"You Hide It Well"

One grey Tokyo morning I was sitting in Starbucks near the Tokyo Dome when another white guy came in and ordered his morning brew.  Our eyes sort of met in mutual “expat” recognition and we wound up having a bit of a conversation.  As it turned out, he was a Latin teacher at one of the private schools. I had never considered that someone would be teaching Latin in Tokyo, but this is a big city and it certainly is a possibility.  The other thing is that he sort of looked like a Latin teacher, or at least a college professor;  dressed tweedily with a leather satchel and neat white beard.  As we chatted he inquired as to my occupation.  I told him “I am an orchestra conductor.” He looked at me intently as if to see if I was joking then said, “You hide it well.”

This happens to me all the time.  Last week I was heading down the elevator with a guy from England.  A quick conversation revealed that he was here on business and again, he inquired as to the reason I was here.  I said I was working as well:  “I’m an orchestra conductor.”  Whereupon he leaned towards me with his good ear as if he was trying to translate those last two words and connect then to the person he was looking at. 

Over the years I have tried to figure out why this happens so often.  First of all, this always seems to happen with Americans or those accustomed to American English.  I have wondered if most Americans think that conductors come from Europe and expect some sort of an accent.  Maybe if I said “I am ze conducteur of ze orchestra Tokyo Philharmonique pour Dees-neey’” it might satisfy some deep cultural archetype.  There may also be the idea that conductors are highly refined people who only dress in a certain highly refined manner.  Some guy sitting in the corner at Starbucks drinking black coffee and reading the newspaper in a sweatshirt and jeans and sporting a day-old beard just doesn’t shout “artiste!” the way one might hope for.   Conducting, being solitary by nature, leaves us to speculate about the private lives of those whose work is so public.  The few conductors I know run the gamut from insufferably condescending to almost clown-like in their self-absorption to quite free of any affectation at all.  We in the West have come to view genius as something which excuses almost any form of eccentricity.  What we can’t accept is that a genius might be just like you or me, except with a certain highly-developed ability.  We also like it when our artistic idols have a cool pedigree, like if you are from a town in Scandinavia that has lots of weird vowels in it or went to a college people have heard of, but aren’t sure where. I am from Flint, Michigan.  I went to the public schools and an undistinguished undergraduate college.  My freshman music theory teacher was a missionary on furlough.  My graduate degree isn’t even in conducting.

So what is to be done?  I suppose I could just say “I’m a trombonist” when people ask, which would replace curiosity with pity.  But that would be too easy.  Probably the best strategy is to enunciate “I am an orchestra conductor” clearly and then blandly watch for the reaction.  Real life is, after all, the best theater.  Otherwise, please leave me alone.  I’m trying to drink my coffee.