Bullying

"Why are they bullying her?" Tengo asked.

"She often has asthma attacks, so she can't participate in lots of activities with the other kids. Maybe, that's it. She's a sweet little thing, and her grades aren't bad."

"I don't get it," Tengo said. "You'd think they'd take special care of kid with asthma, not bully her."

"It's never that simple in the kids' world," she said with a sigh. "Kids get shut out just for being different from everyone else. The same kind of thing goes on in the grown-up world, but it's much more direct in the children's world."

"Can you give me a concrete example?"

She gave him several examples, none of which was especially bad in itself, but which, continued on daily basis, could have a severe impact on a child: hiding things, not speaking to child, or doing nasty imitations of her. "Did you ever experience bullying when you were a child?"

Tengo thought back to his childhood. "I don't think so," he answered. "Or maybe I just never noticed."

"If you have never noticed, it never happened. I mean, the whole point of bullying is to make the person notice it's being done to him or her. You can't have bullying without the victim noticing."

Even as child, Tengo had been big and strong, and people treated him with respect, which was probably why he was never bullied. But he had far more serious problems than mere bullying to deal with back then.

"Were you ever bullied?" Tengo asked.

"Never," she declared, but then she seemed to hesitate. "I did do some bullying, though."

"You were part of a group that did it?"

"Yes, in the fifth grade. We got together and decided not to talk to one boy. I can't remember why. There must have been a reason, but it probably wasn't a very good one if I can't remember what it was. I still feel bad about it, though. I am ashamed to think about it. I wonder why I went and did something like that. I have no idea what made do it."

This reminded Tengo of a certain event, something from the distant past that he would recall now and then. Something he could never forget. But, he decided not to mention it. It would have been a long story. And it was the kind of thing that loses the most important nuances when reduced to words. He had never told anyone about it, and it he probably never would.

"Finally," his girlfriend said, "everybody feels safe belonging not to the excluded minority but to the excluding majority. You think, Oh, I am glad that's not me. It's basically the same in all periods in all societies. If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things."

"And those troubling things are all you can think about when you are one of the few."

"That's about the size of it," she said mournfully. "But maybe, if you are in a situation like that, you learn to think yourself."

"Yes, but may be what you end up thinking for yourself about is all those troubling things."

"That's another problem, I suppose."

"Better not think about it too seriously," Tengo said. "I doubt it'll turn out to be that terrible. I'm sure there must be a few kids in her class who know how to use their brains."

"I guess so," she said, and then she spent some time alone with her thoughts. Holding the receiver against his ear, Tengo waited patiently for her to gather her thoughts together.

"Thanks," she said finally. "I feel a little better after talking to you." She seemed to have found some answers.

-----
From 1Q84, H. Murakami

Have you ever bullied?

Being Calm

Reading books.

A Window

"The answer is beyond me. Even now, I have no idea. There are lots of things we never understand, no matter how many years we put on, no matter how much experience we accumulate. All I can do is look up from the train at the windows in the buildings that might be hers. Every one of them could be her window, it sometimes seems to me, and at other times I think that none of them could be hers. There are simply too many of them."

A Window, Elephant Vanishes, H. Marukami