When my father was in his 20s, he drove through the mountain roads on a winter night.
Then, he saw an old man and woman walking in pajamas holding hands. As they walked by, my father couldn’t see their faces because they were facing backwards.
“What an adorable relationship!”, first he thought, but after thinking about it he felt odd.
In the first place, noone will walk through a cold dark mountain road in pajamas, without anything.Not even a lamp.
Suspicion quickly turned into fear.
When his car passed beside the couple, he was too afraid to look at them. His instinct told him something bad will happen if he see their faces.
He drove away, at highest speed, from the mountain road, without looking back.
What would’ve happened if he saw their faces…?
That must have been hallucination. Maybe your father should go to hospital.
My high school friend (I call her A in this article) said so when I finished telling the story above. It was one of the nights of the school trip.
Hey that’s rude!
But I really don’t believe in the idea of ghosts.
It is YOU who asked me to tell you horror story.
I thought you would tell me stories about cruel murderer or something like that. Humans are the scariest.
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I sighed and recalled the memory of the conversation above.
In front of me A stood, dressed beautifully for high school reunion. Right after ordinary greetings, she suddenly said:
I heard your spouse is female. Maybe you should go abroad as Japanese people would not accept LGBT+ people.
…We have lived in Japan and that wouldn’t change.
That is the end of our conversation. During the short conversation, she never looked at my face.
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And from then, whenever I watch horror movie, I recall her.
For her, I think, same-sex couple is as unbelievable as ghosts.
Therefore, she denied my existence by advising me to go abroad, just like she denied ghosts by advising my father to go to see a doctor.
But, did she realize the fact that denying someone’s existence deeply hurt their feelings?
I know there are lots of people who treat others who have different appearances or thoughts like ghosts.
I know these kinds of people never think about the fact such behavior hurts their feelings.
That’s why I wanted her, my old friend, to admit my existence.
…I wonder whether she looks at my face next time we meet.
The answer lies in the future, vaguely and faintly like ghosts.
コメント / COMMENT
What a great comparison! I’m happy I found this article.
LGBT people are treated as scary or nonexistent also like ghosts. It’s dehumanizing for your existence to be disregarded.
Even if you don’t have any experience being LGBT or seeing a ghost, it’s not “rational” to make fun of others; if ghosts and gay people have been recorded for centuries, don’t you think it’s more irrational to argue against their existence?
I really think Japan will accept gay people. Once gay marriage is legalized, it will become just another part of life. I live in America, and as a child I never heard about LGBT people or thought gay marriage was possible. But, ever since gay marriage was legalized in 2016, US society has really embraced it. There are still bigoted people, of course, but as much as straight people feared, heterosexual society has yet to implode (lol).
No matter how conservative or anti-gay some Japanese people are, exposure and social acceptance will change many of their minds. I believe humans are naturally good, but we fear what we don’t know. I wonder what Chihiro’s high school friend would do if any of her siblings came out? What if their child was gay? They can think gayness isn’t Japanese, but if they’re forced to see that gayness is normal in humankind, they’ll have to come to face that uncomfortable truth.
Thank you so much for reading the article!
And thank you so much for your warm encouragement.
Yes, I really hope so.
If gay-marriage is legalized, I will marry Candice again 🙂
May the future of Japan be a lot more diverse!!