selected.
“Do you like bread or rice better?” she asked me, deliberately emphasizing each syllable.
“I like them both,” I told her. I had been through this conversation many times as an exchange student with people who had never met or conversed with a non-Japanese person. As a student I had felt obligated to answer the questions I knew would come next. Did I eat bread or rice for breakfast? Did I eat with chopsticks or a fork? What Japanese foods did I hate? I knew the routine so well that I could answer without having to pause to think. I wanted to remind Ms. Kodama that I had lived in Japan for a year, but instead I kept quiet and tried to enjoy my meal like the rest of the group. I cracked open my wooden chopsticks and began to eat.
“Oh, Rora-san, you use chopsticks so well!” she praised me. Then she wished me good luck in eating the fish. Ms. Kodama reminded me of my host mother as an exchange student who would reward even my smallest effort with exaggerated praise. When I had finally learned enough Japanese to write her notes she would return them to me, corrected with red check marks and smiley faces. The continual approval made me feel like a dim child.
Another day two senior members, Ms. Ogiwara and Ms. Shoji, invited me to go out to lunch. They were older than most of the secretaries and were in their late twenties. In the office both of them showed a level of self-confidence and maturity that I would later recognize as common to Japanese women who remained single beyond the traditional marriage deadline of twenty-five. They were both good-humored but decidedly un-silly, another characteristic I found appealing.
They took me to a small noodle shop called Ezokko across the street from headquarters. As at many restaurants in Japan, the main dishes were displayed as plastic replicas in a glass case, so making a selection was simple. Both Ms. Ogiwara and Ms. Shoji immediately put me at ease by not trying to help me order a meal, and just asked me what I was going to have. We ordered, paid at the door, and then edged inside to find three seats together. Small wooden tables packed the narrow shop. Waiters in white aprons yelled orders across the customers’ heads to the cooks wearing white hats behind a long counter.
Everything about Ms. Ogiwara seemed small except her personality. “You can call me Ogi,” she had said when we first met. A wide, cherubic grin lit up her heart-shaped face when she laughed; she giggled heartily, sometimes using her hand to cover her mouth. But when she couldn’t contain her amusement her whole body would react; she would bend over at the waist and swing her thick mane of hair.
Ms. Shoji had a more formal presence. Neat bangs and straight hair sharply framed her strong triangular face. When she smiled she exposed what the Japanese called yaeba, a single cuspid tooth that jutted out slightly in the opposite direction of her other teeth. The minor irregularity was considered appealing, like a beauty mark, and not something to be corrected by the orthodontist. Ms. Shoji was poised and dependable, the kind of person who had probably been a straight-A student since first grade.
Three steaming bowls of noodles arrived at our table.
“One corn ramen, one gyōza ramen, and one pork ramen,” the waiter said, placing the jumbo-sized bowls in front of us. The lip of the bowl was the size of my whole face.
“Would you like some garlic?” Ms. Shoji asked, lifting the lid of a small ceramic dish. The aroma of freshly minced garlic made my mouth water and I added a heaping spoonful to my broth. With garlicky steam covering our faces we dug into the noodles, slurping loudly to let the air cool the hot broth as we ate.
Neither Ms. Ogi nor Ms. Shoji commented on my skill with chopsticks or marveled at my noodle-slurping ability. We talked about work and the directors. I told them that I felt my Japanese was improving already and that I had recently been dreaming about work in Japanese.
“Sometimes I dream about work too,” said Ms. Ogi. “That’s when I know I am working too hard!”
Ms. Shoji nodded in agreement. “When one of my directors shows up in my dream and then I see him the next day at work I want to say, ‘Hey you—I have to see you all day long so stay out of my dreams!’”
We continued to talk about work, which led to something I had been wanting to ask.
“What did you hear about me before I arrived?”
“Mr. Higuchi told us that a young American woman would come to work with us. He didn’t give us many details, but everyone was very curious,” Ms. Shoji said.
“Since we had never worked with someone from America we were all a little nervous,” admitted Ms. Ogi. “Mr. Higuchi said you could speak Japanese but we didn’t know how much. Since we don’t speak English well we were concerned that we wouldn’t be able to communicate.”
“Also, some people thought that maybe you would be a big, pushy American career woman who would take over!” Ms. Shoji said and laughed.
“When we saw you for the first time and you smiled and greeted us in Japanese, we thought ‘She’s so nice, just like an American OL,’” Ms. Ogi said.
“An OL?” I asked. “An office lady.”
I remembered the term from college. Office Lady was the Japanese version of a Kelly Girl—young and semi-educated, lacking specific skills. OLs usually joined a company after graduating from high school, and worked for three to five years before retiring to get married and have children.
For many women in Japan, this stage of life was the high point of financial freedom. Since most women live at home until marriage they have few expenses. Most of an OL’s income is saved for her wedding day, but a regular portion is used for her own enjoyment—expensive restaurants, stylish clothing, and overseas trips.
I looked across the table at Ms. Ogi and Ms. Shoji and noticed their designer leather wallets sitting on the table. They fit the OL description, as did the others in our group—they were all unmarried, most of them lived at home, and they had disposable income to buy nice things like expensive jewelry and designer handbags.
I had imagined myself as something very different. I carried a backpack, my wallet was made of nylon and Velcro, and I had no plans for early retirement. Even though before coming to Japan I’d had very little idea of what kind of work I would be doing, I expected to be more than an OL. But since I had never been hired for a full-time job before, I hadn’t questioned it when Mr. Yoshida was vague about my job.
Asking too many specific questions had seemed unnecessary and even petty. I wanted to act like a professional. I had high expectations of myself, and I thought Mr. Yoshida did too. Why else would he have sent me to work on the assembly line in Ohio for a month and on a two-month tour of the North American offices with a company car and an expense account?
Only a few months earlier I had been asked by the dean of my college to give the commencement speech at graduation. In her introduction to my speech, the dean had proudly told my peers that I had been hired by Honda to study various methods of production in Japan. I’m sure no one in the audience that day, including myself, pictured me with a group of office ladies who wore polyester uniforms and served tea to Japanese executives.
The OLs’ workday began and ended in the same place—the pantry. It was hidden behind a one-way window that looked out onto the tenth floor. It was a place for women only—a place to drink coffee, reapply lipstick, and look at fashion magazines. In the mornings the pantry had a relaxed atmosphere, but once work started, the pantry functioned like a factory, with workers assembling teacups and saucers, washing utensils, and generating refreshments.
The rectangular pantry was the size of a suburban American
