A Pesky Question

"Paper or plastic?" seems like such an innocuous phrase, but it drives me to distraction sometimes. Usually because it is asked of me at only one place, at a local upscale supermarket near my home, and is usually mangled to sound something like "Pay-paa oru puraschteek?"

This is because it's almost always uttered by one of a host of middle aged japanese female store clerks with poor English.

It's not the bad pronunciation that bothers me. It's a whole different set of reasons.

First is that the only reason these ladies are pressed into saying these awkward and syllabically memorized phrases is the parade of witless foreigners who often shop at this particular supermarket. I'm sure that in the past each of them has had the experience of asking バッグは紙かビニールどちらになさいますか？(bagu wa kami ka biniru dochira ni nasaimaska?) and been met with a blank stare or the too loud "I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU" or "DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH" or possibly the most perplexing answer to "paper of plastic," "YES".

This kind of foreigner seems to abound around here. I see them in Starbucks (always and only Starbucks) ordering in obnoxiously loud English as if they were in the middle of Toledo and not Yokohama. They rarely venture from their little expat community and seem to have no interest in learning even the slightest bit of Japanese. This is really pitiful to me. I understand that many of them were dragged over here with their spouses work, but like it or not, they're in Japan and it seems incumbent to learn at least a little Japanese. There are people all over the world who would love a chance to learn a new language while being immersed in the country that speaks it. But these people seem to view it as a terrible inconvenience rather than an opportunity.

I'm not saying I expect everyone who comes to Japan to be able to talk politics with the old men in the park, just that by spending a modicum of time learning survival and everyday phrases their and the natives they interact with would have a much more enjoyable time.

I've seen this species of the mono-lingual ugly American in almost every country I've lived in, and the only thing I can think to explain it is our complete lack of second-language education in grade schools. Not only do these foreigners not know how to speak another language, they wouldn't even know how to go about starting to learn it.

So I know this is the background from which the cashier asks me in poor English "paper or plastic?" The last 6 foreigners before me didn't speak a lick of Japanese, so why should I?

But now I'm in a bit of a conundrum. Clearly, I speak English, so the obvious thing is to say "plastic." But this rankles me to no end. For one thing, I want to show the cashiers that not all foreigners are arrogant know-nothings, some of us really want to be here and learn more about the culture and language. Plus, I worked my ass off to learn Japanese and it's lame to not use it with someone who would obviously be more comfortable speaking their own tongue.

So my other option is to answer in Japanese, "ビニールでお願いします." (Bini-ru de onegaishimasu). Then we're into this weird parody conversation where the Japanese person is speaking English and the gai-jin is speaking Japanese. Plus, the lady has gone out of her way to speak to me in English, and I have successfully understood her, so why would I switch to Japanese? Isn't that kind of an asshole thing to do?

I feel like answering in English is supporting a system of coddling foreigners who should learn the language of the country they live in, while answering in Japanese is a slap in the face of the staff who are going out of their way to be helpful.

Sometimes I go with English and sometimes Japanese, but either way I never feel good about my choice.

The nice thing is that this whole situation dissipates when I remember to bring my eco-bag.