Is a Smile Just a Smile?

Culture is the social contract between people with a collective identity and purpose. While my native culture and identity, the meaning of the two, and their fairness are always in dispute and in flux, I was able to interpret the significance of my culture and figure out where I stood in the social system. If only shortly, I knew where to look for the earth. At times I could feel its weight under my feet. Now, all the rules have changed. Living in a foreign land is often like living in world created by David Lynch, director of psychological mind benders, such as Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive. The boundary between conscious and subconscious is often blurred. All the signs and symbols that rooted themselves in my worldview and identity suddenly transform and take on a new meaning. Each night, I go to bed, dream, and find myself hovering in a universe full of absurdities and mystery. I awake in Japan only to find myself in an equally ambiguous universe.

While living within a new culture, a smile, a gesture, or comment, which was once easily readable, is now a puzzle. From ear to ear, pink and full, the smile of a co-worker floats on top of their face. The smile, filled with bone and blood, is real. Nevertheless, the smile beams from a new existence parallel to mine, obscured by culture and context. Is this person genuinely happy, annoyed, or perhaps flirting? Does the subtext exude anger? Communication is a two way street, however. In intercultural communication, both the sender and receiver have trouble reading each other’s message. It is comforting, to a certain degree, that the people I interact with are experiencing the same confusion. When I don’t understand something or I’m confused, for example, I let out a little giggle. At dinner parties and after a few drinks, my co-workers relax and inquire about my strange laugh. After my explanation, they often reveal that they feel I’m laughing at them! We both come to an agreement that it is often difficult to understand the other’s body language, and the message is often misinterpreted. The difficulty of communication and isolation of my placement resulted in an arduous winter full of psychological battles.

Whether it was homesickness or culture shock, I’m not sure. Are the two mutually exclusive? I don’t know. Nevertheless, I’m finally climbing out of an emotional slump, which can explain why I found it difficult to do much of anything. Homesickness is bizarre. From the end of the autumn until recently, all things lost their light. The clouds were ominous grey anvils. The wind and rain cut like cold razors. I’ve never considered myself to suffer from depression, but depression is a sufficient way to describe my mental state in the winter. I was always very content and happy with my life. Recently, however, I felt as though invisible forces anchored me to the ground. My mind was foggy. Things that usually make me happy seemed pointless. I was extremely cynical and sluggish, which made it extremely difficult to study Japanese, plan lessons, work on the web log, or call family and friends. I don’t know if there is a scientific connection between the mind and the weather, but I think the damp and dark winter significantly affected me. The sun lately beams warm rays and is accompanied by mild temperatures and a renewed excitement to be in Japan. Finally!

I used to see depression as a weakness. My belief went something like this: anyone who cannot hack it mentally is inferior. Now I think mental health is a serious matter. The dark thoughts that would creep into my mind, things that I have never considered before, were shocking. What strikes me the most is that two aspects of my life, such as work and my social life, are fulfilling. Yet I still couldn’t put things into perspective.

So what helped me pull through that dark and lonely place? Recently, exercise, keeping in contact with friends and family, and improving in Japanese helped. However, I feel that reading was my life raft. During my voyage through the psychological squall upon the oceans of cultural difference, Japanese writers, in particular, and their stories of alienation, love, and loss kept me buoyant. It is ironic that while feeling alienated and alone in Japan I clung to English translations of Japanese literature about alienation. The characters and their internal battles speak to me. I identify with their struggles. It gave me hope and courage to be in Japan. To understand that Japanese experience similar sentiments and emotions is comforting. Between our cultural barrier and our flesh and bone, the Japanese and I posses the same flaws, withstand the same desires, undergo similar needs, and feel the same emotions.

I’ll end this post with two excerpts from two Japanese writers:

Banana Yoshimoto, The Kitchen:

The heavy, cold air of winter permeated every part of this little neighborhood—the park, the walkways—like a fog. I couldn’t bear it. It oppressed me, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe…To the extent that I had come to understand that despair does not necessarily result in annihilation, that one can go on as usual in spite of it, I had become hardened. Was that what it means to be an adult, to live with ugly ambiguities? I didn’t like it, but it made it easier to go on. (55-56)

Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart:

Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness? …I turned faceup on the slab of stone, gazed at the sky, and thought about all the man-made satellites spinning around the earth…the descendants of Sputnik, even now circling the earth, gravity their only tie to the planet. Lonely metal souls in the unimpeded darkness of space, they meet, pass each other, and part, never to meet again. No words passing between them. No promises to keep. (179)