Flash Fiction #177
I was living in a house, named International House, on a semi rural and semi urban campus in Pennsylvania , which only accepted one or two people from the same country. So we ended up having a mixture of people from Asia, Africa, South America, Eastern Europe. Among us, there was one girl from Japan who was finishing her master degree in international relationship. I am not at the liberty to reveal her real name. Let’s say her name is Aiko.
Aiko was dating a fellow graduate student who was from Serbia, who was friendly with a Serbian girl living in our house. We ran into each other sometimes. For some reason, I felt that Aiko was a rich girl among us. Her parents were forcing her to get married and had laid out her dowry for her. However she had other plans, which she did not hesitate to share with us. She intended to spend half of her dowry on a master degree in America, after which she would move to Singapore or Thailand or Malaysia to get a good job. I didn’t know at the time that South and Southeast Asia were the popular destinations for Japanese girls to get a good job and escape their inescapable gender role back in Japan.
Anyway, Aiko was taking an econ course and was preparing for a test on following Monday, and her Serbian boyfriend was helping her review the material. They ran into an argument. We were having a house party at the time and Aiko holed up in her room upstairs to study. Her boyfriend came down to get a beer to cool himself down. He complained to us that Aiko was being completely unreasonable and stubborn. It drove him crazy. She insisted on copying her class notes neatly onto a new notebook, with attendant details from the textbook, before she would do a review of the material.
“Why bother to copy the notes again? It’s such a waste of time. And she does it so neatly, which makes the copying really slow.” He said.
Everybody agreed with him. There were five or six of us standing or sitting in the corner of the first floor living room at the time. One girl from Pakistan, two Serbians including the boyfriend, me, one from Jamaica, one from Brazil studying politics and philosophy. They all agreed with Aiko’s boyfriend. I was the only one who refrained from giving my opinion. Then people got curious and wanted to know if this was Aiko’s personal preferences or this was a unique Japanese method.
“She said it was a common method and everybody was doing it like this more or less.” The boyfriend added.
“I do not think I would survive for a week in such a rigid system.” The Brazilian guy claimed. He had told me that he was a Marxist when he was a teenager, but then in college, he read a famous book by Karl Marx in which Marx said the Mexican-American War was beneficial to Mexico. I cannot remember the exact words, but somehow he said Karl Marx thought Mexicans should take this as a learning opportunity and try to improve themselves, or something to that effect. The Brazilian guy was so angry at Marx that he stopped being a Marxist and becoming a capitalist overnight.
Everybody agreed with the Brazilian guy.
“Of course you will survive. It only needs a little getting used to.” I said. Now everybody turned their eyes on me.
“What are you saying? Are you growing up in a similar system? Is this an Asian thing?” They asked me. I suddenly realized that I was the only person from East Asia in the group.
(To Be Continued)
Haoyan Do 