This Was the Epiphany

I was sitting in the Little Mermaid musical at Tokyo DisneySea, watching Ariel and her fishy friends flip through the air singing "Part of Your World." I had retreated to Disney after two weeks of trying to understand Japanese culture for a research project, and I was, frankly, Japanesed out. I was tired of eating fish for breakfast and remembering to change slippers between the living room and the bathroom and listening to people who weren't just speaking a foreign language but were trying to communicate completely foreign concepts in that foreign language. I was just tired.

Any Disney castle makes me feel like a kid again.

So I went to the most American place I could think of, the place where I might feel most at home for just a day and not think about all things Japanese before I went back into Japanese empathy for one last week. I went to Disneyland and DisneySea.

Where I sat now watching, enraptured by the puppetry and the singing and the sensation that I was on the sea floor with mermaids and fish dancing above me. Completely, utterly transported, until suddenly my research took a dive straight into Ariel's grotto. Our headstrong heroine rebuffed the sea witch, decided that land wasn't so great after all, her family and friends were more important, and lived happily ever after underwater.

Wait, what the **** just happened?

Yet there Ursula was, retreating into the shadows, while Sebastian's band started kicking up the first toe-tapping measures of the "Under the Sea" finale.   Twisting around to see if I was the only person who noticed, I saw everyone had the same expression that I had, 30 seconds before The Little Mermaid got a major makeover. No one noticed that this was a major change to the story. And then it was over.

Clutching my translator unit, I stumbled out of the auditorium. I must have missed something, was the only thing I could think. Disney would never allow this kind of story change. I must have misread the translation.

So I did the only thing I could do, because it would have bugged me forever otherwise - I turned around and walked back into the auditorium for the next showing. Ariel emerged, brushing her hair and dreaming of land. Ursula shows up, offering a chance to live a new life above ground. Nope, no mistranslation there. Ariel is coming to the realization that following her dream would mean leaving everything she knows behind. And she decides to stay. Again.

How very Japanese of her.

Weeks of being in Japan, and I was never able to connect 

this subway sign with anything I'd learned. If anyone knows 

how this makes sense, please tell me!

All week people in Japan have been telling me about insularity, belonging to your group and staying loyal to it above all else. Students didn't do foreign exchange. Being different and risking everything for a dream was not an ideal anyone subscribed to. I had nodded and wrote it down and thought I understood. I just didn't realize how deeply those ideas permeated the society.

That was the epiphany. I realized there that nowhere do cultural differences emerge as strongly as the environment you're most familiar with, transplanted to another country. You read about these cultural differences in guidebooks and research articles. But it's not the same as seeing two versions of the same thing, translated into its own culture.

My name is Ana. I'm 40 years old. (! - when did that happen?) And I really, really want to go to Disneyland. And Disney World. And Disney Sea. And Euro Disney. And even Hong Kong Disney, which all the Disney fans say is only worth half a day of your time at most. But I don't care, because I really, really want to go see how they've all been transformed by their native countries. Barbecue pork bun instead of smoked turkey legs? What do Country Bears sing in Hong Kong? And how will the French handle all the fast food served in theme parks???

This is my new project. I am giving myself a year. I am going to do a world tour of Disney.