On this site’s sister site, Gaijin Learning Japanese, I post about how I am, well, a gaijin (a mildly derogatory Japanese word meaning “foreigner”)*, and I’m learning Japanese. There are currently some (well, many) posts I moved to this site that are not about learning Japanese per se, but are about Japanese culture. I’m debating on which site they belong, but they’re staying here for right now.

But as I continued writing for that site, another theme became extant, even though it’s not an obvious theme. I wasn’t just posting about being a gaijin learning Japanese. I was posting about being an American gaijin – an outsider even in my own culture.

I was raised in a religious cult, and because of this, I was raised to not be a part of the dominant culture (such as it is) of my country. I was raised in a “third culture”, which was a very strong subculture of the American culture. Many things that are of value to Americans, such as patriotism, the flag, etc., are of little to no value to me. That doesn’t mean, of course, that I’m not glad I’m an American, and I do believe strongly in the values of liberty, independence, republican democracy (not the political party, more pertaining to a republic, which America is), capitalism (for the most part), and self-determination. Our constitution is one of the greatest documents ever written and we ignore it (as we are increasingly doing) at our peril. But the outward trappings thereof, like the pledge of allegiance, patriotism, flag worship, the national anthem, etc., mean nothing at all to me. I have never felt a part of America’s national identity, nor have I ever felt an identity even as a human.

I am truly a gaijin, everywhere and to everyone, in every sense of the word.

So as I was posting about being a gaijin learning Japanese over on that site, I kind of let my gaijin flag fly on things that pertained to more than just Japan and its culture.

In hindsight, this was a mistake. It was an understandable one, and one I probably couldn’t easily avoid making, but I made it anyway.

But that distinction is important, and I should have made it much, much sooner.

If you look at some of the previous posts I moved to this site, you’ll see that the overwhelming theme is that I post from an outsider’s point of view – a gaijin‘s point of view. But that’s not just on Japanese culture. That’s on American culture, world politics, social justice – it doesn’t matter, no matter what it is, I’m on the outside looking in. I have no in-group. I have very few friends, I have very few close relations (if any at all), everything is from the outside. This allows me to be very, very “cold and rational” (as someone probably accurately described me) but any compassion or empathy I have (and I have a lot) is more in the abstract rather than in the concrete. I’m much more geared towards solving problems to reduce human suffering than to provide comfort while the suffering still happens.

I don’t really embrace this as much as I accept it. It just is what it is. I’m nearing fifty years old now and it’s not likely to change. Those years, the years of self-development, are long past.

Of course, this doesn’t mean I can’t change at all. Of course I can. I’ll change and grow for as long as I’m alive. Even in the past year or so I’ve made a great deal of changes to my life. I’ve started to lean into some of my hobbies again – I’m learning how to go to the next level on piano (I’m already good, but I want to be better), I’m learning music theory and composition, and, of course, I’m learning Japanese. Just because I’m a gaijin in every sense of the word, and others besides, doesn’t mean I have to stop learning. I wrote a composition, and I plan to write more. I’ve learned some piano pieces. I plan to learn more. Maybe someday I’ll start contributing to society again in that way.

Of course… from the outside.

Always from the outside.

That’s why I moved so many posts to this new blog. Because “American Gaijin” fits the theme of many of these posts much better than “Gaijin Learning Japanese”. And maybe there will be a third blog yet, with reactions to Japanese culture that’s not about learning Japanese. Or, maybe I’ll just delete those posts.

Anyway, time to get started on composition homework. That’s what I’m doing here. I won’t say I hope you like it, because the odds are you either won’t, or won’t care. But I will say that I hope it fits my mission better and I can get my sister site back to where I wanted it to be in the first place.

Oh, and I do maintain another site too, “Hidden Japanese“. this one did not go off the rails. I need to add a few things to it and probably redesign using a better theme.

*I’m not sure Japanese people see it as entirely derogatory. However, it does tend to be used in a manner that exacerbates the division between “Japanese” and “everyone else”, and westerners tend to see it as somewhat derogatory, preferring the word “gaikokujin” (maybe more accurately “person from a foreign country”, as opposed to “foreigner”) instead. I personally embrace the word “gaijin”, even if it is mildly derogatory, because that’s kind of how things are.