I have lousy eyes. No... I think they are pretty, but my vision sucks. I have the equivalent of 20/800 vision. I believe that means that whatever a person with perfect vision can see 800 feet away, I have to be 20 feet away to see it.
Obviously, I had to wear glasses - and they were as thick as my baby finger... and those were the ultra-thin glass variety. Combine shyness with glasses that could fry a bug by me looking at it, is there any wonder I never slept with a woman until I was 25?
Okay... when I was 17, I got contact lenses... but in my defense, the Coke-bottle glasses had done their job and had lowered my self esteem.
My glasses were something called photo-grey, meaning the lenses got darker as the light around it got brighter, and vice-versa.
When I got the contacts, my eyes had become accustomed to having a certain amount of darkness... that is, bright lights hurt my eyes. Starting in Grade 12 (age 17), I began wearing sunglasses. I even got sassy and wore them in school, as the teachers knew I had photo grey lenses, and just assumed I had a more cool looking set of glasses. Problem was - everyone in school assumed the same thing. I was wearing sunglasses in school and looking cool, but no one knew it.
In Japan - a country known as the Land Of The Rising Sun - it can be pretty darn bright. I had a pair of $100 Rayban sunglasses purchased in Toronto that I wore whenever I went outside in the sun.
Now Ohtawara-shi (Ohtawara city), I have joked, is often under cloud. It's on those rare occasions when it's sunny, that I need the sunglasses. I didn't need to wear them all the time in Japan, because, well, the majority of my students already thought I was pretty cool - just because I was a gaijin (foreigner/outsider), or maybe because I didn't treat them like little kids.
One evening in my apartment while doing laundry, I happened to somehow step on my sunglasses. Crunch.
Unfortunately, the next day was Monday and I was going to be busy every evening until Saturday, so going to a shop to buy sunglasses was going to be impossible. Fortunately, it was cloudy on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday it rained.
Friday, being an office day at the OBOE (Ohtawara Board of Education) - meaning I don't teach at any of my seven junior high schools and instead got to sit around the office studying, reading or composing letters and stories - I got to see my bosses Kanemaru-san and Hanazaki-san.
These guys are part psychic or must watch me constantly on some secret closed-circuit television all day long, because they already knew I had broken my sunglasses. Truthfully.
Hanazaki-san asked if I would like to go for a ride at 10AM with himself, Kanemaru-san, and our ever-faithful driver Hashimoto-san (who is not the OBOE chauffer, but merely a guy with a white van).
We piled into his van, and arrived at our destination one minute later. I swear we could have walked there in three minutes.
We were at a shop that sold glasses and sunglasses.
With Hashimoto-san standing outside watching his van, us remaining Three Stooges went in. Hanazaki-san immediately went over and began chatting with the proprietor, while Kanemaru-san watched me pick up a few pairs of sunglasses to try on. He was smoking in the shop - and no one cared. In fact, he offered one to the shop owner who gladly accepted a Golden Bat cigarette.
I listened in a bit as Hanazaki-san talked to the owner - and I only heard the word gaijin-san (Mister Foreigner) said once by the owner before Hanazaki-san cut him off with a "Dame! An-do-ryu-sensi, desu yo! (Nope! It's Andrew teacher!)".
Cool. I've never spoken to Hanazaki-san or any other Japanese person (Nihonjin) about the term "gaijin", but it was obvious that he already knew that it could be insulting.
I never thought of the word gaijin as insulting. I'd prefer they not use it though, because using the term focuses on the differences between the Japanese and everyone else, and truthfully, outside of this blog, there's no reason to do that.
Anyhow, Hanazaki-san pointed to the pair of Rayban Wayfarers I had on that were priced at ¥25,000 (about $250 US), said I looked kakkoii in them (handsome, and is = pronounced ka-ko-we) and told me the owner had offered us a special discount in honour of me visiting his store.
Cool. I never thought anything of it then, as I had already found that whenever I have needed something in Japan, the people here have fallen over backwards to give it to me, or help me find it, or like this shop owner, offer me a great deal (see HERE for another example of generosity).
Now... in 2010 as I write this... I wonder if there really was a discount. Instead, perhaps the OBOE covered the discount, as apparently each AET (Assistant English Teacher) on the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Programme is alloted ¥100,000 ($10,000 US) a year (it could be less) to look after any special needs we may have.... like a new futon, or a microwave or a bed (nothing frivolous like sunglasses!), or to simply pay for Hashimoto-san's gasoline usage.
Regardless, I paid ¥15,000 ($150 US) for the sunglasses. Which, means I saved $100 dollars. Of course, I know these same glasses only cost $150 (¥15,000) back in Canada.
Now, here's the interesting thing. There were only 15 varieties of sunglasses in the shop. That's it. Want to know why? Well, apparently the Japanese aren't really the sunglasses wearing type! Back in 1990 - when this story takes place - Japan didn't have a fashionable excuse to wear sunglasses. It had to be practical. Because that's what the Japanese always were. Excluding, of course, things like: pachinko. See HERE.
Fellow AET and good friend Jeff Seaman (yes, he gets the joke about his last name - and to be honest, even I never made a pun about it because I'm sure he had heard it all before), told me a couple of days later that he had heard a reason why the Japanese don't wear sunglasses.
Truth or fiction? I'm just repeating the story.
He said the Japanese (and other Oriental-type folk - I can't say Asian, because Indians are considered Asian) have something called the epicanthic fold over their eyes and that the more pronounced eyelid covering helps people like Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino et al function in bright light due to the fold blocking out more of the sun's brightness. It's like a permanent squint, if I may be so bold. Since the eyelid acts in a manner similar to sunglasses, why buy sunglasses?
Makes sense to me.
Somewhere looking cool,
Andrew Joseph
Today's title is performed by Timbuk3. You may listen to the song HERE, bright eyes.
PS: By the way... the Asian/Oriental thing... Oriental may refer to a race. I'm of Indian background (dot not the feather)... and we are considered to be Caucasian... which people generally assume to mean white, which I am not, despite my love of hockey.
PPS: In the photo above, that's me pretending to be Stevie Wonder. Yeesh.
PPS: In the photo above, that's me pretending to be Stevie Wonder. Yeesh.
