Period Talk
(sorry, guys)

I lied yesterday, and I'm not proud of it.

Today, you see,  I should be at a small island off the western coast, with 30 children and a handful of adults. The taekwondo annual summer camp. Surf, beach, fun. Last week a couple of the girls in my class urged me to come, and in a moment of weakness, I agreed. Forked over the 100,000 won (about USD$85). And then more or less immediately started regretting my decision.

I was on the fence about going until yesterday evening, when I had a short chat with my recently married uber-religious coworker Myung-soo, who pointed out: you hate kids, you don't really know anyone who's going well, and your relative is having a birthday? I think you better not go.

And just like that, I was decided. Hey, can you make all my decisions for me?

(She did, by the way, agree that I should not go visit KB.)

So I went to taekwondo class, and found the office in disarray with food, drinks, inner tubes, etc. And couldn't say the words.

So I waited til the end of class, and quietly said to the director: "I'm sorry, but I can't go."

"WHY?" (not shouting, just the usual loud voice)

"Um, something came up?"

"IF SOMETHING'S GOING TO COME UP, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER FOR IT TO HAVE COME UP YESTERDAY OR THE DAY BEFORE."

"Yes, sir." 

"SO, WHAT CAME UP?"

"Um, just... something."

"WELL, WE'LL SEE ABOUT GETTING A REFUND FOR YOU."

"Oh, no, that's okay, you don't have to -- refund, uh, it's not necessary to repay me."

"NO, NO, WE'LL FIGURE IT OUT."

"Thank you, sir. Sorry."

A bit later, one of the women in the class was giving me a ride to the metro station, and she asked me cautiously, "So, what came up?"

"Oh," I said hesitantly, not wanting to say "I realized I hate kids, don't really know anyone who's going and have a relative's birthday to attend." Then it came to me: "Well, I, uh, got my period." (Which I didn't.) "And I, uh, didn't know how to explain it to the director..."

She was already laughing. "Oh, I know.  I sometimes miss a week or two of class because of my period, and he'll joke, 'Where were you, studying abroad or something?' He can't possibly imagine a reason like that. I usually just say that I'm not feeling well or something."

"Oh!" I said, "that's a good one! I'll have to use that next time."

So it came to be that I used the time-honored excuse of junior high schoolers during gym class to get out of going to a summer camp.

Which I feel sort of ashamed about, since in the States, using your period as an excuse is, well, really junior high. But it seems less immature here -- just last weekend my coworker used that as an excuse to not go to the mud festival... although now that I think about it, she may have just not wanted to go either. In Japan, women are allowed "menstruation holidays" once a month, though few women use them, out of embarrassment and a desire to appear equal to men.

I'm of two minds about the whole thing. It doesn't seem very equal to have a gender-based day off. On the other hand, there's no denying that for certain women, getting your period can be extremely painful, discombobulating and uncomfortable. I don't know any woman who'd say that they liked having their period -- unless it's to confirm that they're not pregnant. (And there was that Sex and the City episode where Samantha rejoiced over hers because she thought she'd hit menopause.) It seems unrealistic to try to gloss over the fact that women get these hugely inconvenient events every month, or that those events can really put you out of commission emotionally and physically. But I do hate it when people dismiss a woman's anger or irritation as a symptom of menstruation.

Either way, I didn't help things very much by using the period excuse last night.