Kiyono
Well, it's been a strange couple of weeks. Last week, I was kinda unhappy with how Kiyono and I were working out. She didn't seem to give too much of a shit, and we weren't having so much fun together. While there is little point in promising undying love when I have a plane ticket which says otherwise, I was homesick and wanting to be reassured that Japan could be a kind of home too. I kept wondering whether I was just a rebound boy, a mender, a stopgap measure. This disatisfaction coincided with the return of N, the girl I dated before Kiyono. She returned from her exile in Kyushu bright and happy to be back in Osaka, we talked using her perfect English and she told me that I didn't look Australian anymore and I asked what I was instead and she said Japanese, that I seemed at home here, far from the poverty-stricken waif I once was. Apparently my nose has bowed to societal pressure and compressed itself neatly. Then she gave me shit about my cooking again (exasperated, I asked her what it was I was doing in the kitchen if not cooking and she thought seriously about it and said 'warming food') and I teased her about her never-ending supply of suitors and I strongly contemplated jumping ship. Seeing Kiyono has made me realise how essential a shared culture is; the unspoken base of understanding, a system that you both operate in. N had lived in Australia for quite a while and so we could understand each other. And the fact that we could tease each other is vital, part of the time-honoured tradition of dating in Australia. I get a disturbing thrill everytime I talk to J at work and we can lapse into 'Strayan - giving each other shit at high speed, a harmless variant on tall-poppy which I've realised I actually need. It's harder to give shit to Americans and Japanese - they're such earnest people. As a side note, our fellow workers say they can't understand us when J and I talk, but only when we slow down and drop back into streamlined global English. I find this quite flattering. We've got something going on in Australia! We've got a culture all our own!
Anyhow, back to the minidrama at hand. I sent Kiyono a message asking why we hadn't been having much fun together of late and whether something Was Up, in the hope that something would be Up which would make parting easier. But she claimed nothing was unusual and when we met last Friday night and she met Jeremy (the equivalent of meeting the parents here, I suppose - meeting each others friends) and they got on well and a strange girl stalked us into the restaurant after following us a long way from the station and the waiter asked if we wanted a table for four and we said no, three, three only please and the mystery remained unsolved and we ate well and performed as a cute couple for Jeremy's benefit and it was natural and flowed well and she was affectionate and so was I and Jeremy asked for cheese on his okonomiyaki, an Osakan specialty which looks like a deflowered omelette and the waiter said we don't have cheese and Jeremy pointed to the menu, in particular the bit which said "Extra Cheezu" and the waiter said yes but that's for other dishes and Jeremy wondered why it couldn't be simply placed on his meal too and the waiter claimed that this was impossible and Jeremy got mildly shitty and darted off to the local konbeeni and came back with cheese and rather ostentatiously lathered his okonomiyaki in cheese. Then we caught the last train to Kobe and a drunken man gave me the thumbs up for bagging Kiyono and (in case I hadn't got the message) tapped on the window as he left the train and gave me the thumbs up again and I felt vaguely awkward with so many eyes upon the Mixed Couple, on the one-man gaijin raiding party stealing their wimmin. Then we met up with T and F, who had sequestered themselves in a room for the past three weeks in an attempt to make a baby and F's period was thirteen days late and she was hoping hard that her sperm donor had done his work, and we found a karaoke joint and sang until our voices were hoarse and I thoroughly enjoyed singing Oasis and Coldplay and Radiohead and other bands that require Soaring Voices, and I watched Kiyono sing her heart out, dancing before the screen and attendants scurried with cheap drinks and before long it was morning and late morning we collapsed into bed and slept for a long time and woke up together. Monday I saw her again, this time with presents and we talked properly for the first time, about previous loves and lovers, about sex and love and life as best we could in her English and my Nihongo, with hands and enthusiasm and the rift was patched and mended.
---
When I need comfort; when I need to be on the inside of a couple looking out at the world, when I need this sometimes I let sex guide love, I find a lover in the hope that love will follow once sex has paved the way. I think Kiyono has been like this for me and I for her, that once the habit of our bodies merging is established the emotion will follow close behind and I think perhaps this is happening now.
---
I never know what to think about previous boyfriends. Is it better to be a step-up, or a step-down? If I'm an improvement on the last, it means I don't have to try to hard to be special, just better than the last prick. If I'm a step back, if the former boyfriend was Long Term and Special and Made Music or emanated energy out of his ears, then I have to try a lot harder. I suspect this time there's a bit of both. A side story to illustrate:
The washing of the socks
This week, Kiyono washed my socks. She washed my freaking socks. My previous significant others (not many) never, ever performed chores for me. Unless you count sex, I suppose, but it's polite to lie about that. But! I arrived in wet socks and she whisked them off to the bathroom and washed them while I wrung my hands and paced uselessly and awkwardly behind her and called her my okaasan (mother) in desperation, to make her stop serving me but to no avail. I'm just not used to this. From all accounts, her previous boyfriend was of the table-thumping where's-my-dinner-type, a domestic hindrance who didn't make up the balance with his paycheck. On the upside, they were in love, which as far as I know we aren't, yet.
I'm thinking back over my rather short and poorly-conceived love life, and disturbingly, this is perhaps the closest I've come to the conventional idea of a girlfriend. My token long-term girlfriend was nothing like this, although I suppose we did receive a single invite to parties, which signifies we looked good from the outside. (When I meet her now, we're so different that I wonder why and how on earth we ever lasted two years. I wish I could claim the time on tax). After that, I embarked upon another poorly-thought out relationship which resulted in much pain and little gain; then a lover who I treated rather badly in retrospect (sorry, L) and then a girl from England who left for home and now Kiyono who washes my socks and plays with my hair; who takes me out drinking and teaches me her language patiently. In the past, it was damn rare for me to go out and get shitfaced with a gf/lover. But Kiyono and I are in some way made possible by alcohol. Shochu is our sponsor and staggering home is much better done in company.
---
She told me a little more about her work, her seperate life. I already knew she had to dress up as a schoolgirl and fawn over lonely businessmen; I knew she had a seperate name she used at work and a seperate phone. What I didn't know was that she plays the role of a kind of outsourced girlfriend-to-many; she has to message her customers once a day or at least several times a weeks. How are you? What have you been doing? Some get shitty if she doesn't respond quickly enough, and they often get jealous of each other, especially if one seems to be monopolising her attentions. Twice in the last couple of months, one of her customers has got fresh/nasty with her and each time she's thrown her beer in his face. That's my girl.
Well, it's been a strange couple of weeks. Last week, I was kinda unhappy with how Kiyono and I were working out. She didn't seem to give too much of a shit, and we weren't having so much fun together. While there is little point in promising undying love when I have a plane ticket which says otherwise, I was homesick and wanting to be reassured that Japan could be a kind of home too. I kept wondering whether I was just a rebound boy, a mender, a stopgap measure. This disatisfaction coincided with the return of N, the girl I dated before Kiyono. She returned from her exile in Kyushu bright and happy to be back in Osaka, we talked using her perfect English and she told me that I didn't look Australian anymore and I asked what I was instead and she said Japanese, that I seemed at home here, far from the poverty-stricken waif I once was. Apparently my nose has bowed to societal pressure and compressed itself neatly. Then she gave me shit about my cooking again (exasperated, I asked her what it was I was doing in the kitchen if not cooking and she thought seriously about it and said 'warming food') and I teased her about her never-ending supply of suitors and I strongly contemplated jumping ship. Seeing Kiyono has made me realise how essential a shared culture is; the unspoken base of understanding, a system that you both operate in. N had lived in Australia for quite a while and so we could understand each other. And the fact that we could tease each other is vital, part of the time-honoured tradition of dating in Australia. I get a disturbing thrill everytime I talk to J at work and we can lapse into 'Strayan - giving each other shit at high speed, a harmless variant on tall-poppy which I've realised I actually need. It's harder to give shit to Americans and Japanese - they're such earnest people. As a side note, our fellow workers say they can't understand us when J and I talk, but only when we slow down and drop back into streamlined global English. I find this quite flattering. We've got something going on in Australia! We've got a culture all our own!
Anyhow, back to the minidrama at hand. I sent Kiyono a message asking why we hadn't been having much fun together of late and whether something Was Up, in the hope that something would be Up which would make parting easier. But she claimed nothing was unusual and when we met last Friday night and she met Jeremy (the equivalent of meeting the parents here, I suppose - meeting each others friends) and they got on well and a strange girl stalked us into the restaurant after following us a long way from the station and the waiter asked if we wanted a table for four and we said no, three, three only please and the mystery remained unsolved and we ate well and performed as a cute couple for Jeremy's benefit and it was natural and flowed well and she was affectionate and so was I and Jeremy asked for cheese on his okonomiyaki, an Osakan specialty which looks like a deflowered omelette and the waiter said we don't have cheese and Jeremy pointed to the menu, in particular the bit which said "Extra Cheezu" and the waiter said yes but that's for other dishes and Jeremy wondered why it couldn't be simply placed on his meal too and the waiter claimed that this was impossible and Jeremy got mildly shitty and darted off to the local konbeeni and came back with cheese and rather ostentatiously lathered his okonomiyaki in cheese. Then we caught the last train to Kobe and a drunken man gave me the thumbs up for bagging Kiyono and (in case I hadn't got the message) tapped on the window as he left the train and gave me the thumbs up again and I felt vaguely awkward with so many eyes upon the Mixed Couple, on the one-man gaijin raiding party stealing their wimmin. Then we met up with T and F, who had sequestered themselves in a room for the past three weeks in an attempt to make a baby and F's period was thirteen days late and she was hoping hard that her sperm donor had done his work, and we found a karaoke joint and sang until our voices were hoarse and I thoroughly enjoyed singing Oasis and Coldplay and Radiohead and other bands that require Soaring Voices, and I watched Kiyono sing her heart out, dancing before the screen and attendants scurried with cheap drinks and before long it was morning and late morning we collapsed into bed and slept for a long time and woke up together. Monday I saw her again, this time with presents and we talked properly for the first time, about previous loves and lovers, about sex and love and life as best we could in her English and my Nihongo, with hands and enthusiasm and the rift was patched and mended.
---
When I need comfort; when I need to be on the inside of a couple looking out at the world, when I need this sometimes I let sex guide love, I find a lover in the hope that love will follow once sex has paved the way. I think Kiyono has been like this for me and I for her, that once the habit of our bodies merging is established the emotion will follow close behind and I think perhaps this is happening now.
---
I never know what to think about previous boyfriends. Is it better to be a step-up, or a step-down? If I'm an improvement on the last, it means I don't have to try to hard to be special, just better than the last prick. If I'm a step back, if the former boyfriend was Long Term and Special and Made Music or emanated energy out of his ears, then I have to try a lot harder. I suspect this time there's a bit of both. A side story to illustrate:
The washing of the socks
This week, Kiyono washed my socks. She washed my freaking socks. My previous significant others (not many) never, ever performed chores for me. Unless you count sex, I suppose, but it's polite to lie about that. But! I arrived in wet socks and she whisked them off to the bathroom and washed them while I wrung my hands and paced uselessly and awkwardly behind her and called her my okaasan (mother) in desperation, to make her stop serving me but to no avail. I'm just not used to this. From all accounts, her previous boyfriend was of the table-thumping where's-my-dinner-type, a domestic hindrance who didn't make up the balance with his paycheck. On the upside, they were in love, which as far as I know we aren't, yet.
I'm thinking back over my rather short and poorly-conceived love life, and disturbingly, this is perhaps the closest I've come to the conventional idea of a girlfriend. My token long-term girlfriend was nothing like this, although I suppose we did receive a single invite to parties, which signifies we looked good from the outside. (When I meet her now, we're so different that I wonder why and how on earth we ever lasted two years. I wish I could claim the time on tax). After that, I embarked upon another poorly-thought out relationship which resulted in much pain and little gain; then a lover who I treated rather badly in retrospect (sorry, L) and then a girl from England who left for home and now Kiyono who washes my socks and plays with my hair; who takes me out drinking and teaches me her language patiently. In the past, it was damn rare for me to go out and get shitfaced with a gf/lover. But Kiyono and I are in some way made possible by alcohol. Shochu is our sponsor and staggering home is much better done in company.
---
She told me a little more about her work, her seperate life. I already knew she had to dress up as a schoolgirl and fawn over lonely businessmen; I knew she had a seperate name she used at work and a seperate phone. What I didn't know was that she plays the role of a kind of outsourced girlfriend-to-many; she has to message her customers once a day or at least several times a weeks. How are you? What have you been doing? Some get shitty if she doesn't respond quickly enough, and they often get jealous of each other, especially if one seems to be monopolising her attentions. Twice in the last couple of months, one of her customers has got fresh/nasty with her and each time she's thrown her beer in his face. That's my girl.
posted by Doug @ 5/27/2005 10:14:00 pm
<< Home