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When I was 11, my family moved from Hawaii Kai to Kapolei, and I changed schools from Star of the Sea Elementary to St. Joseph in Waipahu. I won't get into the social dichotomy of it all, but suffice it to say that the former was much more upper-class than the latter.
I was singled out pretty fast. "Eh! Das dat kid dat say 'please' and 'tank you' lidat!" and it all came to a head in my first month there when a guy who seemed to help me get acquainted with everything at first, suddenly turned on me and started to harass and beat me up. I was literally afraid for my life, and I did what any private school kid would do--I went and told my teacher, Sister Margie. She told me she would talk to that kid. Nothing came of that consultation, and I genuinely began to fear going to St. Joseph's in Waipahu.
One day he pushed me into a corner and spat on me, laughed and walked away. That was the day I finally told my Dad about what had happened.
He asked me if I had spoken with St. Margie about it, I had said that I did, and that a week had passed and nothing. That morning he parked the car and came with me all the way to the classroom.
Dad walked up to Sister Margie and demanded to speak with the guy who was bullying me. I was embarassed, mainly because everyone was staring at me and my Dad.
Sister Margie seemed almost as though she had suddenly remembered that she was supposed to do something about the situation, like be a teacher.
She told my father that she would handle the situation. I remember that my Dad reassured me that she would, and he promptly left for work. Looking back on it now, it does seem rather abrupt, but in all probabilities, my father probably gave Sister Margie a sufficiently stern look before feeling that it was alright for him to leave. I'm fairly unable to confirm, as I was staring mostly at the ground through most of what had just happened.
Sister Margie called us over to her desk, asked a few questions to confirm what he had been doing to me throughout the past month, gave him detention, then proceeded to lecture me. She told me that I shouldn't have brought my father into this.
I remember knowing the injustice of what she had said at that very moment. But I didn't say anything. She was obviously embarrassed that for whatever reason, she had failed to address the situation before it became very potentially craptastic. I did tell my parents about it when I returned home, though, I remember that much.
* * * A very good friend of mine remarked to me recently that I dressed much older than I am (colloquially, I basically dress like an old man, I suppose. To elaborate a bit, these days I prefer dress slacks and a polo shirt--gone are the days of concert T-shirts it seems...). This person meant no offense by that, and I took no offense to it either. I simply, and rather automatically responded that I wanted to dress respectably, like my father.
I thought on what I had said in that moment and remembered this story from my adolescence.
I told that story to some of my other friends, to which they responded "You're Dad is awesome."
I can tell you, he is indeed awesome and I love him.
* * * These days, the month of August is a dead month for me. Under my current contract, I am not required to come to school. Concordantly, I am not paid for the month, either. In the last couple of years I've come to both love and hate August, to love it in the sense that I have all the time in the world to what I wish, to hate it in the sense that there is a vacuum of purpose to the whole affair. It is in these lulls in purpose that I think on my life the most. It is in these lulls that I assess my level of satisfaction with my life. I spend the month thinking on the things in my life that I've done well, and those other things that I have not been so successful at. I try to remind myself of how capable a person I actually am, despite something inherent to my personality that doubts myself at every turn. * * * A couple of weeks ago I suddenly remembered that I am the 1996 Hawaii State Oxford Debate Champion. I was drinking with some friends, a rare occurrence indeed. And suddenly, I just blurted that out, as if it were something cool that someone else had done that I admired in some fashion. I don't know why I felt the urge to say that. Maybe I've felt very removed from all things academically English in all my time here in Japan. Perhaps some part of my subconscious felt that the conscious part needed some reminding. I'm not sure why I decided to make that announcement. What I think is true, though, is that some part of me needed to remember that I am capable of more than I think I am. In my Sophomore year in high school, on the recommendation of my favorite teacher and a few others, I joined the Speech and Debate Team. I was more in it for the Speech/Theatrical aspects of it, however, the coach decided that I was much more effective as a debater. This did not appeal to me at all, as I have always been fairly loathe to argue with anyone. However, I did as I was told, and per our coaches well-informed predictions, I was successful at this whole structured-argument bit. It was Oxford-style team policy debate. Basically, that's two teams of two, debating over the merits of a proposed change in policy. The enthymeme changed on a yearly basis, and the year that I was in it, the Resolution was something to the effect of "That the United States should significantly change its foreign policy towards the Peoples Republic of China." Not an easy resolution at all. Affirmative teams are free to interpret the resolution as they see fit and fashion their case around the definitions they choose, and the Negative team defends the effectiveness of the status quo. And amidst the 2ARs, cross-examinations, firm-yet-artificial handshakes, and high schoolers dressed in all manner of suits, there was some intellectual duking-out of policies that one might learn from if they could get through all that rhetoric to the idea that may or may not lie beneath. My partner was Kevin Won. A brilliant debate tactician who sounded like a Chinese Beavis. It was a shame really--his ideas were solid, but he would always get ranked 4th out of 4 speakers on the ballots (this aspect of the ballots was mostly based on eloquence). I filled out the other end, being the PR guy, the silver tongue so to speak. Our typical tag team plan involved him telling me the ideas and me writing the speeches. It worked exceptionally well for us. But there were times when we were both floundering around at the podium, me talking bullshit out my ass without any solid ideas, and him, all solid concepts and ideas but screwing up the telling of it all. It was especially at times like these that I realized how necessary both of these things are in life in general. We had a 95% winning average. When the both of us were on our game, we were badass motherfuckers. We became formidable enough to deserve a reputation in the Hawaii speech league. It was awesome, but there were obvious drawbacks. For example, there was a girl from Castle High School who I had a bit of a crush on. But she hated me because every time we faced her in a debate round, we would win. Kevin and I were apparently her debate nemeses, and that pretty much ruined my chances with her. I even remember trying to find her after a tournament so I could ask her our, only to find that she was probably avoiding me. But, such is the nature of the beast. Kevin and I were by no means an invincible pair. Our Achilles Heel manifested itself in the likes of a pair of witty fellows from Baldwin High School on Maui. Their names were Paul and John, and they had beaten us every time we debated against them. They became our arch nemeses. They were the faces pinned to the dartboard. They were the ones we hated, because they were the ones we feared the most. By the State-wide competition, all the debate teams had pretty much faced each other once and had sized each other up sufficiently enough. We knew that in order to win the State tournament, we had to beat Paul and John. Being able to defeat them in a qualifying round would mean that everything else would be within our capabilities. And so, training montages aside, we focused only on being able to beat Paul and John, based on what we knew of their previous cases. We were ready, and we were psyched. And upon reaching the parking lot of Moanalua High School were the state tournament was taking place that year, we spotted Paul and John in the parking lot and shat ourselves. Apparently we hadn't psyched ourselves enough. As fate would have it, we did end up facing off against Paul and John during the semi-final rounds. At this point, the judges are counting fuck-ups on tally sheets, and every little thing counts. We came to the room, I had calmed down to the point where my nose was no longer bleeding, but then rather unexpectedly, Kevin began to panic. Up until now, he'd never done this. I had to take him out of the room before the start of the round and give him a "forever winners or forever losers" speech. I said something to the effect of "This makes the most sense out of any of this! We've never won against this guys, not once! That's why it has to be NOW! We take them today, we take them now, and if we do, WE TAKE THEM FOR ALL TIME!" That seemed to do the trick. It was midnight when they announced the final round participants. Paul and John were not among them, we'd taken them out in a flaming blaze of goddamn glory. Kevin and I had vindicated ourselves, and were one long step away from the prize. I exclaimed rather haphazardly to the girl I was sort of seeing at the time that I would bring her back a States trophy. She later presented me with the wall posting as a memoir. I ran to the car and told my Dad who had been sleeping in the car in
the parking lot since he arrived sometime around 9 or 10 (we hadn't
anticipated that the tournament would last so long). I said something
like, "Dad, you gotta come see this--I might actually win the state
championship in debate."
The team Kevin and I were facing were from Kahuku. We'd never gone against them before, and subsequently, we'd never heard of them before. As it turns out, them and us had somehow got away with not debating each other the entire year. But apparently, our debate trainer, Grant Lee, told us that he'd seen these guys debate before, and that they could wipe the floor with him. Not the best thing to hear before going in to face them on the proverbial field of battle. We went in nonetheless and did our thing. They did their thing as well. And in the heated exchange, a new word was created. Everyone involved in that debate made explicit use of the word "revocal" when in fact we meant "revocation." We had no idea until the judges' ballots came back and one of the judges, an actual chief justice of the something-or-other, wrote in large block letters "'REVOCAL' - THERE IS NO SUCH WORD!" My father and I got home around 1:30am and my Mom was pissed. My Dad had turned off the cel phone during the debate, which lasted about an hour and a half, and my Mom had no idea where we were. I tried to tell her that I made it to the final round of the State finals but she just told me to microwave my beef stroganoff and eat. My Dad explained, but you know how these things go. I ate my dinner finally at 2 in the morning while watching MTV. Oasis' "Champaign Supernova" was playing, introduced as a brand new video for the day. I wouldn't find out until the following night that Kevin and I had one the title State Champion, but I somehow define this moment of the story as the point when I felt most satisfied with what I had accomplished. * * * The other night over dinner with friends, I told them that over the course of this month's musings, I had finally decided to leave Japan. I told them that I had, in all likelihood, gotten as much out of this experience as I could have, and that it felt in many ways like it was time for me to level up. One of my friends said, "Yeah, that's right--you're too talented to stay here." It had not been the first time I've been told this, but for some reason, something hit me right then, and I started to lose my composure. Something about hearing it this time finally clicked in my head, and I felt it in my heart. He was right, and for the first time, I had actually agreed. I had let myself remember that I am a fairly talented person. I was shocked out how long I'd made myself deny that that was anything significant. Whether it was out of a need to be humble or to somehow blend into Japanese society, or whether it was because of some personal hang up from my shy and somewhat introverted childhood, I can't say. All I know is that hearing someone say that about me, to me, this time, something happened and I actually realized it without feeling that it was a bad thing. * * *
The following day I watched Braveheart, relishing every moment of the movie. As a kind of side thought, I wondered why my favorite movies were movies like Braveheart, Gladiator, Shawshank Redemption. There is no denying that these are great movies on their own, but why was it that I liked them? I know why I like Gladiator. Maximus as a character is a very principled individual. As quoted by Proximo in the movie itself, "I know that you are a man of your word, General. That you would die for honor, for Rome, for the memory of your loved ones." I truly admire the character of Maximus, and likewise, the way William Wallace and Andy Dufresnes' characters were written. There is something altogether phenomenal about these characters as people. We can relate to them in some manner, and they show us what massive potential we as humans have to do great things, no matter the circumstances. They are not saints, but they do amazing things, things that are not impossible, but things that you think no man is quite capable of, especially considering what's been laid against them in their respective stories. Working against hundreds of years of oppression and tyranny, William Wallace exclaims "I will invade England!" when asked what his plan for defending Scotland will be. In a flash of genius and opportunity, Andy Dufresne transforms a lifetime death sentence of solitary confinement and virtual indentured servitude into the life of his dreams--"Andy Dufresne--who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side." Maximus Decimus Meridius--a man who after losing everything worth living for, finds one more important reason to fight--born again for only a few months, he accomplishes more than most do in a lifetime. For all intents and purposes, all three of these people are fictional. But they are as much a vision of how we can be, what we are capable of, even when all seems stupid, cliche, flavorless and otherwise not worth the effort. * * * I finished the movie Braveheart that night and sat silently for a long, long time. I wondered about everything. I marveled at this man who once was, this force of will that affected so many lives around him, for better and worse. I wondered what it was I saw in him, why some part of me wanted to live as he did, and what was stopping me from being noble in that way. Nothing was stopping me. Nothing is stopping me. There is a vast, empty freedom in realizing that nothing can really stop you from living as you wish. And at that moment I felt it, like the floor falling out from under my feet, the walls of my apartment blasting off into the distant dark nothing and there was naught but me, my thoughts, and this palpable feeling of sheer potential. I thought about my life until that point. Things that I have done, and done well. I thought about my life after Japan. Things that I would certainly love to try, ways I would like to live, the people I've not yet met whom I might be able to share my talents with, and enjoy their's with as well. Sometimes it just blows my mind to think about the things that I havev done. If I could go back in time and speak with myself 10 years ago, my old self would NEVER have believed the current me. "In ten years, you will be bilingual. You'll have lived in Japan for 5 years and actually lived as they do. You will have been the frontman of one of the best bands in the Osaka underground. You will have gone to the Tokyo Game Show cosplaying as one of the most popular anime characters in Japan, and in doing so, you will actually meet the voice actress from the show itself..."
Even thinking about those things now, some of it sounds surreal enough to feel as if I were talking about someone else's life. I will, in these coming years, share with you the new things that I will try. But this time, I won't feel as much a need to apologize for doing so. I have to promise to myself that I will embrace who I am, without regret. There is a difference between arrogance and confidence that I have somehow confused all my life. There actually was a time in my life when I did live life to the hilt, for as much as I wanted to do that. I think that I want to get some of that back somehow. I will try. Smart_Bad out. | | | Posted 9/1/2008 2:40 PM - 58 Views - 4 eProps - 2 comments
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