Chapter 26

Speaking of restaurants, one of the first I went to with Akemi was a Japanese place where I added to the order I’d made, something that came to mind late, a kind of Japanese omelette, and when the waiter brought it and I made room on my plate for him to put it down I nodded my head, sort of bowed in thanks, the Japanese way, and said “Domo,” an expression of gratitude. And the waiter and another with him, who had come along to see, smiled indulgently and asked if I could do it again. I thought they wanted me to bow and say “Domo” another time so they could take more amusement at my imitation of Japanese manners. It turned out they really were interested instead in how I pronounced the dish I’d ordered—laughing at me laughing at them. Touchy. I’d found Japanese, some at least, were nationalistic, suffered from both an inferiority and a superiority complex—two sides of the same coin, my sense. Hypersensitive about Americans mocking their country (which I wasn’t, of course), they mocked in turn, preemptively in a sense. All a big and small misunderstanding. I decided right then or around then that I would not make a serious effort to learn the language, much less ever attempt to act Japanese as some Westerners did. Only part of the reason was that I didn’t feel up to the task. Mostly it was my sense that the Japanese didn’t like foreigners trying to break through the barrier between their culture and ours, preferred outsiders keep their distance. I didn’t want to become an object of amusement or ridicule, scorned. Funny as that probably sounds.

Teaching too, funny things happened. We were going to work on a theatrical work in class. This was a good way to learn English—students acting in the language, getting into character. There were just a few of us in a small space, and intensity built in a good way. And a cute Colombian woman, class leader in her quiet way, a small dynamo (in that sense like Akemi), said she wanted to play the romantic lead next to me, insisted, laughing but serious—like some students about games played in class, getting really competitive. She wanted to be with the teacher, she exclaimed, charmingly flirtatious—the best way to describe her effervescence. Her hair frizzed out around her head, caught the light like a halo; her bright eyes—hard to describe—protruding in a good way, on the alert; pearl onions come to mind, but that’s wrong. I was amused (speaking again of amusement) and flattered. Sara was attractive, bright, brimming with good energy, definitely pretty too, small, compact, her body also dynamic. Her heart-shaped face tapered to an almost pointed chin. Charming as hell, but not my type (Akemi was by now, and once that happened, it wasn’t going to change). All the same, I looked forward with some excitement to playing with that student. It would be fun dancing together, literally as well as figuratively (the play had choreography), even while my attention remained on Akemi. Funny how a man’s interest and affinities overflowed when it came to the opposite sex. Mine did toward Akemi and left room for more for sure, and I hoped Akemi’s did for me too, yeah that she’d get wet all over me, and hoped that it didn’t extend to more, that other guys would be rejected by her as her culture seemed to reject yours truly, while she let me in (both figuratively and literally). And the dish at the restaurant which I seemed to have pronounced strangely really tasted delicious. And so did Akemi!