Franco-Japanese night
When I walked into the bar, my first thought was, "I've made a terrible mistake". Laura and I made our way to the back of the bar where people wore plastered smiles and stared directly into my eyes, like I was a rare outsider entering the inner ranks of a cult. It was a French-Japanese cultural exchange night and to my horror I realized that I was the only asian in a room full of Japanophiles.
The host of the event approached us and thanked me so much, soooo much, for coming. She told us that she had recently done an art show in Tokyo and she fell in love with the country. Behind her, across the bar walls, were her paintings. They were all the same: a sexy lady clown drawn in a vaguely anime style. In each one she has a heart shaped hole in her chest and a cartoon heart is exposed and bloody on the ground next to her. I thought about leaving, but then the free drinks came.
We all got a slip of paper with poetry on it -- for this was, apparently, a French-Japanese poetry slam. Stuff like "My soul is alone, with not even the breath to scream but enough loneliness to whimper." I'm just making that up, but you get the idea. It was written in both French and Japanese. They asked me to read the poem in Japanese but I couldn't read some of the kanji. Also, it was kind of embarrassing. "When will the other Japanese people be coming?" I asked. "Oh, we aren't expecting any more Japanese people," the host said.
Eventually, the night became an exhibition of impromptu poetry and poorly imitated Japanese from the crowd. The host begged me to say something Japanese or do something really Japanese-y. So I sang a Japanese folk song from the 60s that my parents used to sing to me: 上を向いて歩こう. There was a hush and when I finished, everyone burst out clapping. There's nothing to brag about here: they were mostly hushed by the exoticism and clapping for my ethnicity. It was a weird night.
The host of the event approached us and thanked me so much, soooo much, for coming. She told us that she had recently done an art show in Tokyo and she fell in love with the country. Behind her, across the bar walls, were her paintings. They were all the same: a sexy lady clown drawn in a vaguely anime style. In each one she has a heart shaped hole in her chest and a cartoon heart is exposed and bloody on the ground next to her. I thought about leaving, but then the free drinks came.
We all got a slip of paper with poetry on it -- for this was, apparently, a French-Japanese poetry slam. Stuff like "My soul is alone, with not even the breath to scream but enough loneliness to whimper." I'm just making that up, but you get the idea. It was written in both French and Japanese. They asked me to read the poem in Japanese but I couldn't read some of the kanji. Also, it was kind of embarrassing. "When will the other Japanese people be coming?" I asked. "Oh, we aren't expecting any more Japanese people," the host said.
Eventually, the night became an exhibition of impromptu poetry and poorly imitated Japanese from the crowd. The host begged me to say something Japanese or do something really Japanese-y. So I sang a Japanese folk song from the 60s that my parents used to sing to me: 上を向いて歩こう. There was a hush and when I finished, everyone burst out clapping. There's nothing to brag about here: they were mostly hushed by the exoticism and clapping for my ethnicity. It was a weird night.