One week.
Well, in a week I managed to cram a lot of things in. I flew in to Heathrow on a connection from Hong Kong (niiiiiice airport) at 5am and my mum and bro were there for long-overdue hugs and such. I didn’t cry this time around even though it’d been a 364 day separation. London was gloomy and cold, as expected. Ed has grown another foot I swear, and his hair is so tatty from years of bleaching. He drove us home in his borrowed girlfriend’s car with mum worrying all the way back (“not the M25, the M4!”). Dad was at work so I had to wait till that evening to see him but I rang him and did the whole Laura-Dad relationship thing of being quite nonplussed and cynical - making snide and cheeky comments about my brother’s fashion sense and my mum’s wrinkles.
5am turned out to be quite a good time to come in, for jetlag. I went to sleep for a few hours and woke up at 10ish to a nice bowl of cereal and fresh fruit juice. It’s little things like that that you miss (fruit in Japan is way too expensive to buy in order to juice). That afternoon, I really got back into the swing of life in the rather well-to-do Home Counties - my god, could it BE any whiter there? My bro, mum and I went to the Royal Horticultural Gardens at Wisley and took photos on the camera I gave to my bro for Xmas - a Lomo Supersampler. It was weird to be surrounded by people who looked like me and spoke like me again. Sounds a little melodramatic, but it’s hard to believe I spent 18 years of life there with all those people.
Dad came home and I gave out some presents and such and told a tale or two. By Tuesday morning it seemed quite normal to be “home” and I rang Marky to organize going to the airport together. He picked me up that afternoon and we drove back to Heathrow to get Yutaka and Mark’s friend, coming in at the same time. I nattered all the way there and listened to Mark’s stories too. At one point he told me to stop the annoying noise I was making whenever he was talking - and so I learnt that I’d picked up the Japanese trait of nodding and “hmming” whenever I’m supposed to be listening. Ha. That was quite an interesting revelation. Mum and Dad also had noticed that when I laugh I’m more raucous than I ever was before, “That’s just not British, Laura!” I was learning a little about ways in which I’d changed outside of England.
Yutaka looked tired and when we were all bundled into Mark’s car he sat and listened to the rest of us chatter away like the old friends we were. After a while he turned and said to me that I was somehow different here - 雰囲気がなんとなく変わったよ。I talked more softly with my old friend, and I guess it’s true. With certain British friends I don’t feel like a conversation is a battle of wills and who can interrupt the other faster like I do with people I know in Japan.
When we got home, Yutaka was so nervous. Meeting the girlfriend’s folks is a big deal, it seems. I was also worried, but about my parents: what would they say and do? They who have stayed 50-odd years entrenched in the middle-class south-east, who have never left Europe, whose views on the world are somewhat clouded by a mild but deep-seated kind of racism. It’s weird to look at your parents in that way. In those few days at home, I had several instances of realising that those older figures in my life whom i once respected and looked up to have such antiquated beliefs and old-fashioned values. Kinda shakes you up a bit. I think at one point my mum made a “joke” about what Prince Phillip once said about the Chinese - I pray that Yutaka didn’t pick up on it.
In the end, things went extraordinarily well with us all. My parents thought that Yutaka was such an “easy-going chap” that he fitted in so seamlessly with our family. I like to think they no longer saw him as “different”. One evening we all went out for Thai food at the new restaurant in town - I even remembered how to say thank you in Thai which got a smile from one of the tiny, pretty waitresses.
Yutaka and I went to London and did the tourist thing. He was so sweet and impressed with everything, and I could share his enthusiasm too, having been away for so long. We went to Abbey Road and walked the crossing - there was graffiti all over the walls from Japanese tourists which made me smile. In the evening we went to see a musical - We Will Rock You. It wasn’t the best show I’d seen but had some character and humour and some cultural references I’d told Yutaka about before came up - he looked so chuffed when he understood them: “Teletubbies!”.
On the Friday we went into a couple of primary schools that my mum works at in order to talk to them a bit about Japan. It was brilliant - although weird that I could speak at a normal speed! Yutaka was flabbergasted that the kids were participating so much and always raising their hands to ask questions (opposite of the shy, inhibited Japanese kids). I really enjoyed the morning and mum said that she was really proud and impressed; I was a natural teacher, apparently. When the other teachers watching said so too, I really felt chuffed - there aren’t that many things I’m good at!
In the afternoon I went into my old secondary school. I felt a bit awkward and wondered if any teachers would really be interested in seeing me after five years, but in the office I bumped into Dr Trigg (deputy head and my old Chemistry teacher) and he gave me the warmest hug ever. He wanted to know all about Japan and then took Yutaka and me on a guided tour of the modernised school. We went to see the Head of Languages who was so gushing and enthusiastic when she saw me it was quite embarrassing. I’m one of their “successes”, you see (I was one of the few students to take up the Japanese course they had running there). Apparently someone up at Nottingham uni knows about me (??). Anyway, I got my old Japanese teacher’s address and promised I’d email her soon. But while we were all sitting there, the conversation turned to how the school’s population was changing and Dr Trigg actually said, I shit you not, “There are far more coloureds than there ever were before. I met three blacks coming off the school field after PE the other day!” Thing is, no one else who was there could share in my disbelief. Wow. This is the world I grew up in - it’s not actively racist, and these people (my parents included) would never think of themselves as bigoted or discriminating, but my god.
And that pretty much was my week over. Gemma came and stayed for a night before I left and it was great to see her again - my bestest friend from university days. She made cheeky comments about Yutaka’s height and my chubbiness but I let them go. She also mentioned she’d spoken to Simon the previous night and I thought it was sad at the way things have turned out. There were never really the best of friends. Anyway, relations between us are warming up a bit these days. I’m really happy for him and hope he can get an RA job at a uni to get some money and experience before the PhD.
On the day before my flight left, my aunt and uncle and family came over. I’ve think I’ve mentioned before how my mum’s side of the family is all a little unhinged, but Aunty seemed normal enough to me (I guess the counselling is working). My other aunt had made my mum cry that morning and I was kinda on the look-out for this unhinged-behaviour. It’s strange when you get to that point where you feel emotionally stronger and protective of your own parent. God, I am so old.
And that was my state of mind when I walked through Departures on my own, queued for check-in on my own, waited in the lounge for my flight on my own, and boarded the plane on my own: squeezed between two middle-aged gentlemen in whose attentive eyes I was someone I guess I have recently become but never realised: an independent and confident twenty-something year old.
So well and truly back in Japan, and as predicted, feeling unsettled. Not as certain as I was a month ago about staying the final year. That would mean I'm not quite halfway through yet... and that's quite a depressing thought. It all depends on how greedy and needy for mini-fame I am and how things go with the boyf.
5am turned out to be quite a good time to come in, for jetlag. I went to sleep for a few hours and woke up at 10ish to a nice bowl of cereal and fresh fruit juice. It’s little things like that that you miss (fruit in Japan is way too expensive to buy in order to juice). That afternoon, I really got back into the swing of life in the rather well-to-do Home Counties - my god, could it BE any whiter there? My bro, mum and I went to the Royal Horticultural Gardens at Wisley and took photos on the camera I gave to my bro for Xmas - a Lomo Supersampler. It was weird to be surrounded by people who looked like me and spoke like me again. Sounds a little melodramatic, but it’s hard to believe I spent 18 years of life there with all those people.
Dad came home and I gave out some presents and such and told a tale or two. By Tuesday morning it seemed quite normal to be “home” and I rang Marky to organize going to the airport together. He picked me up that afternoon and we drove back to Heathrow to get Yutaka and Mark’s friend, coming in at the same time. I nattered all the way there and listened to Mark’s stories too. At one point he told me to stop the annoying noise I was making whenever he was talking - and so I learnt that I’d picked up the Japanese trait of nodding and “hmming” whenever I’m supposed to be listening. Ha. That was quite an interesting revelation. Mum and Dad also had noticed that when I laugh I’m more raucous than I ever was before, “That’s just not British, Laura!” I was learning a little about ways in which I’d changed outside of England.
Yutaka looked tired and when we were all bundled into Mark’s car he sat and listened to the rest of us chatter away like the old friends we were. After a while he turned and said to me that I was somehow different here - 雰囲気がなんとなく変わったよ。I talked more softly with my old friend, and I guess it’s true. With certain British friends I don’t feel like a conversation is a battle of wills and who can interrupt the other faster like I do with people I know in Japan.
When we got home, Yutaka was so nervous. Meeting the girlfriend’s folks is a big deal, it seems. I was also worried, but about my parents: what would they say and do? They who have stayed 50-odd years entrenched in the middle-class south-east, who have never left Europe, whose views on the world are somewhat clouded by a mild but deep-seated kind of racism. It’s weird to look at your parents in that way. In those few days at home, I had several instances of realising that those older figures in my life whom i once respected and looked up to have such antiquated beliefs and old-fashioned values. Kinda shakes you up a bit. I think at one point my mum made a “joke” about what Prince Phillip once said about the Chinese - I pray that Yutaka didn’t pick up on it.
In the end, things went extraordinarily well with us all. My parents thought that Yutaka was such an “easy-going chap” that he fitted in so seamlessly with our family. I like to think they no longer saw him as “different”. One evening we all went out for Thai food at the new restaurant in town - I even remembered how to say thank you in Thai which got a smile from one of the tiny, pretty waitresses.
Yutaka and I went to London and did the tourist thing. He was so sweet and impressed with everything, and I could share his enthusiasm too, having been away for so long. We went to Abbey Road and walked the crossing - there was graffiti all over the walls from Japanese tourists which made me smile. In the evening we went to see a musical - We Will Rock You. It wasn’t the best show I’d seen but had some character and humour and some cultural references I’d told Yutaka about before came up - he looked so chuffed when he understood them: “Teletubbies!”.
On the Friday we went into a couple of primary schools that my mum works at in order to talk to them a bit about Japan. It was brilliant - although weird that I could speak at a normal speed! Yutaka was flabbergasted that the kids were participating so much and always raising their hands to ask questions (opposite of the shy, inhibited Japanese kids). I really enjoyed the morning and mum said that she was really proud and impressed; I was a natural teacher, apparently. When the other teachers watching said so too, I really felt chuffed - there aren’t that many things I’m good at!
In the afternoon I went into my old secondary school. I felt a bit awkward and wondered if any teachers would really be interested in seeing me after five years, but in the office I bumped into Dr Trigg (deputy head and my old Chemistry teacher) and he gave me the warmest hug ever. He wanted to know all about Japan and then took Yutaka and me on a guided tour of the modernised school. We went to see the Head of Languages who was so gushing and enthusiastic when she saw me it was quite embarrassing. I’m one of their “successes”, you see (I was one of the few students to take up the Japanese course they had running there). Apparently someone up at Nottingham uni knows about me (??). Anyway, I got my old Japanese teacher’s address and promised I’d email her soon. But while we were all sitting there, the conversation turned to how the school’s population was changing and Dr Trigg actually said, I shit you not, “There are far more coloureds than there ever were before. I met three blacks coming off the school field after PE the other day!” Thing is, no one else who was there could share in my disbelief. Wow. This is the world I grew up in - it’s not actively racist, and these people (my parents included) would never think of themselves as bigoted or discriminating, but my god.
And that pretty much was my week over. Gemma came and stayed for a night before I left and it was great to see her again - my bestest friend from university days. She made cheeky comments about Yutaka’s height and my chubbiness but I let them go. She also mentioned she’d spoken to Simon the previous night and I thought it was sad at the way things have turned out. There were never really the best of friends. Anyway, relations between us are warming up a bit these days. I’m really happy for him and hope he can get an RA job at a uni to get some money and experience before the PhD.
On the day before my flight left, my aunt and uncle and family came over. I’ve think I’ve mentioned before how my mum’s side of the family is all a little unhinged, but Aunty seemed normal enough to me (I guess the counselling is working). My other aunt had made my mum cry that morning and I was kinda on the look-out for this unhinged-behaviour. It’s strange when you get to that point where you feel emotionally stronger and protective of your own parent. God, I am so old.
And that was my state of mind when I walked through Departures on my own, queued for check-in on my own, waited in the lounge for my flight on my own, and boarded the plane on my own: squeezed between two middle-aged gentlemen in whose attentive eyes I was someone I guess I have recently become but never realised: an independent and confident twenty-something year old.
So well and truly back in Japan, and as predicted, feeling unsettled. Not as certain as I was a month ago about staying the final year. That would mean I'm not quite halfway through yet... and that's quite a depressing thought. It all depends on how greedy and needy for mini-fame I am and how things go with the boyf.