skeet.: The time has come

So, it's finally come to this.

After two and a half months of working here, I've been given an ultimatum: cut your hair or go home.

I have until April.

First I told myself I'd be deported before cutting off what took hours to create and over a year to grow; the unfinished product of much work on the part of Sumreen, a still growing, constantly changing and evolving experiment in neglect. At first, I told myself that these dreadlocks would be cut over my dead body.

But the pressure is too much. I will almost definitely have to cut them.

Dreadlocks don't belong in a junior high classroom, and certainly not on a teacher. I can recognize at least that much.

But why was I interviewed three times? Twice in America, by UNL faculty and by visiting Japanese teachers. Once in Japan by the principal of the school.

Why?

It's not that I think my hair looks particularly cool.

I know how it looks: dirty and ugly, ratty, strange.

Stupid, too. It's been called stupid before.

But regardless, it remains my stupid hair--the same stupid hair that I wore to every single interview for this salary-less "job" that I'm working, this "job" that will end on June 25th.

My stupid hair that I can't bring myself to cut.

My stupid hair that is, according to multiple peers, "ruining a great experience in Japan."

And yet...

On my Japanese Visa are printed the words "cultural activities," but every day the eyes of my superiors, and the knowledge of their feelings about me and my hair tell me that this visa is about anything but culture.

Well, perhaps cultural assimilation, I suppose.

But judging by the classrooms and building that I teach in--constructed to be exactly like an American schoolhouse, right down to the style of chairs and desks--American culture is something they want to import.

They have me teach American games at lunch.

They have me answer question about America.

They want American culture, but they want their version of American culture, which doesn't seem to include the American ideals that I embody: the freedom to be a college student, to be different, to still be a kid. To be what I am, an intern.

They want Americans.

But they want to have their cake and eat it, too.

They want their kind of American.

April is the beginning of the new semester. April is when parents will come to "Ooh" and "Ahh" at the new building--created just for English instruction.

The other native teachers and I will be put on parade, because we are a rare commodity at a Japanese Junior High: we actual Americans--and oh, there just happens to be six of us!

How dazzling!

The vice principal can give the tour and the parents can be impressed.

They will see me, with my hair, the correct length of course, and the vice principal can breath a sigh of relief. He has the American he wants.

But he doesn't have a real American. Having a real American college student would simply prove too embarrassing.

Which really makes me wonder why they are teaching English at all, why they even built that building in the first place?

For "cultural activities."

I waited a few days to write this, and I still can't really write properly because my thoughts are impossible to sort out, so, I'm sorry.

But I needed some time to calm down, some time try and think. Some time to get all of the "fuck you's" and the "bullshit's" out of my system so that your eyes could be spared the punishment of reading a stream of curses.

Just three days ago...

The meeting was Thursday, which gives me approximately 20 some odd days until the new semester,when I will kiss my stupid hair goodbye.

"You know Brett," he told me, in a light Japanese accent, the mark of a man who had been abroad many times and studied English with much vigor, "When I was in America as a college student, we had rules too. If I had a drink of alcohol and I drive a car, I have to come back to Japan. You know, you must cut your hair."

Yes, the vice principal actually did compare my hair to drinking and driving, and though I won't repeat the contents of that meeting here, believe me, I explained the difference to him pretty fucking clearly.

But alas, all the words in the world, Japanese or English, can't change the facts.

I stalked home from that meeting boiling mad, unable to teach, unable to think, unable to have fun.

Perhaps my adviser at UNL could offer some advice. Perhaps a level headed scholar in America, a man who had been abroad many times and earned his Ph.D could give me some insight into this problem, calm me down, explain to me what I should do.

Perhaps he would rescue me, tell the vice principal that he couldn't force me to cut anything.

That's what I thought.

Instead he told me I was an embarrassment to him, the internship program and my university. My problem was trivial, ridiculous, and my hair was getting in the way of a wonderful experience.

His initial reply to my SOS actually was only one single line of text, not even signed with his name: "cut your hair."

Reading that hurt my eyes.

When the weight of the world is against you, and you are only a college student trying to do your best, life can become tough. Especially when you are 6,000 miles from home.

I've sought a lot of advice on this, and much of it has been less than encouraging.

"It's likely being viewed as a gross ingratitude toward what they perceive as their hospitality in giving you, a foreigner, a job and a place to stay. "

"You need to actually acknowledge the demands of a culture if you are going to try and be immersed in it for a year. If you're not going to do that, there's really no point doing a study abroad program, half the point of which is to give you a fat dose of culture shock."

"Nobody would actually consider teaching a junior high class in dreadlocks, would they? Westerners aren't that weird, surely?"

"Just who do you think you are, being able to act this way?"

"If you cut your hair, all of your problems will go away."

Which has really got me thinking, perhaps I am way out of line here.

I ask myself, would I be able to get a job teaching in America with dreadlocks? Of course not, I answer.

But then I look at my visa and the words "cultural activities." Still printed right there in bold, black ink.

I ask myself if I am being immature, if I've tricked myself into believing dreadlocks are normal in any situation.

But then I look in the mirror and I see the face of a college student, nothing more, or less.

I ask myself if my stupid hair even matters. After all, it's only hair.

But then I ask myself, would I treat a foreign exchange student like this were he living in my country, working for me?

Why do my students run to me and touch my hair, giggling and laughing, at something so different and unique, unafraid to speak English?

Why do the parents I've met tell me my hair is cute?

Why do the faculty who I've chatted with tell me the think my hair is interesting, but yet can't stick up for me when they know I am completely helpless?

I think being hated here for so long has sort of dulled my feelings.

What once was a fiery rejection of their demands, a fierce "never-give-up-hope" attitude, has deteriorated into something much less concrete.

I've become feeble.

They've worn me down.

When you have so much against you for so long, you have to admit that you were wrong.

So now, I admit that I was wrong to bring dreadlocks to Japan and to think I could get away with it. They will have to be cut. Though every fiber in my body screams with it's last bit of strength: "FIGHT! FIGHT!" I simply can't do it.

I was wrong.

The worst part of it all, is that this teaching experience, this time in Japan, will not be remembered as it should be.

All the horrible feelings that I've felt for so long: rejection, helplessness, loneliness, hopelessness, pain, hatred... those feelings will stick with me in my mind, while the smiles of my students fade.

Those feelings will sting.

This memory has been tarnished. Perhaps by my attitude, perhaps by their attitude, but it's all fucked up now.

Please let me know what you think in the comments, I'd appreciate it.