Returned Japanese

Osutein-Sensei: Out of Asia
(Part 2)
One of my Japanese students once asked me what I missed the most about America. I thought about my family, my friends, the deep well of American culture that had shaped my personality and world view. I missed none of these. What I really missed, truly deeply longed for in the very depths of my soul, was Chick-Fil-A.

Now, you might be wondering why I would miss a fast food chicken joint, but then you must understand that I am Southern. You see, to a Southerner Chick-Fil-A is a sacred thing, like Sunday morning church, football, sweet tea, humidity, and reducing entire sentences to monosyllables (for example, in the South "have you eaten yet?" is pronounced "jeat?")

Thus when I walked into my first Chick-Fil-A after moving back to the States, I entered starry-eyed and full of anticipation. I approached the counter, chose what delicious deep-fried morsel of obesity I was going to eat, and then... nothing. I didn't know what to do. How the hell do you order fast food in English? I thought. I timidly shuffled up to the counter, stumblingly announced I'd like a chicken sandwich, pulled out the strange green bills and oddly sized coins from my pocket and dropped it on the counter. "Don't say anything in Japanese, don't say anything in Japanese," I whispered to myself, afraid of the instinctive responses that had been drilled into my head. I backed away, accidentally bumping into the condiments stand and when my order came up, I took the tray, bowed deeply, and said "domo."

Shit.

I thought living abroad would expand my horizons and give me the confidence to do anything I set my mind to do. Instead, I can no longer function in Chick-Fil-A. Having studied esoteric book trivia in the dim, hallowed corridors of the Ivory Tower, I knew from a millenia's worth of journey narratives that "you can never go home again," much as you cannot step into the same river twice or reuse the "Buy 2 Dish Towels Get 1 Free" coupon at participating Targets. Odysseus and Leopold Bloom had taught me that much. What I didn't realize was that I would also find ordering a chicken sandwich problematic.

And there's the rub. Coming back, one expects to find everything changed (as stipulated by literature): one's son grown, one's wife cheating on you with a guy whose name is even more absurdly sublime than yours, one's Shire scoured, and the dish towel coupons hopelessly expired. Epic revelations, full of grandeur and melancholy, not fried chicken and frustration.

There's a certain joy, though, in rediscovering one's home country, of being able to see it as the rest of the world does. There's the horror, obviously, of the consumer waste, the violence, the cultural banality and nearsightedness you insisted America did not have when a Japanese co-worker asked for the hundredth time if you could in fact use chopsticks, and the fact that salads are served with bacon in bowls the size of plastic kiddie pools. But there's also the glorious chaos of so many cultures living, working, cooking, and quarreling together, the endless choice, the English language, the vastness of a continental nation, and of course, Chick-Fil-A.

I know now that I can never go back to Chick-Fil-A as I once did. But I will go back, and I will order a chicken sandwich without fear or failure. As God as my witness, I will never go hungry again.