ABSTRACT
Endeavours to snapshot the phenomenon of any Western lived experience in the Japanese context often encapsulate the atypical Occidental experience in the ‘mysterious far East’. Casting aside awareness of neo-colonial concerns, these tend to revel in the romanticized Oriental Other in contrast to the Occidental Self. However, non-Japanese-speaking, cultural faux pas-ing Western foreigners are, in fact, Japan’s ideal temporary guests, in models of intercultural competence institutionalized in local educational and political discourses. Performances outside of these bounds are outside the norms of Japanese societal expectations of the ‘them’ to Japan’s ‘us’.
But what is life like as an ‘Other’ in Japan beyond touristic events or travel sojourns? My narrative seeks to disrupt the normative mythologizing of ‘culture- crossing’ to probe the complicated intersection of race-genderlanguage- age-occupation, embodied by my individual lived experiences as an English-speaking, white woman educator living and working in Japan. The descriptors that define me are those that have given me the privilege of working and living in Japan. And yet these same positionalities are also innately problematic in the performances I am sanctioned to embody.
