Your Email:

Your Name:

To:

Subject:

Message:
One year after returning to Adelaide, Australia, and I’m still noticing little things here and there. I feel like I fit in much better now, but also like part of me is sleeping. I’m pretty comfortable, but Ms. Indigorayz said that she thought I was less laid back here than when I was in Tokyo. I think I feel like I have more control over things here, so I’m trying to control them more, rather than just letting them flow like I used to. Not that that approach necessarily achieves more than going with the flow used to… One thing that I am really sensitive to however is that I am constantly treated like a 25 year old. I think I have mentioned it before. I’m pleased to look younger than I am, but at the same time it’s not something I’m really in control of, so I tend to disregard it. But other people don’t. And the difference in how I am treated is quite marked. In the presence of older women in particular, I am summarily disregarded. I am frequently patronised. When I dress up, women much younger than me eye me up and down and front like there’s a competition going on, but women closer to my own age pay little or much less competitive attention. I’m not saying that I am more neutral in the way I respond to different ages, I would like to think that I am but I’m probably not, it’s just that I’m frequently in situations that are vaguely uncomfortable, like a shirt that is just a bit too small. And I keep shrugging, but nothing really changes. Bah, I know, I wont mind so much when I’m in my 50’s, but I’m worried that once I start working as a mediator, my appearance will count against me; I will be taken less seriously by clients and will have to gain authority in different ways. Hmmm, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. I think part of what I’m missing is the instant status I was awarded as a foreigner, and as a teacher. I took it for granted very quickly, and took full advantage of it as an English teacher, particularly when I had older, high status male clients. I’m not pretending that I was never patronised by Japanese people, or by those men that I taught, rather that generally speaking, in situations where I was with new people, I went from being treated in an age appropriate way (in Oz) to being treated with great respect and formality (in Japan). Because age is so important to determining status in Japan, and the age of foreigners is hard to discern, and most likely the foreigner is a teacher of some sort, or in a high position in their company, status is awarded automatically just to be on the safe side. And then to take a big step back to pretty much the same way here in Oz that I was when I left, I really feel it, this goddamned, too small straitjacket of other people’s incorrect assumptions. I would much rather go back to the roomier straitjacket of their positive assumptions. http://threadsofgold.info/index.php/13