One might expect that a year in a foreign country would change someone, in terms of picking up different cultural mannerisms, different attitudes, and a different way of looking at the world. For some reason, these changes came as a surprise to me. I hadn't expected to be changed by living in Japanese culture, but rather to stand back and simply appreciate it while still remaining constant in my own opinions and personality. Perhaps this was because I was already familiar with Japanese culture and knew what to expect; perhaps it is because I am as obstinate as they come. And then, perhaps it was because the changes to myself came in a more subtle and fundamental way than I could ever have anticipated.
When I first arrived in Japan, I was still brimming with proactive American career skills. I had grown up being admonished for shyness, and told that once I entered the working world, I would have to learn to suppress my fears and learn to be outgoing, assertive, and a catalyst for change. No one would effect change on my behalf, and no one was going to look out for me. The experiences of those I watched as I was growing up told me that I would have to knuckle under and take initiative on behalf of myself, or I would never get ahead - only the persistent will be noticed. I learned to swallow nervousness and follow up with managers after interviews, persistently showing interest; I introduced myself and sent resumes and without being asked, making sure that the right people knew my name. Most importantly, though, I learned to be my own advocate, to be proactive about improving my situation and making changes when needed. After all, my reasoning went, no one else was going to read my mind and take action for me. Furthermore, as I think my readers will agree, employers look on assertive and proactive employees more favorably than those who wait for someone else to take initiative. I taught myself to show this initiative and demonstrate the ability to motivate myself to action.
Imagine my frustration, then, upon arriving in Japan. The language barrier and lack of procedural knowledge were only the beginning. At home, when I moved to a new place, I would make my own decisions about matters I considered private, such as bank accounts, government registrations, how to set up my apartment. Not so in Japan: representatives from my school informed me that they would open a bank account for me at a bank they had chosen, that I would have a certain kind of phone plan. It wasn't simply a desire to be kind and help me; rather, at times it seemed more like an element of control, that those higher up in the hierarchy would make decisions for me and only give me the information that they thought I needed, when they thought it would be convenient for me to know.
When I left Japan, I offered to my successor - who would be living in my old apartment - to transfer my phone to her name rather than cancel it, saving her from a reconnection fee and the hassle of having to wait several days without a phone until it would be set up. I told my school's staff, who had been the ones to set up the account in the first place, that we had both agreed on this and to please go ahead and transfer it instead of canceling my phone when I left as they had suggested. What was their answer to this simple request? No, it was impossible to do that. They would cancel and reconnect. When I offered that at least two people I knew had just accomplished the very thing I was requesting - in a very short amount of time and with no hassle, on top of it - they repeated that it was simply impossible.
Now, when I was first in Japan, this attitude would have enraged me. I may have tried to gather all of the necessary information on my own, figured out the procedure from others, and called up the phone company myself. I knew by this time, however, that it would likely have been futile. Surely, when I asked my friends' coworkers who had negotiated the phone transfer, they would have made noise and told me that it was just too difficult and inconvenient for me to do it on my own. Why not simply have my school do it for me? Perhaps I would have been lucky, but by that point I had learned that there would be obstructions in my path if I tried to deviate from the norm and work around the system. Instead, I simply resigned myself to the reality of the phone situation and moved on.
It only took one year of trying - and failing - to negotiate Japanese bureaucratic society before I had become more shy again, less confident and assertive. Or rather, I became assertive in a different way - assertively dependent on others. In Japan, one is very much limited to one's place in the system; you can't do much except make everyone angry if you go over others' heads, but you can get your goals accomplished if you learn how to work with those immediately above you. Learn to work the system in expected ways, instead of shaking it up by trying to circumvent established norms. I learned quickly that despite the lazy behavior and inaction of my own supervisor at school, nothing would change even if I went over his head to talk to the other teachers directly about scheduling classes. He was both my only path to the other branches of school bureaucracy and their only path to me. What is more, he was well aware of that power, and the power he had in withholding and selectively giving out information. Perhaps the most maddening thing about the situation was my ability to understand nearly everything that went on around me; I knew from listening to the meetings and conversations around school what was going on, and could tell when he was neglecting to give me important information that would affect me. He'd turn to me and try to explain in very simple and careful terms what was going on, filtering what he thought I "should" and "shouldn't" know in his head before speaking. Whether this was conscious or not I will never know, but it was obviously and undeniably a factor in my work life at the school.
Everyone at school could do this to a greater or lesser degree, and that withheld knowledge was another way to reinforce power over those dependent on you.
I didn't even realize how much this situation affected me until after I had returned to the United States and found my learned dependence dictating how I approached situations in my daily life. Because it was nearly impossible to be proactive on my own behalf in Japan - I always ran up against the silent bureaucratic wall - that I found myself now waiting for others to accept my dependence on them at home. I used the tactic I'd learned in Japan, one of starting the ball rolling with the appropriate people and waiting for things to take their course. I waited for others to take care of making plans because I had been unable to affect that process for so long; now, this behavior was actually hindering me. When I took some time upon returning to contact and visit graduate programs I was interested in, I made the initial contact but was not as proactive in following up and making specific plans, or even preparing myself with specific questions and topics. Some of this was a lack of experience, but I think it can also partially be attributed to my unconscious and sincere expectation that I should be dependent on others to figure it out and take care of it for me. I found myself more comfortable with employment agencies in my job search; I had become accustomed to not only wanting to rely on another to be my advocate, but actually needing that relationship in order to accomplish my goals.
I think my increased shyness and hesitation - that dependence on others to be assertive for me - also had some kind of connection to my newfound sense of acceptance. No longer was I as argumentative and insistent on shaping situations to the way I envisioned that they should be; rather, I was more ready to accept defeat or inconvenience and not even question it. This change in attitude was double-sided: I found myself less easily upset by disappointments, frustrations, and inconveniences, but also less motivated to improve my situation when I could and, indeed, should. The flip side of losing my learned sense of initiative and ambition was the gain of a distinct tolerance for the current situation as being fated and immutable.
Despite the negative consequences that this outlook does have, at times, I am very happy to have shifted my approach to the side of tolerance and acceptance of things I cannot reasonably affect. The Japanese have a phrase, "shikata ga nai" or "shou ga nai." Either way, the direct translation is "there is no way of doing it." Although I usually see it translated differently, I personally prefer the fatalistic, "well, what can you do?" The answer to this rhetorical question is, of course, "nothing." Nothing but to accept it, get over it, and move on. In some situations, such as personality conflicts with coworkers or an inconvenient but unavoidable obligation, this attitude is very beneficial - yet elusive to those conditioned to always try to assertively change their circumstances to suit them. In this way, I hardly think a little fatalism - and the ability to shrug off directionless anger, make the best of the situation, and move on - is a hindrance.
Incidentally, I would say that my increased tolerance and acceptance for "the way things are" was conditioned by more than just Japanese attitude. As a vegetarian in Japan who was not willing to compromise on my diet to "fit in," I was routinely stuck. Whereas in the United States, I may have to choose between several dining choices and go with the one that has the most selection for me, in Japan I could spend upwards of an hour or two searching for an establishment that had anything vegetarian at all. Moreover, the vegetarian choice often wasn't advertised on the menu; in my search, I usually had to ask the waitstaff if they could make this or that dish without the meat. More often than one would expect, they would reply with "no, it's not on the menu that way, so we can't leave out the ham." So I would continue on my search. This process instilled quite a sense of fatalism and acceptance of whatever I can get; I notice this now that I return to the United States and am often asked by friends whether a restaurant choice is acceptable in terms of vegetarian options. I reply with, "everywhere in the US can do something vegetarian, so of course it's fine." My attitude before going to Japan would have been one of irritation if a restaurant had few or no vegetarian options on the menu; now, I do not even feel irritation, let alone anger, if I am faced with an all-meat menu. I am more accepting of my fate and of the fact that few restaurants are focused on vegetarian food. I make do with what I have, and I am happy even for the ability to talk to waitstaff here about not putting the sausage in the spaghetti. Unlike in Japan, they are always happy to accommodate a simple request. Whether it is for better or worse, I am much more complacent with and accepting of this reality than I was before.
The other way in which Japan changed me - or really, helped me change myself - was much more personal and is less simple to define with examples. In a way, even as I learned to be less assertive, more timid, and more dependent on others, I also became - concretely - more of an individual. By this, I mean that my experiences of living and working in Japan contributed to a very clear sense of who I was as a person, without any outside input; I felt that my strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, desires and fears and dreams, were suddenly thrown into stark relief. "How could this be?" I asked myself. I was taken out of my natural environment and put in a strange place, where I no longer had access to most of the activities and obligations with which I spent my time at home. What could that strange and different environment - so removed from who I was - possibly teach me about myself?
But that was just it, really: I was taken completely out of my context there, and in that process - without realizing it - I had been forced to reevaluate everything about myself. I had had to decide in a social vacuum what I wanted to pursue, how to spend my time, and how to react to my environment and the behavior of those around me. The lack of input had been a terrifying shock at first; what to do with my spare time? Where to go? How to interpret what was happening around me? And what parts of Japanese lifestyle and culture would I integrate into my own life, which things would I reject as incompatible with my personal convictions?
In this way - asking and answering these questions I had never before been forced to address or even acknowledge - I gradually discovered not only my personal reactions to living in Japan, but my reactions to my own self as well.