Graduation Day

But graduation from what? This is what I wondered to myself as I watched the third-year students of Yamazaki Junior High School march into the gym this morning to take their positions for sotsugyoshiki, the commencement ceremony.

The very fact that we use the word "commencement" in English to describe graduation from an educational institution indicates a sharp contrast in our attitude toward the event and the meaning that the ceremony signifies. In America, graduation ceremonies stand to celebrate academic achievement, as well as to point optimistically toward the future that our alma mater has (hopefully) prepared us for.

In a Japanese graduation ceremony, one has a hard time finding signs of any such things as "celebration" and "optimism." What you do find, however, are tears. Buckets of them. To be fair, I don't think there were nearly as many sobs wrenching from the throats of students, parents, and teachers this year as there were last year. But the reputation still stands: graduation day is a day to cry. Everything about the ceremony seems to be specifically engineered toward the purpose of making everyone feel really, really sad. Whether it's the solemn funeral-like atmosphere, the sappy funeral-like music, or speech after speech emphasizing that EVERYTHING YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH TOGETHER IS NOW OVER. YOU CAN NEVER COME BACK. THIS IS SAD. FEEL SAD.

For me, however, there are some positive points to this day. For starters, it's the one day out of the year that I really get to dress up. Despite the fact that it was a bitterly cold day, with snow on the ground and the temperature never rising more than a couple degrees above freezing, I enjoyed wearing pearls and makeup and a formal black dress. I have a few fans among the first-year girls at my school and, as I walked down the hall this morning, my getup elicited exclamations of, "Beautiful!" "Sooooo cute!" "Cameron Diaz!"

Hey, I'll take it.

After the ceremony, the graduates have a short while to talk to friends and teachers before heading home with their families. I went around shaking hands and giving hugs, telling kids "Omedeto!" (Congratulations!) and "Gambatte!" (Good luck!). One boy--Ryohei--flagged me down. I went up to him and shook his hand.

Ryohei is a small kid and not a very good English student. But he's always very enthusiastic about speaking up and volunteering to answer questions in English class. It's a characteristic that quickly made him one of my secret favorites. I greeted him cheerfully. He said, "Ms. Meghan..." then faltered. I congratulated him on graduating and wished him good luck. He seemed momentarily taken aback by my use of non-English, but then composed himself, looked deep into my eyes, and said, "Ms. Meghan...I love you."

"Oh. Thank you."

Awkward moment.

I will really miss this year's graduates. It's quite a different feeling from last year, when I had only been in the country for six months and didn't feel like I'd made a strong connection with many members of the graduating class. This year's third graders were a fun group and I really enjoyed teaching them. It's a weird feeling: it's not as though I can ever have a seriously deep connection with my students, at least not on the same level as their Japanese teachers do. But I did have some good inside jokes with several of them. And there were the few who always seemed a bit aloof, but who lit up every time I greeted them by name. In some ways, they're the ones I'll miss the most.

Two more weeks until closing ceremony and spring break. As I mount my bicycle and ride through the frigid air to a job where I spend a whole lot of time doing nothing (I'll be spending even more time sitting at my desk doing just that now that a third of the students are out of school), I tick the days off one by one and whisper to myself, "Gambatte."

No gaijin allowed

There are some days when the existence of the "Japanese only" pub around the corner really gets to me. I'm reminded repeatedly that, to the majority of the people I encounter in daily life, I'll always be a foreigner first, a person second. Whereas, on some days it's amusing to witness people's astonished reactions when I confirm that, yes, I can eat Japanese food; on other days it's simply exhausting. And the language barrier doesn't do much to improve the situation: some people laud my ability to speak even a few words in Japanese; others seem to hate me for not being fluent. To tell the truth, I sometimes can't decide which bothers me more.

Yesterday, during my lunch break, I went for a little walk. The weather was absolutely perfect and, in the mild autumn air, my mind was clear. I seldom observe Moka from on foot, since I tend to ride my bicycle everywhere. On the occasions when I do decide to walk, however, I notice things about the city that I don't normally take into consideration. Yesterday, as I strolled down the street from Yamazaki Junior High to buy some juice from a vending machine, it struck me for the first time that, for the majority of the teachers and students that I work with, I'm the only foreigner they'll see all day. Perhaps, if they go to the grocery store, they might observe a Brazilian or even a Peruvian, but other than that, I'm it. They'll learn English regardless of whether I'm at school: Shimowada and Ishikawa both have more than enough knowledge and teaching ability to satisfy the foreign language-learning needs of junior high schoolers. So much more important than my role as a teacher is my role as a cultural ambassador. By interacting with them on a daily basis, maybe I can show my students that, even though we look different and don't speak the same language, we are equally valuable human beings, and that our feelings, emotions, and deepest desires (acceptance, attention, affirmation, love) are basically the same. Maybe some of them won't ever become consciously aware of this concept. But maybe -- just maybe -- if any of them grow up to own a restaurant or other small business, they won't write "Japanese Only" on the front.