Boundaries

There is something about Japanese culture, and Japanese school culture in particular, that is obsessed with people's relationships.

It's also not considered rude to talk about them, tease people about them, or ask them personal questions about them. Sometimes IN FRONT OF EVERYONE.

Every ALT gets asked, point blank, if they have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, usually sooner rather than later.

Now that my Japanese is good enough to understand the banter between my JTEs and students, this is a conversation one of them had today, in the middle of class, while everyone else sat and listened quietly.

"So, you got a new girlfriend?" (Note that this had absolutely no precedent, it was totally random).

"Huh? No no no. Definitely not."

"No, I saw you with someone yesterday. I never saw you around her before."

"Sensei, I'm telling you, it was nothing."

"She was definitely your girlfriend. Who else would she be?"

"Definitely not!"

His friend chimes in. "Definitely so."

The whole class laughs.

All I could think during this whole conversation was, holy crap, this would get someone fired in a public school in America.

I was also surprised, because in almost every other way, Japanese society is deeply introverted, and intensely averse to sharing personal details of any sort.

For everything that isn't allowed that I'm used to being allowed, there's something allowed that I'm used to being not allowed.

Use that for a tongue twister.

The difference between what's acceptable here and what's acceptable back home is like night and day sometimes. It's still hard to get used to. Sometimes I look at everyone around me, accepting it like it's no big deal, and I start to wonder if my values are misplaced. That's the power of culture, the power of society and the zeitgeists we live in.

Living in one precludes certain expectations, and sets certain boundaries. They are so ingrained, so invisible, and so integral to social interaction that we don't usually notice them. Being thrown into a different society has made me hyper-aware of these expectations, even in the short visits I've taken back home.

The conversation above is also indicative of a larger cultural expectation, which is that if a male and a female are together at all, at any time, for any purpose, they will be seen by others as being in a relationship. Even if they're just asking for the time of day. I guess that's what happens in such a socially claustrophic space. Going outside of that space must mean you're doing something super important.

But then people get together and bathe naked or almost naked in hot springs together like it's no problem. Go figure.

If it's not one extreme, it's the other. Japan is like a scale that's always balanced heavily to one side, it seems.