On Being Quiet

Even before the start of elementary I was an odd child that kept his mouth zipped. Maybe it was because I only spoke Japanese in the house back then, or that I did not interact with many people. But during elementary I had a personal rule of thumb of speaking a lot when I was with my classmates but not when I was in front of teachers and adults. Perhaps I was nervous. Perhaps I didn't want them to hear how I spoke, reasons unknown. I was an oddball, I know, I admit. I went to the hospital for putting rocks in my ear and urinated in my underwear dozens of times during the day at school. Usually at this age children would understand the common sense of urinating in toilets but in my case it was not. My teacher would always take care of it and I could not thank her enough.

During the time I was an artist. I drew the Manhattan skyline everyday first thing in the morning when I got to school. The Twin Towers always came first, then the Empire State, the CityCorp, AT and T, and the G.E. building. In fact it even got featured in the school yearbook. Another time, I folded everyday a bunch of plain, white paper in half and stapled them together to make a booklet. I'd then write "books" about the most random, peculiar subjects that even I could not understand today. I remember one was about the children-based animal and wildlife magazine Ranger Rick, and another about the miniature Japanese wind-up toy cars called Choro-Q. Teachers would always question and double-take on my books. And I was really detailed. I remember one of them hysterically laughed at the wit I had when writing the barcode on the back and on top of it, the difference of price in the U.S. and Canada. While others were joyfully spending time with their classmates and playing with toys and puzzles, I was drawing the Manhattan skyline, writing strange books and barcodes. 

My interaction with individuals from childhood was infrequent. Throughout my dozen years of schooling, report cards from teachers put X marks on " needs participation" and comments of the word "quiet". It grew on me so much that I became sick of seeing those words over and over again. I tried to change but it wasn't that easy. It was a flaw that I needed to change, in slow steps. 

The word has become a supplement to me; a personal taboo word that I detest hearing for the life of me. I hear it every time, especially when meeting new people. Every time I hear it, I cannot do anything but admit the fact. They say it because they believe it's the truth, unless they were impulsive individuals who had no regard to people and their distinct qualities and personalities. However in my life I'm doing whatever I can to avoid being called quiet, and when I do get called quiet, it's as if I have failed a mission. When I hear the word it sends me back down to my personal history--from my elementary school days to the current--of quietness. Hearing the word is a signal to a regretful flashback of my quietness.

Even some of my friends used that word every now and then to describe me. This kid is quiet. Even now in college, people have told me that even if I was intimidating, I was still quiet or that they didn't know how my voice sounded because I don't talk or that they didn't know that I could talk when they first met me. They probably are exaggerated, but the tone and the sense of words just made it insulting, even if they didn't mean it.

Sometimes I would always comeback with: "If you think I'm quiet then you don't know me enough." or "So I'm the type of person who doesn't like to talk as much."

And it is true for those close friends I've met in my lifetime. I'm quiet initially, but once they get to know me more they see me as a garrulous and weird person. But sometimes life is not all about talking. It is, of course, since we need to communicate in order to live in this world, but those pauses and silences in between play a huge factor. Like a journalist who deliberately pauses to give time for the interviewee to answer a tough, personal or obscure question, we need silence in order to maintain a natural nuance in conversation.

Because most people see me as a calm person, I almost always got first dibs when I raised my hand during class. They wanted to see this person-who-didn't-talk talk and hear just what this kid had to say. Someone somewhere said that quiet people usually had the loudest minds, or the wisest words and I guess it is true.