Deep Impact

My whole life I have been different. Not unique, but different. Children at school or at summer camp would chase me around making funny noises, asking me how I could see through my tiny little squinty eyes, asking why I was "Chinese." It never seemed strange that Asians were so rare, especially where I grew up, within sight of New York City. It was just something I never understood but learned to accept, and I learned to brace myself for it in every new social situation.


As I grew older I was far from "different." Asians were nearly the majority in my classes but I still never felt like I fit in with them. It didn't really matter, however, because I didn't fit in with anyone. As the years passed I just became Myself. It didn't matter that I was a little yellower than the next guy, or that my hair would never curl no matter what anyone did to it, or that none of the makeup tricks my friends taught me ever worked for my lack of eyelids. I was different still, but for once it was OK, because different = desirable.

(It would piss me off, however, when I'd go out for the night in DC and get approached by military guys who told me they love Asians because they spent ___ years stationed in Korea. Whatever, dude. Great opening line.)

I had an identity crisis that I never even knew existed.

Going to Japan was a slow-creeping, subtle, life-changing experience. For the first time in almost 3 decades, no one was looking at me. I fit in! Their hair was the same texture and were styled in awesome ways I had never seen before! Their makeup made sense! I wasn't the shortest person in the room! I was finally the bee girl amongst all the new bee people in the bee world. I loved being truly anonymous, no longer relegated to be "That oriental one." For once, I was normal and common and just a part of the backdrop. I could be anyone and I was anyone.


This revelation had many other effects, too. The homeless, for example, were much more tragic because they looked like me. Little grandmas hunched and pulling heavy bags were my grandmas. Every face with lines and a tired expression seemed an ominous prophecy of my future. I kept thinking I saw my mother, my father, even my sister in the city crowds. My uncle was a cab driver in Shimbashi. I swear.

Even though I am not Japanese and these are not truly my people, this was closer to home than I have ever been. Please excuse the pun.


What does this have to do with our side trip to the temples and bamboo groves of Arashiyama? Very, very little.

Arashiyama, outside of Kyoto.