Peer pressure, beer pressure...

It's the end of the school year here, and along with the long boring graduation/closing ceremonies in the unbelievably cold gym, there are parties. Lots and lots of parties. Japanese teachers work hard, so not surprisingly, they party hard (okay for a few hours about 3 times a year, but they go all the way). Last week, I went to two. I'm not going to another one tonight. My liver, and my wallet, need a break.

I've mentioned before that alcohol is a social lubricant here but I wonder if it's also used for social cohesion. After over a year and a half of attending all manners of parties, I'm not really sure if I like how the drinking aspect of the soiree is handled. The unspoken rule is that you're not supposed to fill your own glass. This is especially true for the principals and vice-principals. You must be on top of their glasses all the time because they are the bosses. You don't want their drinks to run out lest you want to spend the rest of your career in office purgatory. Or so it seems to me.

So this is the scene: you're working on your meal and working on being entertaining to your neighbours while trying to understand their enquiries about your life outside work. Suddenly, out of the corner of eye, the lunch lady/gym teacher/school affairs officer is bringing the sake/beer bottle to your glass. But it's still full. What do you do? Well, you pick that sucker up and either take a polite sip (usually if you're a lady) or chug it down (if you're a big, strong man). At this point, the pourer (the aforementioned co-worker) gives the pouree (that's me) a hit of the jesus juice. Rinse. Repeat. Many, many times. I used to think this was charming. Now I find it annoying. The other night, I wasn't feeling well as I suspected I was coming down with a cold. I had an enkai to go to that evening so I soldiered up and went (backing out was not an option), but decided that I wouldn't drink. Easier said than done.

When I arrived, I explained to my seat neighbours that I was feeling under the weather and would not be drinking. Knowing that I like to whet my whistle on occasion, I was met with ridicule. My beer glass was filled. I obliged them and drank it. At this point, the warm sake came. Confirming my love for warm sake (for the 20th time), my sake glass was filled. Again, the lady doth protest. But apparently not enough. I obliged them. Then I turned both my sake and beer glasses over. Oh, the howls of protest that followed. For the rest of the evening, and when I attended the after party, my desire to remain not drunk was tested as my co-workers and city hall employees begged me to drink with them, to be one of them, when I so blatently didn't want to be. At 11:oo p.m. on a Monday night, I called it quits and bid their drunk asses goodnight.

Ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case on this charge of beer pressure.

In Japan, there is an oft-quoted saying: The nail that stands too tall, must be hammered down. Often times, I feel that I am that nail, and my co-workers, my students, my neighbours and my Japanese friends are that hammer. I'm constantly told how to sit, how to eat, how to dress, how to pose for pics, how to behave and how to be. I am a foreigner in a land that believes in uniformity, conformity and the ever-mighty group. I knew this before I came and can accept it most of time. I don't often complain about this, but there are days when I'm tested.

The beer pressure, the peer pressure: these are things I cannot change but I fight them because if I didn't, I'd lose myself. I didn't come here to become Japanese. I came to become who I am and who I will be. I used to notice these little wrinkles I got on the sides of my mouth, the so-called laugh lines. But they looked so deep and I wondered if I got them from faking my smile for so long. Now, I don't spend a great deal worrying about wrinkles because my momma's got fabulous skin, and while such a thing is mostly genetic, I don't need to jinx myself and bring out things that don't need to be there. So what did I do? I stopped faking it. I stopped saying everything was delicious when it tasted like ka ka. I stopped laughing at jokes I didn't understand. I stopped doing things I didn't want to do and saying things in the hopes of pleasing everyone. I learned the importance of being me, and staying me, at all the times. I still act diplomatically as I know my role as a cultural ambassador, but I don't pretend anymore and now the wrinkles are gone.

That's not to say that their are still little trials everyday. I wrote the following poem the other day when I arrived at my elementary school's graduation wearing a gray-brown suit while everyone else was wearing black (keep in mind I'm [not] an artist and I'm [not so] sensitive about my shit - ref?):

They try to hammer me down,
but I'm strong, oh so strong.
My will is formidable
and I won't bend, I can't.
Then why do I feel the pinpricks
of their eyes
on my back,
my neck?
I care, but I don't,
but apparently not enough.
I'm different;
beautifully,
fashionably,
exotically,
wonderfully,
erotically
different.
But I'm different;
terribly,
disastrously,
scarily,
horribly,
disturbingly
different.
Amazing.
Dismaying.
This is my life (July 2005-July 2007).

Oh, the joys and trials of teaching English in Japan. The beautiful struggle. I love it. I loathe it.