SHIFT: A New Paradigm for Women in the Workplace – Stories and Strategies.
Here is a brief excerpt from Chapter 7, titled “Close Encounters” – strange and entertaining tales from my myriad adventures navigating a competitive job market.
“We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes – understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.” — Arianna Huffington
Noh Drama
A few weeks into a January move to Osaka, Japan by the urging of a friend who had been there for a couple of years teaching English as a Second Language, I arranged to meet for a job interview at a local donut shop a few blocks from where I was living. Halfway through the encounter, I knew I’d made a mistake. Never in a million years would I have gotten into a car with two men I didn’t know if I’d been home in California. But then, who conducts a job interview that way?
I’d been in Osaka, Japan for two months by then and wandered the streets by myself often. Maybe it was something I’d read before I’d arrived, how safe everything was, no crime in the cities of Japan, a respectful coexistence. Or maybe it just felt that way because everyone was so polite and gentle. I had witnessed nothing that resembled Oakland. Everything was different. I was different.
I was an outsider looking in and what I saw seemed undeniably safe. Safer than safe itself. Looking for a job had seemed promising. I was young but experienced, I was eager and optimistic. Friends gave reassuring advice, bolstered my confidence. But as the days became weeks spilling over into a month, I was feeling a bit desperate to secure a job soon. And a proper visa.
It was raining hard the morning I walked the three blocks from my tiny hovel above a tofu shop in the Ikuno-ku district to the Mr. Donut to meet the director of a new English school hiring teachers. I’d woken up late, tired and anxious and gotten ready in a hurry. As I approached the proposed meeting spot, I noticed a handsome middle-aged Japanese man standing with a young, red-headed man who was holding an umbrella over both of their heads.
The young man perked up as I approached, assuming I must be the woman they were waiting for since everyone else in sight was Japanese. The redhead’s name was Simon and he spoke with an Australian accent. He introduced me to Mr. Haruki, or Haruki-san as he was correctly addressed, and ushered us quickly inside. We sat in a plastic booth and had coffee. And donuts, of course.
Simon was there to facilitate, to translate for Haruki-san, apparently, as he seemed to speak no English whatsoever. After just a few minutes, the two men had a brief conversation in Japanese and stood up abruptly. Simon explained that we were going to finish the interview at the school, so I stood and followed them out the door. Assuming we were walking there together just a block or two, I followed them across the street. But as we hit the curb, Simon swiftly opened the back door of a parked sedan and motioned to me to get in. So, I did.
Somehow in that moment, all my street smarts went down the toilet. Everything my mother ever taught me. All the words, as a teenager, my four older brothers etched into my psyche. All of my own intuitive boundary lines from living in sketchy urban neighborhoods obliterated in a split second. Blindly trusting these two strangers, I climbed in as Haruki-san took the wheel with Simon as his co-pilot. I was momentarily draped in an all-trusting-of-Japanese-culture awareness, waiting for a short drive to the school. When we entered the freeway and I suddenly had no grasp of the lay of the land or my place in it, I started to spin.
What in the hell am I doing! I would never do this back home, why am I doing this here? I don’t know anything about these two people. Am I being kidnapped?
. . .
This is a brief excerpt from Chapter 7 of the book SHIFT: A New Paradigm for Women in the Workplace – Stories and Strategies © 2022, Mary Corbin / Olive George Press. No reprints without permission.
mary corbin 