I’d never seen a bus like it before. A retractable microphone hung from a track that ran the length of the ceiling. I didn’t notice it until the foreign student director pulled it to her mouth, saying, “Let’s sing songs.” I was on an excursion for foreign graduate students and their advisors at a Japanese university.

I’d been warned back in the states about the Japanese propensity for song. Japan is the birthplace of karaoke, singing to a voiceless soundtrack. You’ve got to sing no matter how bad you sound.

No matter how bad? I remember when my high school music teacher asked each of us to sing a few lines, so he could decide who should audition for chorus.

“I don’t know if I’m good enough for chorus,” said the girl behind me. She sang bell-like tones.

“Try out,” boomed the teacher. “You’re good.”

Then came my turn. I sang softly, hoping to minimize my humiliation.

“Louder, please,” said the teacher.

I complied, looking down at “Lynn loves Billy” inked into my desktop. I wished that I could disappear into the wood grain.

“Cathy, you’re next.” My ordeal was over. I wasn’t a chorus contender.

Most of the other nerdy girls like me joined the chorus, which rehearsed during the first lunch period, leaving me friendless in the cafeteria.

Many years later, the year before I moved to Japan, I confided in Melanie, my folk-singing friend. She made me her pet project. “Sing along,” she’d say as she strummed her guitar in the second floor walk-up we shared with two other students. For months, I listened silently. Eventually, my reserve broke down enough to chime in on “if I had a hammer,” that great folk classic, or “Charlie on the MTA,” a local song popularized by the Kingston Trio. Only at the end of the school year did I croak through a song or two as a soloist. And that happened only when no one besides Melanie was in the apartment.

I couldn’t visualize myself performing in Japan. As the quietest gaijin (foreigner) ever to hit my Tokyo University’s graduate history seminar, I rarely spoke in class. Even after six years of Japanese language classes, I struggled to understand native speakers’ ordinary speech, let alone their analyses of historical documents. And I lived in horror of making a mistake in my use of the complex language that has different levels of formality and politeness, which are two different things.

But underneath my silence, I yearned to connect with my Japanese classmates. So I felt jealous when Roger joined us and immediately outtalked me. He didn’t know any more about history than me, so he didn’t say much during class either. But he talked up a storm as soon as class ended, gabbing about little bits of nothing.

Technically speaking, I could have put into words just about anything that Roger said. However, emotionally I was frozen. I couldn’t take risks. I was my own worst enemy and I knew it. I couldn’t unlock my reserve.

So when the foreign student advisor rolled the mic to Roger’s seat, saying “Roger, how about a song?” I felt resigned. Roger would outperform me once again.

“No, no. I can’t sing,” Could I believe my ears? Was Roger demurring?

The crazy thought crossed my mind. For once, I could beat Roger at his game. No matter that the competition existed solely in my mind and was purely a matter of my shyness. If only I could sing.

I listened as students sounded out tunes in Japanese and English, most of the latter were local favorites such as Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” Could I do it? Could I sing a song? My pulse raced. I wish I could say I waved the mic over to make Melanie proud of me, to reward her patience in coaxing me, but I did it to show up Roger.

I put a historical spin on my choice, to try to please my professor. “This is a song of American election reform,” I said, proud that I knew the term senkyo shukusei for election reform because it was an important theme in my research. Then I launched into “Charlie on the MTA.” Not just one verse, but all three. I wanted to suck in the limelight as long as possible. It sure felt good.

“But will he ever return? No, he never returned,” went the chorus. I wish I could say that song changed my life. That was the extent of my Japanese singing career. My one and only public song.
——

I welcome any suggestions on how to improve this essay. What’s missing? What needs more (or less) explanation? What should I delete?