Almost Christmas’d Myself
December 23, 2002
Christmas has come to a halt for me this year, partly because it’s not such a big thing here, and mostly because of something that happened this morning that I don’t care to speak about at the moment. Don’t worry, it’s nothing about Eri or myself but it will take her attention away from Christmas I think. I’ll fill you in maybe in a few days when things sort of return to normal. Even so, today I had an experience that almost brought the whole meaning of Christmas back.
The past four days have been very busy at work. The reasons are two-fold. Fold 1: many teachers have taken holidays early this year and being the oppressive slave drivers that they are, the company didn’t get anyone to take the slack – leaving us no-holidayers to fill up the gap. Fold 2: many students’ lesson points expire around this time so they are busy filling up every slot with lessons to get the best bang out of the buck, er yen. Result of these two folds is that most if not all have had 8 lessons. I’ve had 8 for four days and 7 before that. Although technically I’m still quite new and therefore get more lessons usually anyway, I felt quite frustrated. It wasn’t all bad looking back now, of the 39 lessons, only 1 went horribly wrong but it was because the student was an uncooperative bitch. Too bad punching someone through the internet is unfeasible… yet. I’m looking into it.
I digress.
During my break today, I finished the lunch that Eri meticulously packed for me and as delicious as it was, it was not nearly filling for my ravenous hunger. I went downstairs to the convenient store to buy my favorite snack – a danish like pastry the size of a small domino’s pizza that is covered with sugar icing. Total cost, 105 yen after tax, roughly $1.30. Total value after everything, roughly REALLY GOOD. After the transaction of which I answered iie (“no”) to some question the girl asked, I was hit with a decision; Should I go back upstairs to the break room where all the chairs have most likely been taken or should I bear the merciless winds that will no doubt rip the already dry skin off my beautiful, youthful demeanor? I chose the latter. I had my comfy coat anyway.
I sat down on a stage where we usually sit to eat. I started opening my good-value-pastry. Suddenly an old man dressed in shabby clothes started talking to me. I couldn’t make out much but from the few words I understood, he was just trying to talk to me, asking me something about Christmas and something about beer (he showed me a can of beer, that’s how I knew). I didn’t really know what to say because it was apparent this was the Japanese equivalent of one of the schizo’s in downtown Vancouver. I could’ve said wakarimasen “I don’t understand” and then just walk off but for some reason, I spoke to him in English.
“I’m sorry I don’t speak Japanese”.
I think I expected him to look at me blankly and then sort of scuttle away in fear of THE GAI-JIN (“foreign person ~ kind of a demeaning term”). Instead, he surprises me by first saying a Japanese sentence that probably meant, “Oh fuck! This guy’s not Japanese”. Then he SPEAKS ENGLISH TO ME!!! Well not really, he only said, “I am homeless”. He then extends his sullen, stained right hand to me. I really didn’t want to shake his hand. If this were Vancouver, I would’ve told him to get away from me and/or I would leave. I actually shook this poor man’s hand. Afterwards, I thought this would end the conversation as I turned away and started to open my pastry (avoiding contact with my now contaminated hand, mind you). The guy starts speaking some more to me, using his not-so-extensive English vocabulary. Something something Christmas. Something something eigo-sensei (“English teacher”). Something something I am homeless. I just smiled and nodded. Occasionally I understood something and I replied in the affirmative.
He saw my pastry and said something. He then offered me the same can of beer (again). My empathic abilities (I am a world-renown psychic) told me he wanted me to recipricate and offer my lovely pastry to him. Another decision: should I just act like I would and just walk off, possibly even telling him to go blip his bleep or should I offer this guy my pastry? Strangely, I chose the latter. I ripped it in half (I was still hungry you know) and offered him one of the pieces… the smaller half. He accepted it delightly and kept thanking me. I didn’t really care at the time. I did it not out of selflessness or charity, but I think I did it because he kind of expected me to do so. I know most if not all others would have ignored him. I took no joy from this nor did I feel spite. I was nothing.
As he was happily munching the thing, he started talking about being homeless again. I felt really sorry for this guy. He even showed me his cruddy wallet which contained exactly 1 yen… roughly NOTHING in any currency. I think at this point I felt he wanted me to give him money. Here was where I felt it. I was something.
I was thinking, should I give this guy maybe a thousand yen and hope he enjoys it or should I not do anything at all? Although I’m quite financially insecure right now, I could probably spare that 1000 and not starve to death while this guy would probably enjoy it more than me. I thought it was almost christmas and the spirit of christmas was about giving, and about love, and about caring for humanity. It wasn’t about presents and wrapping and turkey and fat flying men and sales and boxing day returns. It was about the essense of what connects you to me and me to the next person. I really wanted to give him the money. I almost did. But almost does not achive results. I stood up and walked away. I became more of something.
For the rest of my shift, I had this horrible regret-like feeling that I did the wrong thing. I usually don’t believe in hand outs as past experience has shown any charity money given to panhandlers will eventually end up in an intoxicating or banned substance. This man was different. Sure, he had a beer with him. Sure, he smelled like shit. Sure, he was annoying me and he ate half my pastry. Sure, he would result in nothing and will probably die a lonely, hungry man. He was nothing. He will be nothing. Nothing I could’ve done would probably have changed this fact. It’s just that if I’m not willing to help this one man, how would I be able to help others? How can I help myself? I thought if I had done that one good thing, or maybe even go farther and get him a real, hot meal, maybe I could’ve made a difference in this man’s life and. I started to feel nothing again.
Sadly, I discovered tonight that I am not the saint I made myself to be.
Merry Christmas.
