being different

Kids can be cruel.  They have their own way of being cruel.  They want to be different, yet they hate kids who are 'different'.  I had some problems adapting to schools when I came back to Japan.  Before being the "cool kid" who spoke English, I was the "selfish kid" or the "bossy kid" and the "kid who couldn't speak proper Japanese" or the "kid who couldn't run the marathon" or the "kid who couldn't do the long-rope jumping" and dozen other things I couldn't do at gym class.

There's a thing about gym classes in Japanese schools.  There are stuff you *must* be able to do and they give you check lists for your 'friend' to check off when they witness that you can really do it.  But the worst sports they ever make you do is, in my opinion, long rope jumping.  You have to run into the rope (that looks as though it's going to wip you) at the right timing and if you fail, everyone in line groans and you have to feel like you did something as horrible as killing a classmate.

But Japanese teachers just love to make students work on that kind of stuff.  It teaches you how you're supposed to act in a group, how to keep the group in harmony, and how not to be 'different'.

Difference is an amazing concept though.  Without it, we can't be ourselves obviously.  Before babies become themselves, they're part of their mother.  There's no concept of you and me.  But after spending some months outside mommy's stomach, distinction becomes the key.

But I wonder when kids start regarding difference as a bad thing.  A couple of months ago, when I saw a group of six year olds trying to make friends during their first week of school, the last thing I could imagine them doing was bullying someone.  They would all go up and say: "Let's be friends!" And they're friends. It's as simple as that. Who cares if they're different?  They probably don't even know what friends are.

Then we grow up and we have definitions for everything. You have to go to the same school, or you have to have the same hobby, or you have to have the same religion, or you have to survive the same earthquake, or you have to fight in same war on the same side, or you even have to be of the same nationality. To be a 'true' friend, we have to fulfill many requirements. Well, not always, but in a country like Japan, being the same means a lot.

I'm not saying it's boring to be friends with the same kind of people; it's important to know what fits you and what doesn't.  But I sometimes wonder what it was like when I wasn't even conscious of who was white and who was yellow, who was gay and who was straight, who was a friend and who was not; I want to see how I used to see the world and how it used to work back then.

When does difference become a bad thing?  I guess it's not necessarily bad -- it's good if everyone likes it -- but since when do we start forgetting to see things beyond differences?  Maybe I'm just being cynical and sentimental today.

On a side note, I really appreciate it that my parents took a lot of time to practice long-rope jumping and many other things with me *not* so I could be the same as everyone else and fit in, but so that I wouldn't have to feel worthless in the Japanese education curriculum and instead experience the joy of learning. (The good thing about not being able to do something is that you can relish the joy of learning.) They did pretty much everything to protect me, and I think they never tried to convince me that it wasn't wrong to be different. Maybe they knew I had to learn that by myself.