Memoirs of a Gaijin

by Susan Krashinsky

Motofumi chuckled to himself when we asked about the girl in the kimono.

Is she a real maiko ? We had wondered as her scarlet lips curled in a demure smile, offset by the eggshell white of her perfectly made-up face. She was surrounded by a crowd of camera-wielding tourists.

I was certainly no stranger to kimonos at this point. While they are seldom worn by the younger Japanese generation, a walk around Kyoto or Nara on a nice day will reveal scores of older women dressed traditionally for no special reason at all, and they can even be found from time to time in ultramodern Osaka.

The girl at the epicentre of this particular kerfuffle was unique not because of her dress; what singled her out was her white makeup and substantial katsura, a wig with a bun perched on her head in the distinctive style.

My friend Motofumi resolutely shook his head, no. “But how do you know?” We asked, seeing no difference between her and the pictures of geishas and maikos that are such famous Japanese icons in the West.

“Because,” he answered, as though it should be obvious, “if she were real, she would not walk here.” The idea that a maiko would be in a tourist-filled temple in Kyoto posing for pictures was clearly laughable. I felt like a child on holiday in Florida, who asks if the man in the suit is the real Mickey Mouse.

And yet I came face to face with situations like this one constantly in Japan. This ignorance was one of the most important reasons I decided to live there in the first place. I went to teach, but also to experience my naïveté and to remove myself from my own element.

The most common question I heard before leaving Canada was, “have you seen Lost in Translation?” The fact that this film is a definitive image of Japan for so many Westerners clearly demonstrates a lack of knowledge. Coppola’s view is true to its origins – to us, Japan is foreign and occasionally inexplicable in its weirdness.

Upon arrival, however, I was the foreigner. This is quite a shock for any white North American; suddenly you are the one with little to no language skills or knowledge of the cultural intricacies around you.

In fact, most of us are as clueless as are Coppola’s characters while trying to decipher a menu. The Japan that we are exposed to most often is the Japan of shiny, sensationalist images on TV and the Internet. But the more you get to know Japan, the more you learn to laugh at yourself. There are a thousand mistakes to make, and a multitude of ways that your culture shows itself to be just as inexplicable to the people you meet. Young people planning to live and teach there for a year or two, as I did, usually focus so much on what will be strange to them that they don’t imagine how foreign they themselves become upon arrival.

There I was, standing in the shadow of a 17th century pagoda, looking out over the generous antiquity of Kyoto and the blue of the surrounding mountains. The modern bustle of the Shijo downtown district clashes brightly with over 2000 temples and shrines, the beauty of the surrounding landscapes and a permeating feeling of history befitting a place that functioned as Japan’s capital for close to a millennium. Nowhere is Japan’s renowned coexistence of modernization and tradition more evident.

Motofumi explained to me that modern girls like the one standing before us can go to shops in Kyoto to be outfitted in traditional dress and makeup. The most dedicated of young urban mavens, I am sure, spends almost as much time and effort getting dressed as a geisha does, perfecting beehive-like hairstyles and theatrical makeup. Their shoes look no more comfortable than a good old-fashioned foot binding; the young fashionistas trip along sidewalks on impossible heels. On the weekend, for a lark, some of them totter through Kyoto’s streets dolled up as maikos. With the number of real geishas left in Japan in steady decline, these women too, are tourists, navigating their own country’s historical culture.

“I never would have known the difference,” I admitted to Motofumi, as we turned to go, and he chuckled softly again. Meanwhile, another tourist darted out of the circle of onlookers, rushed to the girl’s side and pointed to where she should smile for the camera.