in some ways, the following post is a departure—an aside, if you will—from this blog's usual content matter, while in other ways it's entirely not. either way, i'd like to take a moment to share a random snippet of my dealings with reverse culture shock as a repatriated Black American...
it's only been a week since i left Japan, and yet being in America for even that short a time makes Japan feel like forever ago... and i not so low key hate that.
…in one of my classes today we were discussing colors and food. we were in the middle of discussing food that’s yellow and someone’d said banana, so i wrote it on the board under yellow. all of the kids were talking at once shouting colors and foods, but then one kid talks louder to try to get my attention. kid: ne ne! i heard foreigners call Japanese people “yellow”! me: *quickly turns to kid wide-eyed* …what?? kid: yeah, like you know how there’s black people, they call Japanese people “yellow monkeys”. me: *staring at this kid totally wide-eyed and slack-jawed in utter disbelief* *in the seconds of silence while my mind’s thinking a million different things, a few other kids stop talking and stare at me having noted my odd reaction* me: *5 secs that feel like a minute later* that’s hella offensive, where did you hear– never mind, what’s…
