Little Akira

Living in Japan as a gaijin, a foreigner, especially one that is not Asian, you stand out like a sore thumb and are constantly stared and pointed at by children and people in general, especially if you lived outside of Tokyo in an area where foreigners did not usually live. It’s something you get used to, but it can wear on one after the novelty wears off and if you don’t learn to just ignore it, it can drive some foreigners to the boiling point of anger and a general dislike for the country as I have seen it do to many a foreigner. However, being a foreigner does have its upside in that, being a male, it is very easy to meet women as they are so curious about you.

While a student in Japan I lived in a rented small 2DK Japanese apartment (2 rooms plus a dining/kitchen). The rooms were 6 mats and 4 ½ mats and the kitchen was 3 ½. Not much of a “dining/kitchen”, but it was just big enough for a small table and two chairs if I wanted to put them in there. Also in the kitchen were the washing machine and refrigerator, and the entrances to the bath and the toilet.

I was living on the bottom center floor of a two story apartment that had three apartments on each floor. On either side of me were young married couples just starting out in life and they both had young children. In the mornings the husbands would go off to work early and the wives would stay at home with the kids to do the laundry, cleaning and shopping or talking to each other outside. One husband was a blue collar worker, owned his own small dump truck and contracted himself out. The other was a white collar worker and always went to work in a suit.

The wives were polite in the Japanese tradition and would always bow to me and say “good morning” or “good afternoon” when they saw me. After they satisfied their initial curiosity as to why a foreigner was living there we sometimes conversed, but it was just the usual small talk about the weather and such. The husbands I almost never saw as they both worked long hours and came home late. I think in the five years I lived in that apartment I spoke to the husbands only a handful of times. Besides, being a student and working six days a week I was not home much myself. So we really never got to know each other.

One of the families had a small boy who was born shortly before I first moved in. His name was Akira. While he was growing up, every time he saw me he would cry his eyes out like there was no tomorrow while he was in the stroller or in his mother’s arms and she did her best to console him while apologizing to me. For some unknown reason he was deathly afraid of me and, for the most part, I ignored him as I hardly ever saw him. Maybe it was because I was “different” in his eyes and he could tell, even at that young age that I was not like the others of his kind and didn’t look at all like his parents. To him I was probably no different than a monster and probably looked like one with my long blond hair and all.

When little Akira was a little older, perhaps 3 or 4 years of age, he used to play outside his apartment by himself. However, whenever I left the apartment to go to school in the late morning or come home in the afternoon and he was outside, he would again ball his eyes out and practically kill himself trying to get into his apartment. His feet would be running in motion while trying to open the door to his apartment which he could barely reach but was in such a panic that he couldn’t open it.

Every time he did this, his mother would come out, bow and apologize to me, pick up the little brat and console him telling him that there was nothing to worry about and take him into the apartment. I tried talking to him on some occasions but he would have no part of it and would scream at the top of his lungs.

One day I thought to myself that this had gone far enough. If he wanted to cry for no reason at all I’d give him something to cry about. You’re a little older now and should not be afraid of me as I did nothing to cause you to cry other than being a foreigner. So the next time I saw him outside I quickly glanced at the windows to make sure they were closed so his mother or the other neighbor could not see and I raised my arms in the air, walked towards him with the scariest face I could make and made like I was going to grab the little bugger and eat him for dinner.

Little Akira went into his usual panic. He tried to get up off the ground and his feet moved so fast he was not going anywhere all the while screaming at the top of his lungs. It was like watching a cartoon character. A few seconds later he managed to reach the door and was pounding on it for all he was worth while looking back at me with my hands raised and slowly walking towards him.

As his mother came out I pretended like I did nothing wrong and tried to talk to him in Japanese as a parent would. Again his mother would bow and apologize and disappear with him into the house. This went on for about another year and once in a while I would play the monster. However, if he caught sight of me first walking down the street, or hearing me getting ready to exit my apartment he would be in his house in a flash. Sometimes I would glance out the window before departing to see if he was out there. If he was, I would cough or growl real loud and I could hear him scurry into his apartment about ready to cry.

Shortly after starting school he suddenly stopped crying when he saw me, but I could tell he was still deathly afraid of me and didn’t want to be near me for anything. Since he stopped crying when he saw me, I stopped pretending I wanted to eat him.

At the time I thought it was the funniest thing. Today, I hope I didn’t mentally traumatize the kid. “Little Akira” must be about 34 years old and probably has his own family. I wonder if he still remembers the “gaijin monster” that used to live next door to him and wanted to eat him for dinner?  I’m sure he does. And I also sometimes wonder what he thinks about foreigners in general as he got older and how he feels about them to this very day. I wonder if he would he allow his daughter to date, and maybe marry, a foreigner? Does he hate and despise foreigners? And, did he ever get over his fear of foreigners? I’d like to think that he did, but I still wonder and think about it.