Aichan
Aichan
By Bridget Iverson
Mount Mansfield Union High School, Grade 10
After almost two years of living in Japan, I had gotten used to the stares. The pointing fingers. The whispers. Even the small child who once burst into tears when I smiled could not surprise me. I was the American; I was the foreigner. I was different. I was weird. I was the walking oddity of Isahaya, brown-haired and blue-eyed and utterly, completely strange.
First conversations always began the same way. A knot of girls would huddle, glancing over at me at my cramped desk or on a park bench or, sometimes, halfway up a tree. One would walk timidly over while the rest giggled from a safe distance. Her English would be halting and uncertain, but proud.
“What is your name?”
“Bridget.” The Japanese head-bow had become instinctive almost immediately; to this day I appear to be constantly ducking when I’m nervous. I must also reluctantly admit to bowing while on the phone.
The girl will try to fit the awkward Irish syllables into her mouth. “Ba-ri-ji—Ba-ri-jye-to—”
“Aichan.” My Japanese nickname.
Relived face. “Aichan. My name is—” and here will come a long and complicated jumble of letters I shall never remember. I bob another bow.
“Yuroshikun onagaishimasu.” Nice to meet you.
In the uncertain pause that follows, she will glance back at her friends. They will giggle.
“Where…where are you from?”
“Amerika.” I try to use the Japanese pronunciation.
“Ooooh.” Giggles. “Where in Amerika?”
“Vermont.” No reaction. “Bamonto-shu.”
A slow dawning of recognition. “Oh! You have…ah, choto ma-te kudasai. One minute.” She confers briefly with her friends; I mentally review the possibilities. I have…what? Trees? Maple syrup? Ice cream? Cows?
She returns with apologetic bow. “You have apples!”
Apples?
“Yes, we have apples.”
“What kind of apples?”
Edible ones? “Um, MacIntosh, Granny Smith…” Is this a test? “Red Delicious.”
“Delicious?”
“Yes?”
I look at her. She looks at me. Awkward giggles eventually replace awkward silence. Finally, she bows.
“Very nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too.”
She returns to her gaggle; I to my tree.
Eventually I found out that there is a popular packaged meal sold in the area known as “Vermont Curry.” Displays of the slim white boxes grace every Japanese store in the city where I lived. The curry is unique for containing honey and apples.
Apples.
In Japan, that is all they know about us here in Vermont. That is what’s most important. Apples.
Foreigners
That's what people do! I mean, when trying to get to know someone, we all try to form any connection we can. I mean, if there was an alien on some planet we discovered, I'm sure the only thing we would be able to say is something along the lines of, "Hey there, (awkward pause) So how about the sun right? Isn't it great? Keeping us alive....."
Bridget, I can completely hear your voice in this. It's so much clearer than when I read some of your poetry and I don't have the instant understanding of exactly how you would say that word. In this I can imagine you speaking this as if I was standing right next to you, or from across the hall. I liked reading this with your voice in my head.
~634
Photography is not just the capture of an image that you already see with your eye. It's more like, narrowing down many of the things you see in a picture, until the things that are left spell out and simplify the hidden truths we see all the time.
Photography is not just the capture of an image that you already see with your eye. It's more like, narrowing down many of the things you see in a picture, until the things that are left spell out and simplify the hidden truths we see all the time.