Even if it might not have been directed at you.
I don’t really interact with the people in my neighborhood too much. Not that I’m being aloof or anything, just that the language barrier tends to prevent much real communication.Sure, I’ve exchanged “good mornings” in Japanese with the woman on the balcony across the way a couple times when we’ve both been hanging our wash in the morning. And I’ve done the “random hello” thing with a few kids as I’ve walked past the park near my place, but not much more than that. I don’t know enough Japanese (yet) to do more than that, and I don’t think many of them know much English either.
But it’s no big deal. There are so few foreigners in my area (like maybe three including myself) that I’ve gotten used to being a bit of an oddity. (We don’t have a train station, and therefore have none of the big franchise language schools, so we don’t have many teachers around here. Or other foreigners for that matter.) The kids aren’t obnoxious about the “hello” thing like Korean kids are, and I don’t get creepy stares from the older people, so I do the best I can with returning greetings and whatnot.Let’s take today, for example. I had to go over to the school today to see my boss. We’re still on vacation, but she was doing daycare for a couple of the kids and had offered to help me get my bank account set up today. (Whoo-hoo! An ATM card, finally!) On my way over there I passed by two women who where outside talking, a very common morning occurrence here. I think the morning prime social/gossip time. Since we have trash pickup four days a week, there are always a goodly amount of people – mostly housewives, but sometimes it’s the husband on his way to work – out dropping their trash off at the pickup point. One of these two women was standing on her steps and her friend was in the street talking to her. (No sidewalks on a lot of the streets in my area.)
As I passed them, the one in the street smiled and said “good morning,” and me being the neighborly guy I am, responded with a smile and a “good morning” of my own, along with a little bow of my head. It’s rare that I get greetings from the adults around here in English, so I thought I should reply in kind instead of saying “ohayo gozaimasu.” (“Good morning” in Japanese.)
It’s probably a good thing I used English.
I’d barely moved past them when I heard one of them say to the other, “Kawaii, ne?”
In English that’s, “Cute, don’t you think?”
When I heard that I instantly got a big grin on my face (I almost let out a little laugh), and I was very tempted to turn around, point to myself and ask her, “kawaii?” But I think that might have embarrassed her if she had been talking about me. (Or maybe even embarrassed me if she hadn’t been.)
Now, I’m not so egotistical to assume that she had to be referring to me. She could’ve just been continuing her conversation with her friend or something. But even if that really was the case, I’m going to take is having been about me.
Because it feels really good to think it was. ^.^