new people who pause or withdraw after hearing that I am interracial. When I am around my family or the people I grew up with I don’t feel like a stranger.

I sat on a stage on the day of our graduation with Yasmin who is part Austrian, Alex who’s father is Danish, Mijung from Korea and my other twenty four international classmates we recalled the ten long years that most of us had spent together.

Christmas is the American family holiday and New Years or Oshou-gatsu is the biggest Japanese family holiday. We spent Christmas with my father’s family and then returned home for New Years day with my mother’s family.  From my experiences and my perspective being intercultural, bilingual, and biracial is normal.

Although in preschool I felt like somewhat of an outsider, after the transition into international school I was able to feel very much right where I belong. Through courses taught in both English and Japanese I was able to stay fluent in both languages.  The annual Food Fair, when different families of the school serve food from all over the world on our tiny playground, introduced me to even more cultures then just my two.   Most importantly the diversity of the student body and faculty introduced me to new ideas and new people.  So even though others may find me strange, I know who I am and as long as I am not a stranger to myself I find being a biracial, intercultural child an advantage.  I am fluent in two languages, can interact with multiple cultures, and compared to most people I get to see a lot more of the world.

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