Final Draft- Personal Narrative

Intended Publication: NYT Lives

Title: Unexpected Acceptance

I awoke with a start.

The neon hands of the bedside clock glowed eerily into the darkness.  3:16am.  I rolled over and willed myself to fall back asleep.  It was no use.  Jetlag tugged me into consciousness and my mind began to race.

Goosebumps coated my skin as I pushed back the covers and shuffled into the kitchen of our small, three-person apartment to start a pot of tea.

It was cold for October in Morioka.  Any day now, we could expect a snow-capped Mount Iwate, my parents had recently said, both pointing to the impressive silhouette of Japan’s second largest volcano which was visible from our apartment window.

After my tea was ready, I poured myself a generous cup, allowing the steam to swirl around my face.  It reminded me of the onsen, or volcanic baths, we visited the day before.  I longed for the serenity of the baths now, sitting wide-awake in nervous anticipation of my first day at Morioka Dai-Ichikou high school.

I finished my tea quickly and despite the early hour, pulled on my starchy, blue uniform.  At seventeen, this was my first time wearing a uniform to school.  My parents said it would help me fit in with my classmates, but I was not too sure.  My broad-shouldered frame surpassed all Japanese female size charts, requiring me to order a specially tailored uniform blazer and my size ten feet forced me to visit the men’s section for uniform shoes.  Paired with my five-foot nine-inch stature, blonde hair, and blue eyes, I was sure “fitting in,” at least physically, was pretty much out of the question.   

However, fitting in was never my strong suit.

In elementary school, kids made fun of me for bringing rice balls for lunch instead of peanut butter sandwiches and thermoses of green tea instead of boxed JuicyJuice.  In later years, these same kids teased me for dressing up as a geisha for Halloween.

“Don’t you know that geishas aren’t prostitutes?!  They are respected!” I yelled, hurling handfuls of Reese’s Pieces at the jeerers.  They laughed. 

Life went on. 

By the time I reached high school, I began to think critically about my white, middle-class peers who taunted me and, by extension, the academic institution that we all attended.  I dreamed of breaking away from Wooster High School’s stifling, Republican landscape to expand my education.  My classmates’ interest in Prom and the latest Gossip Girl did little to hold my attention during those long years of high school.  That’s why, when my dad was offered a position with Earlham College as the Japan Study Abroad Coordinator in the fall of 2007, I was eager to go along.

But today, the reality of what I was getting into hit home: I had little means of communication and I was visibly different.  What was more, the oddities that my American peers had mocked growing up were not so odd in Japanese culture.  Almost overnight, my strangeness was normal and my normality could surely be considered strange. 

As I entered the schoolyard, on that first day of class, I straightened my blazer.  My heart pounded in my chest.

A kind-faced English teacher greeted me at the entrance the moment he saw my blonde head bobbing in a sea of black.  He guided me down a wide hallway to a door on the left.  He pushed it open and time seemed to stop. 

Thirty pairs of eyes instantly shifted from an early morning assignment to fixate on me.  I turned toward them mechanically, looking into the faces that looked intently into my own.

I mumbled some memorized lines in Japanese: Hajimemashite.  Alaina desu.  Dozo yoroshiku. Onegaishimasu.  Then, my cheeks as red as Kyoto cherry blossoms, I rushed to a desk toward the back where I sat in silence for the remainder of the morning classes.

All too soon, a tinny, unwelcome ring sounded throughout the room: the lunch bell, every new kid’s worst nightmare.  I pretended to look busy, intentionally adjusting and readjusting my materials in my new, navy blue satchel.  Slowly I looked up as a classmate approached. 

She stammered in broken English, “You…like… ‘High School Musical’?” 

In that instant, my two worlds collided with such force I was left breathless.

The white, middle-class brand I thought I was leaving behind had actually slinked along, following me like a shadow.  Here, in this Japanese classroom, I was that girl.

I wrestled momentarily with my response. 

Maybe I could be that girl, if just for the lunch hour. 

"I love 'High School Musical.'" I replied.

The girl smiled and beckoned me to join her and her friends. 

As I approached their table, I couldn't help but match her grin: the girls had all brought thermoses of green tea.