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sublingua | |||||
| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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The Demon Who Respects All Women
It's raining outside and has been for hours. I woke up thinking about the Aisho-san, though I went to sleep thinking about Aka-san. I'm here at Max's house now. Twelve days ago, at her birthday party, Mayflower announced loudly to the assembled guests that I had a crush on a sushi chef. "How do you catch a sushi chef?" Mayflower pondered. A doctor who had lived for two years in Japan asked, "Is he Japanese?" "Half Japanese and half American," I replied. "Japanese men don't respect women," she informed me. "And they have little dicks." Tackling the important stuff first as always, I suggested that maybe the bottom half was the American half. (Updated to add: No such luck.) "And I know a few American men who don't respect women," I added. "No, the Japanese really don't respect women," she said. The Enforcer agreed with her, so I told him that maybe the reason some men became enforcers was because of the whole, you know, "must make up for my little dick" thing. So, yeah. There's a lot of stuff about my chasing the Aisho-san that could go wrong if I let it. (Though I'm not going to let it.) Stuff like my leaving soon. Or like the Aisho-san being shorter than I am. (The Demon Who Always Does The Right Thing--and whose father, she informs me, is a good five or so inches shorter than her mother--rightly responds, "So?" to this bit of fact.) He's half Japanese and--what?--may not respect women and I'm an outspoken feminist. What chance do I have, right? But he's a bit of a mama's boy, the Aisho-san is. And his mama is the Japanese half of the Aisho-san's Japanese-American genetic mix. And I haven't noticed, in my dealings with Japanese women, that they stay so terribly subservient to the man that brought them to America, so maybe mama's managed to instill in the Aisho-san some semblance of sense about women's rightful, superior place. One can hope anyway. But truthfully, seriously, after a half dozen or so conversations, I have only two pieces of evidence that the Aisho-san may not respect women. The first is his calling some woman he works for and doesn't like "a blonde bimbo." The second is the exchange we had about my recent haircut. "Did you cut your hair?" he asked. "Yeah," I replied. "Why?" he said. "Aisho!" I said. We talked about why I cut my hair and about his preference for long hair. He didn't say that he specifically prefers long hair on women--though it's clear that he does--but he does prefer it on himself. So, yeah, that's my evidence that the Aisho-san may "not respect women" (as American doctors are wont to believe). (And just to finish off the hair thing: The Aisho-san told me about his mother's having given him a perm when he was in high school (circa 1988) and how he hated it. I told him about having long hair and, after showering in the morning, putting it up to go to work and then coming home twelve or fourteen hours later and pulling it down only to find it still wet. "You should get up earlier," he said. Then he added quickly, "No, I'm just kidding. That's something my mother would say. 'Get up earlier.'" We talked about what his father, a military dad, had said when he decided to grow his hair long. (It was after his father decided to send him to the American high school in Tokyo that the Aisho-san decided to grow his hair long.) He told me that his dad had asked him if he was rebelling or something. He denied rebellion, though he was--what?--sixteen and by all rights should have been in the midst of full-scale rebellion, right?) And to finish the thought about the woman question, I read Max a draft of this entry and asked him his opinion of the Aisho-san/respect for women question. He reminded me about the Aisho-san's talking about teaching martial arts and how he was so proud that he had two women in his class. (At this point, he sort of introduced the idea of my coming to his class, saying that the women were shy about hitting, but that he didn't think I would be.) Max also reminded me of the Aisho's having carefully watched me as he called the blond bimbo a blond bimbo, and how he didn't take it further to say something along the lines of "like all women, she's [insert misogynist comment here]." A lot of guys, I'm sad to say, don't have that kind of sense or self-control. (My friends do--they don't last long if they don't--but a lot of guys don't.) I think that the greater problem with the Aisho-san hook up would be me, of course. I want to develop a frienship first, but I just ain't got that kind of motherfucking time. Sadly. But who knows? Who knows what can happen in the time I do have? I'm willing to try.
More lies:
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