Do you ever get the feeling...

that you're being watched? Followed? Monitored?





I do, and no, I'm not just another crazy conspiracy theory loon.





I just live in Japan.





Oh and one big thing I forgot to mention. I'm not Japanese...


I don't know if I would consider myself a city girl, the place where I'm from in Australia isn't big city, but definitely not country. When I decided to live in Japan though, I wasn't coming for fresh mountain air and outdoor onsen (although those things are lovely in small doses), I wanted big city lights, conbini on every corner and a smokers cough from all the smog. So Osaka it was! And I wasn't disappointed, Osaka was exactly what I wanted. Sure, there were old dudes pissing in the streets and random men wanknig on my door once in a while, but it was allll worth it.

I met Ryota in a club in Osaka, so you'd think from that beginning it would be a match made in heaven, but noooo Ryota hates Osaka. He hates the people (says they're all nutty), hates the crowds, the packed trains, the rubbish, just generally hates it. So when he came to live with me in Osaka for 6 months, it was pretty much hell for him, he couldn't wait to get back to his Southern Hyogo little haven. And I have to admit, where we live now is not by any means iinaka. There are many conbini, a starbucks and Maccas not too far away, if we lived in an apartment near the station it would be pretty much perfect.

But no. We live in a house on a dirt path. Surrounded by crazy old people.

Seriously, I've never known a place to be crawling with so many old geezers, old nosy geezers at that.

In the past few weeks there seem to have been so many old buggers coming up to me, greeting me like I'm their long lost gaijin grand daughter.

Instance 1#- Old geezer sees me struggling with baby, shopping, nappy bag and general accumulated crap coming out of the car, but no, he doesn't help a white girl out, no on, he stops his bike and chuckles "Ahhh Onechan can drive. Ha Ha Ha!" I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that so said "Sou desu ne" in Japanese and "Useless fucker, don't give me a hand or anything" in English. Would he say that to a random Japanese lady?? OK, I can't really class myself as a lady... But still!

Instance 2#- We go to a real estate agent to look at some properties and the old lady greets me with a massive spiel about how she's seen me sooo many times and was going to invite me in for tea but didn't know if i spoke Japanese. Great, now I'm going to have to go for tea the next time she sees me.

Instance 3#- Old lady comes up to me and tells me how big Ash has gotten. Errr, yup, if I knew you from a bar of soap it would help lady!!! She said she'd always seen me in the supermarket and was amazed that Ash was walking already. I smiled politely but inside I was just thinking, "Fuck now I have to memorise her face so I don't forget her and snob her off next time..."

I mean really, with the fear of sounding just the teeny tiniest bit racist, all these fuckers look the same to me!!! The size of Obachan's Louis Vuitton (see I can't even spell the fucker, let alone buy the whole collection!) bag or how big the wad of spit Occhan hocks up does not help me recognise them. They really expect me to just remember them after a nod in the street or a summimasen in the suupaa?? Maybe I should dye my hair black, get "black" contact lenses and shrink a bit and I might not have this problem.

I really really want to go back to the city where I blend in amongst all the other foreign bodies and am not quite so 'famous,' but convincing Ryota to go back to the city will be near impossible I feel. Oh well, at least I can't bitch about not standing out in a crowd or feeling individual. It does freak me out that I am probably dinner table conversation for some of the local oldies, can just imagine it, "Oh Otoosan, you should have seen that stupid white girl today, she had so much chocolate in her shopping basket the big giant lard arse!!! More boiled fish head...?"

OK, I'm sure they're all very nice, in a passive aggressive kind of way but I'm keen for a bit less fame I think...