Funny Conversations I've Had with Japanese People Recently

Since being back in Japan a month after an equal amount of time visiting family in the states, I've already had some pretty interesting conversations with Japanese people.

When I first came back to school, one of the female teachers I work with noticed that my face looked darker than usual. "You got a suntan!" she remarked to me with a smile. "Huh?" I thought. "Uh, no, not really..."

"Oh?" she said. "Your skin looks darker..."

I thought...And immediately recalled my stepmom saying something quite similar to me when I was back home. "Melissa, you look so white! I don't think that makeup is the right color for your skin tone..." "Really?" I had said in surprise. I'd run out of my American foundation, so I had been forced to buy some more in Japan. I bought what I thought matched my skin color...but apparently not.

There's actually a good reason for this: in Asian countries like Japan and Korea, women want to have very white skin. They cover up from head to toe in the brutal humidity of the summer, use umbrellas even on sunny days, and lather on whitening hand cream. So when they buy makeup they choose a shade lighter than their actual skin tone. Whereas in America women match the makeup to their skin tone, and we'd much rather be tan than pale white! Being half Italian, I have a sort of yellowy, olive complexion, and I wouldn't say I'm much different than some Japanese – there are even some people with paler skin than me! Yet because of this beauty vanity, it seems they simply don't make makeup that matches my skin here in Japan.

I explained about this to the teacher. She said that if a Japanese woman was told "You look darker!" she would be pretty offended. I shrugged it off and mostly thought it was funny – plus it confirmed what my stepmom had said – but the next day the teacher remarked at the beginning of class to me with a smile, "I'm getting used to the fact that that's your real skin color!" As if just because she found out that I wasn't as white as she thought, it changed her entire opinion of me!

Another image-related conversation I had just a few days later happened at the gym when a woman I occasionally talk with welcomed me back after a month absence. "You didn't gain any weight!" she said with a grin. "Well...I was working out in America, too." I was glad to know I didn't look like I gained any weight after a month of indulgence – but if I had, would she have pointed it out to me, saying with a grin, "Oh, you gained weight!"? Because that's something you actually say to make small talk with someone you haven't seen in a while. While in America we would never dare tell someone they gained weight, here in Japan it's commonplace. America has such a high rate of obesity and eating disorders we're very sensitive about our weight and our self-image, but in Japan everyone is so thin so they don't have any problems with that. I had a Japanese friend in college who lamented that he'd gained only about 5 to 10 pounds over the year living in America – which isn't that much to us, but is a lot to them – and when he went back to Japan his friends welcomed him back...by writing on the blackboard, "Welcome home fat man." I was shocked and thought it was so offensive, but he said they were only joking.

I wasn't too offended by the woman's casual remark, but I still would have preferred not to be told that...

Such a huge difference in ideal body type in Asia compared to Western countries!

The last conversation also occurred at the gym. I was in the midst of my run on the treadmill and stopped to catch my breath, and a middle aged man on the machine next to me remarked, "You've got so much energy! It's because your young. Are you a high schooler?" High schooler?! "I'm almost 25!" I said. Usually people in Japan assume I'm a college student and are surprised to find out I'm a working adult. Even college was four years ago for me; no way I could possibly pass for high school! I was a bit flattered, but mostly felt he was hitting on me haha...

Japanese people never fail to surprise me sometimes.