Profiscor on the Your-Japan Blog Network

Advena, for those of you who were wondering, means “Foreign/Alien” in Latin. There’s another word used for foreign and Advena is more “alien”. I suppose I chose the right word for my username because I have never felt as much of an alien as I did today.

Smith and I decided to be adventurous and take some courses for the Japanese fulltime students. We started the day with Japanese class, had lunch and went to animal physiology in Japanese. We’d been once before and the people in class didn’t really stare at us and even made sure we got the hand out. The teacher was really happy to have us even though it all went over our heads. Next up was Medical History, which is a course for people in the medical faculty.

I don’t know about your country but in England Medicine and Biology tend to overlap and as a neuroscience student I did some of the same practical experiments as the medics. We’re even based in the same building as them as well as having the Biomedical Science degree which studies the science behind medical procedures and medicines.

Here in Japan, however, the system is different. Biology is a separate faculty and Medicine is its own faculty with Tsukuba having a separate campus for the medical sciences. If a normal Japanese student from Japan wanted to take a medical module such as “Medical history” they just wouldn’t be allowed*.

*We have this module available in both the biology and medical faculty back home.

The fact that we were being forced to take at least 10 hours of classes a week and didn’t need the credits meant that we could go hunt down some lecturers and ask them if we could sit in their class, we’d get credit’s for attendance and not have to do any homework. Which works for me since I have enough to do in labs anyway.

So we spent ages during the first week trying to hunt down the main lecturer of this medical history module and then the lecture theatre. Today was the first time that we’d gone in 3 weeks since we couldn’t find the room before.

We came in 30 minutes late due to the medical campus and the regular campus being a good 10-15 minute bike ride away from one another let alone getting lost in the building itself.

I had heard that Japanese doctors can be arses and that the medical students sometimes go round with god complexes, but the people inside seemed pretty normal.

We walked in the giant lecture theatre. Nobody batted an eyelid. Maybe they didn’t notice but they didn’t seem to care. The lecturer was making some jokes and everyone was laughing and seemed really relaxed.

This doesn’t seem too bad.

I thought to myself and found a seat on the side next to the aisle.

I realised the lecture hadn’t started yet, even though it was half an hour into the scheduled lecture time.

The lecturer was having some problems setting up the projector. Then he couldn’t find the light switch. Next he couldn’t turn on his computer and needed some help from a technician, who incidentally looked like a Japanese version of Ted from Scrubs.

During this time we where the lecturer wasn’t busy, Smith and I both realised it might be a good idea to go down and say that we were form England and we had permission to sit in this class.

The lecturer was holding a microphone and replied with the microphone still up to his face which I thought was pretty rude, but to be honest I didn’t really expect much less from a Japanese doctor.

He told us to write our names and then said something that I didn’t catch which made all of the students laugh. I wrote my name in katakana and went back to my seat and smith followed behind.

Smith: He was talking about us when we were writing our names.
Me: Yeah I figured.

Smith: He said Eigo (English) something something kitainai.

Me: He said kitanai?!

Smith: Is that bad? What does that mean again?
Me: Kitanai? It means dirty!

Smith: O_O I really hope I heard that wrong.

Off to a fantasmic start I see.

The lecturer proceeded on with his class plan and then stopped mid sentence and said “Is Japanese okay for you?”

I replied saying “Yes, Japanese is fine”. In Japanese.

He then said, speaking to the other students “Yeah whatever, if they don’t understand they can ask but they’re going to try and listen!”, which made all of the students laugh again and they all turned round to stare at us.

I made it obvious that I understood this by looking at the floor and shaking my head which deterred any further comments from the lecturer and made at least some of the people turn around, except for the guys in front of me who seemed hypnotized and were determined to win the staring contest they had going with me.

Smith then whispers to me,

“Did the lecturer just say he hated us?”
“No he said that we can try to listen”

“Why is everyone still laughing?”
“Because they’re bastard Japanese medical students?”
“True”

“Why is the lecturer still laughing?” I asked
“I don’t know… I lost all respect for him when I noticed he was wearing Crocs”

“True”

In actual fact, apart from the drug names and procedure names I could make out most of the lecture. I also got the impression that the lecturer didn’t take a liking to western names because on more than one occasion he said “Yeah the naming is weird isn’t it? I’m so glad I’m Japanese”.

Fag.

At the end of the lecture he asked us in the rudest possible way where we were from.

I was shocked at this and just stared at him. Shocked that he would talk to us in such a manner, and confused because I already told him we were both from England when we went up to him. He obviously just wanted to look cool in front of these students. He then rolls his eyes and says “Whea are you fromu”,

“Igirisu Desu” I said, saying that I was form England and soon after realising this isn’t the proper way to say it, which just fuels the cackle of some guy sitting a few rows behind us.

Smith says “Me too” in Japanese but the lecturer has to be arsy about it and say “AND YOU?” so Smith says the same again and then looks at the floor blushing, shaking his head. The lecturer makes a snide comment about our responses that I didn’t catch, leaving the class in hysterics and they all turned round to get a good look once again. The way they were staring at us you would think we were naked and prancing around like baboons. I checked to see if there was anything in my teeth or a stain on my blouse and then rolled my eyes and shook my head. How humiliating, they were still laughing at us.

The lecture ended and I really wanted to go up to the lecturer to tell him more about ourselves and to ask if it was actually okay for us to sit in this lecture since we were apparently the laughing stock of the medical faculty. But the guys in front of me were all still staring and smiling like hyenas that I just picked up my things and followed Smith out the door.

I’ve never experienced anything like that before due to the colour of my skin or my nationality. The Japanese can call it “Xenophobia” or what they want, but it’s just plain bastardism.

Even when we walked out from the building the people who I was sitting behind made sure that they were walking in front of me so they could turn around and stare. I resisted the urge to say “BOO” or flip them off. I nodded to the security guard who helped us find the room and cycled back to my lab building at the regular campus and smiled at the fact that everyone I passed ignored me.

I’m tempted to play the dumb gaijin card and go up to lecturer next week to say in my sweetest of all sweetest voices “Why was everyone laughing and looking at us?” *puppy dog eyes* just to see what the old man has to say for himself.

But those bastards can stare at us, I’ll give them something to stare at by being there every week and sitting there pretending that I understand everything. Next time I might even invade a Japanese boy’s personal space by sitting right next to him and staring at him when he attempts to stare at me.

I look forward to it, medics! Mwahahaha!

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