Over the last few years, I’ve worked with quite a few Americans and Europeans who are completely fluent in Japanese. I’ve had similar conversations with many of them and the following is the sort of thing I’ve heard more than once.

- I speak Japanese fluently and I have a lot of Japanese friends, but no matter how friendly they are, they still treat me as an outsider, as someone who will go away, as if it’s not worth the time and effort to invest in building a friendship that will only be temporary. They never let me into the inside circle.

When I’m on the train and reading something in English, people keep their distance, very slight, but I can feel them holding back. If I’m reading something in Japanese, then it seems they feel more free to jostle as if I were another Japanese.

In stores, if I speak in English or in broken Japanese (on purpose), then people often can’t understand what I’m saying and get all into a fluster, but when my hand motions finally communicate, they are extra friendly and helpful. But if I speak in fluent Japanese, then their attitude is different and depending on what I’m asking for, they can be outright unfriendly.

The same goes for every place I’ve worked. When I first start working and most of the people don’t know I speak Japanese, then people stare a little longer and they are more interested and curious. When they find out I speak Japanese, I suddenly lose the “special foreigner” status.

In various ways, bilingual foreigners are worse off than foreigners who don’t speak a lick of Japanese. Westerners who don’t speak Japanese are special, rare, exotic (especially if they’re blond) and so forth. If they act differently, they are excused on account of being stupid foreigners. Westerners who do speak Japanese are treated more as Japanese and are often expected then to follow the huge unspoken code of Japanese social politeness. But either way, a foreigner is an outsider and is always treated as such.

Every Westerner I’ve worked with who speaks Japanese fluently has said the same sort of thing. That is why some of them choose not to speak any Japanese at work at all. Quite often, it’s a minus to know Japanese. If it weren’t for my being a Christian and wanting to witness to people, I wouldn’t let on that I speak Japanese. Life would be far easier if I pretend not to understand what is going on around me, keeping my special stupid-foreigner status intact.

I used to feel left out, especially when I was younger, but now I’m thankful for not being an insider. Japanese society is not something I want to be inside of. Knowing the Japanese language enables me to understand the society, but being a foreigner keeps me from being too tightly bound by it. I have more freedom than the Japanese who are part of the social system, more freedom than the foreigners who don’t speak the language and don’t understand what’s going on around them, and more freedom in my heart than those who don’t know the Truth.

Now, how to show people who don’t want to be unplugged….