Me and My Look Alike

Those of you who grew up on cable re-runs, like I did, might remember the episode of “Get Smart” where Chinese agents are kidnapping blonde girls all over the country. When Maxwell Smart finally confronts them, it turns out they were actually looking for one specific blonde girl but, as the Chinese agent confesses, “We can’t tell you Americans apart.”

I think one reason I remember that stupid throwaway joke so many years later is that it caused me to think a bit. “Hey, that’s plausible. We have trouble telling Chinese people apart. Maybe they have trouble telling us apart.” And then of course the next thought was, “No, that’s ridiculous. They actually do all look the same. They all have the same color hair and the same color eyes. We Americans look very different from each other.”

Well, as anyone who has spent time in Asia can tell testify, the joke actually does go the other way. It seems to a lot of Japanese people all white people must look like each other. Over the time I’ve been hear I’ve been told I look exactly like just about any white celebrity you can think of. Off the top of my head I remember being compared to David Beckham, Kahn (goal keeper for Germany), John Kerry, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, the Beatles, and Harry Potter (on days when I wear my glasses to school). Obviously I don’t look like any of these people. (Well, you all know what I look like. I trust I don’t have to belabor this point.)

And it’s not just me obviously. Every Westerner in Japan is constantly being compared to celebrities. My favorite example was when I was showing pictures from home, and the Board of Education was convinced that my former roommate Rob looked just like Saddam Hussein. Three years of living with the guy and I never realized it.

Now that Monika is gone, there’s a new ALT in the town. And many of the Japanese people are having trouble telling us apart. Just today one of my Japanese co-workers mentioned how he saw me yesterday at the Board of Education. “I wasn’t at the Board of Education yesterday,” I replied. “Was it the other ALT maybe?” Turns out it was.

It’s not the first time I’ve been mistaken for another foreigner in Japan. It seldom happens by people who know me well, but it happens. In this case though my co-workers are strongly convinced that I and this other ALT look exactly alike, and there’s no way any one would be able to tell us apart. It doesn’t help that our names are similar as well. His name is “John”, which to the Japanese ear sounds the same as “Joel”.

“They look alike, they have the same name, and they’re both from America,” said the vice-principal. “How are we supposed to tell them apart?”

Like anyone else, I don’t have a clear idea of how I appear to other people, so I’m not sure how much we look alike or don’t look alike. We are both roughly the same height, have similar builds, and have the same color hair. But for the moment at least our hairstyles are widely different. He has a very short crew cut. I, to be honest, have perhaps gone a bit too long since my last haircut, which was in October. The hair is a bit shaggy now, and can easily cover my eyes when it’s not pushed aside. If nothing else, I would think this would be more than enough for the careful observer to be able to tell us apart. But apparently not.