Gaijin Etiquette

This was from November, 2009.
There is a website called Deep Kyoto that I check out occasionally. I like it and I want it to be for me. On the surface it gives tips for bars and restaurants, or local bath houses, which is accessible enough, but it seems to actually be for the sort of gaijin (foreigners) who have been here long enough to go native. I feel there is a subtle form of wheat-from-the-chaff sorting that is done by longtime Japan vets of us less literate types, or maybe I'm just paranoid and insecure because it seems like I should be better at living here than I am so far. I've lived in Japan for almost five years, but the last time was seven years ago. This time I'm ten weeks in to a two-year contract and I'm still pretty rusty.



I wonder how many years the average Deep Kyotoite has been in Japan. How do you know when you've gotten to the Deep part of being here? Is it when you only date Japanese? Is it when you stop complaining about or even noticing unheated bathrooms and squat toilets? Is it when you can read everything? And in the meantime is there a semi-deep site I can go to instead?

One of the things I find most difficult about being here is the very hard-and-fast rule about how gaijin are supposed to interact with each other. Whether we're on the street, in a train, walking through Costco, or gazing at the same temple garden, we are absolutely not supposed to acknowledge that we see each other. It would be the height of uncouth behavior to actually smile or say hello. And what is so weird is that this is not something that comes from Japanese society but rather something that sprang up as more of us started arriving in this 99% homogeneous country. Just in case you think I'm making this up, I was recently crammed in a line, shuffling through the garden at the Temple of the Silver Pavilion in Kyoto. The leaves were at the peak of fall colors. It was gorgeous and I wanted to share it with someone--not like over coffee or at at a poetry reading, but just by making eye contact or smiling. As the line of people snaked around I noticed a foreign man perhaps a few years older than me (40-ish?) inching in my direction. I took a deep breath. I got ready. I went for the eye contact. And he lowered his eyes, turned his head a little, and sniffed. You know that little sniff of disapproval? That sniff.