Topsy Turvy

I am more famous than Brad Pitt.

I`m not more famous than Michael Jackson or David Beckham, but I`m much more famous than Cameron Diaz, Anne Hathaway, Leo DiCaprio and Lady Gaga. I`m less famous than the old version of Madonna, but the new version with the big muscles and the plastic face? I`m more famous than her. I`m less famous than Hermione Granger, but I`m more famous than the actress that plays her and I`m much more famous than the woman who created her in the first place. I haven`t got a hope against the cast of High School Musical - whoever they are - or Johnny Depp, but anyone from Friends or The Simpsons can lick my boots.

I`ve come to this conclusion after thorough and intensive research: consisting, largely, of holding up photos to 200 children of the 6-11 year old age group and asking "who is this?" 3 points if they can give me their name, 2 points if they can tell me what they do for a living, and 1 point if they can tell me where they recognise them from.

Thanks to embarrassing advertising campaigns that have been kept a secret from the Western world via heavy law suits (I may get sued for this, in fact), the results are as follows:

Leonardo DiCaprio: 1 point for "the man who sells tyres."
Brad Pitt: 1 point for "the phone man."
Cameron Diaz: 1 point for "the phone girl."
Tommy Lee Jones: "man who drinks coffee" - 1 point.
Tom Cruise: no points (one kid started singing the Mission Impossible theme tune, but he was an abnormally Westernised child so I decided he didn`t count).
Michael Jackson: 5 points, including a few snippets of Thriller thrown in for good measure.
Harry Potter: 4,000 points for actions, quotes and energy spent jumping up and down high-fiving each other.
Johnny Depp: 30 points for knowing who he is, where he`s from and every single film he has ever been in.
JK Rowling: no points.
Lady Gaga: identified as "Madonna": no actual points, but about 11 hypothetical points for clarity of observation.
Madonna: no points until about 2 inches away and squinting.
David Cameron: no points (but I strongly suspect he`d get the same mark in England as well, and not just from children).
Tony Blair: no points.
David Beckham: 2 points, because all the boys knew who he was and none of the girls did.
Gwen Stefani: ditto, except the other way round.
The Queen of England, without her crown on: no points.
The Queen of England, with her crown on: 2 points for knowing her job title but no idea what her name might be.

I, on the other hand, am doing quite well. They all knew who I was and what I do for a living (which is more than I know, incidentally), plus they`re pretty sure where they recognise me from (the staffroom, looking at Google). I`ve signed autographs, I get high fived when I walk past in the corridor, and they can all tell you what tattoo I have and precisely where it is. Children play Rock Scissors Paper with great vigour to see who can sit next to me at lunchtime, and without fail every single one of them knows that I hate egg and love strawberries and cheese.

It even extends beyond the children I`m employed to teach. Last weekend, a man sitting next to me in a bar - a man I`ve never met before - told me he`d seen me "three times, now: once in the supermarket and once in the 100yen shop." Small children gape at me in shops with their mouths wide open. Old men do the same. Yesterday, two fully grown men stalked me around a shop for 35 minutes with absolutely nothing in their shopping baskets. This morning a cluster of 15 school girls I have never seen before and certainly don`t teach giggled insanely when I stopped at the lights next to them, and spent three minutes waving and squealing loudly every time I waved back.

In short: in Nichinan, they know who they am. And they couldn`t pick Brad Pitt out of a line up.

It`s topsy turvy, living in rural Japan: the whole world as a Westerner knows it turns upside down. Tans are ugly, and the quest for paleness is paramount; sunshine is annoying, and cold weather is something to look forward to. Standing out is less preferable to blending in; school children are polite and grateful, food tastes of something and clothes are created to hide the body, rather than expose as much of it as possible. Opinions and preferences are deemed vulgar; manners are rife; women are seen as being less attractive for having strong characters, and not more so (this is international, secretly, but in the West we still pretend otherwise because it defines us as modern). Travelling within Japan is seen as strange; travelling outside of Japan is seen as absolutely bonkers.

For a Brit, living in Japan is like falling down a rabbit hole and coming out the other side to find everything inside out and upside down. To a world where what we know means nothing and what we don`t understand means everything.

One day, however, one of two things will happen: I will either climb desperately back out of the rabbit hole - seeking normality - or this world will straighten up for me, the one I used to know will turn upside down, and the concept of what is normal and what is not will change completely. And - when that inevitably happens - it will be time for me to head to another kind of Wonderland. One that does or does not know Brad Pitt. One that does or does not see me as anything out of the ordinary. One that does or does not know that I hate egg, or love strawberries.

It really doesn`t matter to me what that new world is. As long as it is one that can turn me upside down all over again.