Yesterday I visited an enormous primary school, and in total taught around 150 under-7s.

 It was easily one of the best days on record, and I received more affection on one day than I have in my entire time here. I felt almost fraudulent as these kids hung on my every word, despite understanding nothing, playing every game and singing every song with full gusto and trying as much English as they could as often as they could.

 It bordered on the bizarre when, on the way to the playground after lunch, I realised that I, a big old gaijin, was actually being moved by the 30 or so 5-year olds who were fighting to prize my fingers off of my their friends’ so that they could have a turn. And once they latched on, they weren’t going anywhere.

I went to say goodbye as they all trooped off home, and one tiny little person refused to leave, her hand clutching mine and her telling me allsorts of something very intently, and when she finally did let go, she insisted on waving her way down the road until I made the first move and went indoors. All I really caught of her ramble was ‘Lucy-sensei, England’s very far away isn’t it?’

A few days ago I had a couple of hours to spare at work and was at a bit of a loose end, so I ended up writing a semi-fictitious and rather romantacized piece of prose in adoration of my good friend Becca. To write about her in this way wasn’t so much a conscious decision, she just entered my thoughts in this light and it felt necessary to put it into words. Let’s just say it needs some fine tuning, and I have been reading Marianne Keyes recently, so it’ll not be published in this here post.

I’ve had this sort of inclination with a number of my female friends recently. The obvious reason would be the rose-tinted lens that goes with the distance between us, of course, but it’s also happened with my friends in closer proximity.  Louise is destined for romance with a takoyaki boy soon (despite her panics over text messages secretly sent through our friend and translator, Wakako), and I’m dying to make a rom-com out of it. I have Japanese friends, too, whose existences are forming very fluffy little narratives in my head which may signify, surprised as I am to admit it, that I’m succumbing to the Japanese ‘cute’ obsession.  I think it all began when I started watching Sakura, a sugary anime series who’s namesake has a beautiful and eccentric best friend who is constantly filming Sakura through all her supernatural pre-pubescent adventures in complete awe of her loveliness.

 Thus occupying this slightly saccharin but completely genuine (and not unpleasant) headspace, then, my revulsion at a conversation I had last night is not so very surprising; although once it’s been recounted I would be interested to see if any of you reading this who are familiar with Japan would agree with the man in question.

I went to an Irish bar run by an American which served Mexican food, not far from my house, with a teacher from one of my schools. Having been decidedly unsure (is that an oxymoron?) about the owner on the previous occasions I had met him, this bar which shall remain nameless would not have been my first choice for food in Hikari, but my colleague and companion had never been before and fancied giving it a go (plus it was local meaning we could both get a few beers down us).

My sempai asked me during our meal, ‘what kind of behaviour have you found strange or funny since you came to Japan?’ Shortly after I answered this question, the owner came and sat with us for what turned out to be a more-than-is-customary-in-any-country amount of time for a chat. Making talk with him, I asked him the same question that my sempai had asked me, expecting him to say something about sniffing or slurping or somesuch. Instead, he launched into a spiel about how Japanese people don’t make friends, owing to the strict hierarchy of social relations which dictates that in any relationship one individual will occupy and inferior position while the other is superior. At first his words had a toungue-in-cheek tone, but as he went on at length I realised, to my horror, that he wasn’t joking. Japanese people, he said, could be friends with foreigners, but with a few exceptions are incapable of forming genuine friendships between themselves.

 This offended me deeply, and I was embarrassed to be sat next to another foreigner who spoke this way. Of course my sempai laughed it off, being Japanese, and I did the same, being British. The difference was that when we left the bar I exploded while she omitted to comment and merely told me she’d had a fun evening.

I don’t doubt that the vast majority of relationships in Japan do function on a junior/senior basis, but to claim that this precludes genuine friendship I find a little gross. It’s true enough that I’ve had little chance to talk openly with anyone Japanese about this. My teacher half-agreed with the owner of the bar, but said that true friendships do form between classmates.

One thing that came into stark focus when I arrived in Japan was how we in the West exist in a culture of reciprocity which differs from that of Japan. At first it unsettled me, and even now I make mistakes at the most basic level. For example, I try and learn as much Japanese from what I hear around me, but if I echo the words of my seniors in the staffroom, I am not showing due respect. Seniors, when speaking to juniors, use an entirely different lexicon, and vice versa.

The use of such language may indeed reaffirm power relationships which mean that two individuals are never truly ‘equal’. Yet this should not prevent such individuals finding affiliation with one another and eventually coming to care for each other as friends. The differing codes of behaviour do not automatically dictate that seniors will abuse their power and behave unfairly towards juniors. While I’m sure this does happen, I have not born witness to it yet, and I certainly have born witness to such abuses in the UK. And I have been privileged enough to spend time with Japanese people whose friendships with each other are visible and real.

It’s sad that a post which began fluffy and nice turned into a rant, and yet last night’s encounter has in a strange way made me love Japan all the more, not least owing to the dignity with which my teacher received such tactless and ill-informed statements.

No-one should have the genuity of their friendships called into question, whatever culture they’re in. And while my headspace may be full of cotton wool and soft-focus, I’d much rather have it that way than to be as depressed as this bar-owner must be at the sight of a world devoid of friendship.

Whether our schoolmates, our colleagues, our bus-buddies, our drinking pals or our bosses, wherever they’re from - long live chums!