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Excuses, excuses, and Meeting the Parents

1. I have been really quiet the last few months, but I have been pretty busy. Work is taking up a monster chunk of my time, as it usually does, and I’ve made lots of new friends, all of whom I want to see on the weekend but there is not nearly enough time to see them all and do all those other things. Like grocery shopping (I’ve taken to freezing everything so it doesn’t go off in the fridge), paying bills, the ironing, the cleaning… but things are going tremendously well, though nothing of note to report. I have mentioned that I am enjoying this teaching business, more so that I thought I would, and I think I’ve got the hang of it now. Though I suspect it will be quite some time before I can say that I am good at teaching.

2. Actually I lied when I said there was nothing of note to report, there has been one thing. Last weekend I rather unexpectedly met The Parents. The Girlfriend and I were on a nice stroll through her part of Hiroshima, where she led me back to her house. I [hid] waited dutifully outside as she went inside to grab her mobile phone, and when she came out she announced that her mum wanted to meet me. Well! Ambushed, and having absolutely nowhere to run, I put on a brave face and went inside, (desperately trying to remember how to greet people in Japanese) and found an absolutely lovely woman who was slightly less inimidating than I’d expected. The Father, however, was not so successful.

3. This story is every bit as funny as you think it will be.

4. The Father was working in his warehouse just down the road, and It Was Decided that I was to meet him. I was guided into the office, and came face to face with a Japanese man in overalls looking a little confused. He didn’t say anything, and my voice had done a runner, so for a second or three we stood there, mouths agape, staring at each other. The silence was deafening as I desperately tried to remember the Japanese word for “Good Afternoon”, and having come up with nothing instinct took over. I stuck my hand out and said, “Hi!”

5. You know how some things happen so quickly that it’s over before you can even say “bugger”? It was a bit like that. As soon as I started sticking my hand out my brain fired an urgent memo — they don’t shake hands here! The Father recognised the gesture as a handshake, but having not had a huge amount of experience with stupid foreigners (baka gaijin, ne?) he didn’t quite know what to do with it. The clasping of hands was completed successfully — the shaking part of the ritual was not. There was, in fact, no shaking at all. So for the next minute or so His Wife was explaining that I was Australian, I’d been here for some months and I had been dating His Daughter for five of those months; and we stood there holding hands. I didn’t really know what to do — it seemed rude if I just pull my hand away, but it was increasingly uncomfortable holding this man’s hand. Luckily, for both of us, His Wife tapped him on the arm and told him to let go. The Girlfriend wondered why we held hands at all.

6. Then he casts a critial eye on me and says something along the lines of “He doesn’t speak Japanese, does he?”, which I sort of understood but didn’t speak enough Japanese to respond. At which point I realised I was still wearing my beanie, which obscures roughly all of my head, which is probably considered rude in just about any culture. I quickly snatched off my hat, hoping my hair didn’t make me look even worse than I already did, looked embarassed, and put on my best I-might-look-stupid-but-I-can-hold-down-a-job-and-I’m-a-nice-guy face. Evidence suggests that it didn’t work.

7. But it seems her mum liked me; she even drove us back into town later that night. I’ve never been that popular with dads, I usually do better with mums. Actually prior evidence suggests that I do badly with parents in general, so doing well with one is better than usual. Meeting parents are a nerve-wracking experience even when you both speak the same language. Plus, while it is not always the case, couples in Japan often don’t meet each others parents unless they are ready to get married (no mum, we have no plans for marriage). So you can imagine how much flack I’ve been copping from just about everyone.

8. So I guess that is just about everything. The next few weeks will be spent organising my holiday to Indonesia: sorting out the itinerary, paying for stuff and buying Hello Kitty merchandise for a certain Sanrio-obsessed journo working for a certain Indonesian English language newspaper.

9. And, of course, posting more on my often neglected blog.

• Posted in Hiroshima, Indonesia, LeftBrain on the 07.11.2006 @ 3:11:15 AM, Permanent Link
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