The Difference Between Me, a Mentally Handicapped Adult and a Baby

The next time you go into a restaurant and order something to eat, I want you to take a good long look at any toddlers or young children that may be in the building. What are they doing while their parents order? Are they looking up at the ceiling or focusing on the exchange happening between their parent and the restaurant staff? When it's your turn to order something, listen to the words that come out of your mouth. Did you order some complicated French dish or perhaps the "Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity" (Don't act like you don't know what that is!)

So while you're doing all of this observing, I want you to imagine what it would be like if you couldn't read, write, or understand what anyone around you was saying. Imagine that whenever you went somewhere to fill out important paperwork, you had to rely on someone to negotiate everything for you and then explain in the simplest English terms possible what it is that's happening. Imagine walking into an eating establishment alone and watching people smile at you out of pity as the restaurant staff show you menus with big colorful pictures and the only thing you can do is point and grunt. If you can imagine what that feels like, you would know what it's like to be a mentally handicapped adult, a toddler or . . . me, in Japan. You may think I'm being a little harsh, but honestly, I'm not. When you get down to it, I can't read, I can't write, I can barely speak and to put it bluntly, I'm not considered to be the smartest crayon in the box out here in Japan . . . wait, I think I said that wrong.

Me and a Baby

So me and a baby have a lot in common. When we walk into a room, people smile at us. It's not expected for us to know how to speak or read and we always live up to that expectation. The main difference between me and a baby is that a baby understands what's going on around them a lot better than I do. They understand the language, but just don't have the motor skills to be able to repeat it in the sophisticated way that an adult can. If I had the brain of one of these Japanese toddlers walking around (first of all . . . does that statement alone give you a glimpse into the twisted mind that I have?) but yeah, if I had the brain of one of these Japanese toddlers, I would probably be navigating my way through this country a whole lot easier. I just wouldn't be able to read.

Me and a Mentally Handicapped Adult

So this category is a little muddled, because there are different levels of mental illness. While I could compare myself to someone with an extreme mental handicap, maybe like Sean Penn's character in I Am Sam, I'd rather go the route of the Idiot Savant like Dustin Hoffman's Rain Man or Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump. I bring up the latter characters because - for the most part - they walked around looking like your average "special" person but it's revealed gradually throughout the movies that they had an advantage, a kind of genius uncommon to the so-called "normal" people around them. In my case, my genius would be my sudden ability to speak English fluently and with "general American dialect." Honest to goodness, these people are very impressed by that. And that is the ONLY thing that lets them know that beneath all of my idiot-ness there lies a savant. . . a genius if you will. (And oh! . . . I will.)

Just one of those little things floating around in my brain from time to time.

:-)