A Bit of a Local Celebrity

Ha!

"Yes, my hobby is writing!" I reply to my school nurse, Hashimoto-sensei, as she makes known her observation that I've been spending a great amount of my day at school today just sitting at my desk writing in my journal. She goes on to list off two more off my other hobbies: reading and hiking. It's amusing to both of us because she got this information from watching my recently aired interview on the local Moka "Ichigo" cable channel. It ran six times per day from the 23rd to the 25th, and it had completely slipped my mind to try to catch one of the airings. Hashimoto-sensei proceeds to share her amusement at how nearly every single AET, in his or her "message to the people of Moka," said something along the lines of, "Please talk to us when you see us around town!" Hashimoto-sensei laughs at this. "Japanese people are shy," she observes, and, to further illustrate the point, impersonates a Japanese woman in the supermarket, bashfully avoiding eye contact so as to evade the risk of feeling obliged to make casual conversation.

I wonder if my encouragement to the people of Moka to come speak to me will actually give birth to a response. Perhaps I'll have to start leaving home an hour earlier in the morning to make time for all those people who will now abandon all social reservations and fear of foreigners in order to placate their curiosity about where I'm from, can I speak Japanese, can I use chopsticks, how many boyfriends do I have?

I hope so.

But I doubt it...