“We readily go to the health club when our doctor suggests we need more exercise, but
we regularly neglect the 'mental health club' that our well-being more truly requires.”
I have just woken from a terrible nightmare about a man I met in Japan in the early 2000s.
I was living over there working as an English teacher and to help improve my Japanese, I
would have these so-called language exchanges.
That is, I would meet a Japanese person in a cafe or bar and converse with them for one
hour in Japanese, and then one hour in English.
It was a good way to meet friends and practise the language.
Anyway, one day I met this middle-school English teacher.
For the life of me, I can’t remember his name.
I suppose he was in his late twenties (I was in my early twenties at the time).
He seemed like a nice enough guy.
The first time we met, we went to a cafe near my work.
We started speaking Japanese and then about a minute later, he called out a colour in
Japanese.
“Red!”.
He then went and touched a red flower that was standing on another table.
I thought I better join in and I touched a red magazine cover.
Anyway, we continued on with the language exchange without really mentioning what had
just happened.
About 10 minutes later, he called out “Blue!”.
Again he touched something that was blue, I did the same.
He looked at me and smiled.
Him being a language teacher and all, I just thought it must have been some kind of technique
to get me thinking in Japanese.
15 minutes went by and he called out “Yellow!”.
Again, both he and I touched something yellow.
But this time I started to think, perhaps I’m on a TV show — the Japanese version of
Candid Camera.
So I started looking around for people filming me.
Nobody to be seen.
So I ended up just asking him, “Why do you keep shouting out colours?”.
He just told me that it was just a game and he left it at that.
A couple hours went past and he continued shouting out colours every 10 to 15 minutes.
After about the fifth time, I gave up touching colours.
I felt like something was not quite right.
He kept smiling at me though, and seemed quite happy with the language exchange.
Before we parted ways, he asked me a strange question.
He asked me what colour do I think Japanese people are.
I found it a bit of an odd question, but I suppose it was no more odd than the last two
hours I had just experienced.
I told him that I didn’t really know and that it probably depends on the individual.
But he pushed me for an answer, admittedly in a fairly light-hearted way.
I said, “Well, if I have to go with a colour, most of the Japanese ladies I work with have
fairly pale skin, so I’ll say ‘white’”.
He told me that that’s not the right answer and that actually Japanese people are orange.
I kind of looked at him with a bit of a confused grin and he just laughed and said goodbye.
He told me he’d contact me again next week to arrange another session.
As he was walking away, I then realised that he hadn’t shouted out the colour orange
throughout the entire session.
He shouted out every other colour, but not orange.
I didn’t think too much of it though.
Anyway, we had another session a week later and the same thing happened.
Him shouting out random colours every 10 to 15 minutes.
I realised it must be some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but I convinced myself that it wasn’t
hurting anybody, so I wasn’t too worried.
But then, a couple of weeks later, he invited me to a bar with him and his wife.
She was a petite little thing who couldn’t be more than about 5-foot tall and perhaps
40kg in weight, if that.
We had a few drinks and he kept shouting out colours in his usual manner.
Because we both drinking, we found it a lot funnier than when we were sober and were both
laughing every time he shouted out a colour.
His wife though, didn’t seem too amused.
I guess she’s had to put with it for a number of years and had certainly grown sick of it
by now.
Although every time I looked at her, she managed to force a smile.
But then, just as we were about to leave, he shouted out orange.
I remember thinking back to the language exchange where he told me that he thought Japanese
people were orange.
He looked straight at me with a sense of fear in his eyes.
He stood up, turned to his wife and slapped her straight across the face.
She fell to the floor like a snowflake falling from the sky (well at least, that’s how
I remember it).
He ran out of the bar crying.
I helped pick his wife up off the floor.
Everyone in the bar was in shock looking around wondering what the hell had just happened.
The wife quickly thanked me, but ran out of the bar crying as well.
That was the last time I ever saw them.
He never returned any of my messages.
And that was the nightmare I just woke up from.
The same scene playing over in my head.
I haven’t thought about it in years, but suddenly it’s back in my mind again.
Hence, this video.
I guess this is just a form of therapy for me, because for some reason, that man shouting
out orange absolutely terrifies me to this day.
And that’s it.
That’s the strangest mental health disorder that I’ve ever witnessed.
Thanks for watching.