In social populations such as bees and ants, if they find outsiders mixed with their own populations, they will work together to kill or expel them. Eliminating dissidents may be a necessary means for the development and growth of groups with social attributes, after all, in the bee colony, if the dissidents are not cleared in time, then the entire bee colony may be subverted. Just as cells in our bodies devour foreign germs and mutated cells, aliens are always unwelcome in order to maintain overall survival. In the animal world or microenvironment, the way to exclude dissidents is simple and direct, but in human society, we cannot treat "aliens" so roughly and directly, but no matter what, once we become "aliens", we will inevitably suffer rejection from the whole world until we assimilate or die.
Just as children will stone the so-called "madmen", just as there are still many people who regard homosexuality as mentally abnormal, people carry out visible and invisible attacks on "aliens" either physically or mentally, in order to complete assimilation or elimination. Because we understand the world's malice towards "aliens", we strive to do our role as ordinary people, and if there is an abnormality, we must desperately cover it up, just like Keiko Furukura.
Keiko Furukura is the protagonist of the novel "Convenience Store on Earth", which won the 155th Wasagawa Prize, Keiko has been a special child since childhood, Keiko cannot understand "normal" emotions and cannot take appropriate actions, so in her opinion, her nephew is no different from other children, so she will slap her classmates on the head with a shovel to stop them from fighting, and Keiko, who is an outlier, grows up in silence until she enters the Smile Convenience Store and becomes a qualified clerk.
As Keiko puts it, "The memory of me before I was "reborn as a convenience store clerk, for some reason, hazy, can't be recalled vividly." Keiko will become a clerk as a reincarnation, after which she says the same thing as others, does the same behavior as others, and everything has an employee handbook as a reference, and Keiko finally becomes a "normal person".
Following the general trend of Japanese novels, Keiko will meet all kinds of people in convenience stores and will eventually be healed by the gentleness of time. But the reason why "Convenience Store on Earth" won the award is because it is a topic that can cause collective contemplation in society, and Keiko's "alien" attributes, as well as the public's rejection of aliens and the standards set for heterogeneity, are the key nodes that can detonate all this.
Keiko imitates the tone and dress of her colleagues, trying to make herself look like others, Keiko thinks that she is well disguised, but in front of another "stranger", she finally realizes the reality that she is still excluded, suspected, and treated as an outlier.
"Alien" Bai Yu, an elderly unemployed unmarried young man, full of fantasies and untimely complaints and complaints. The appearance and disappearance of Hakuba makes Keiko realize that the clerk is like a cell in a convenience store, and useless cells will be removed, just as Hakuba will be fired. And Bai Yu's "Jomon" remarks - "This world is completely different from the Jomon era." People who are useless to the village will be excluded. It's the men who don't hunt, and the women who don't have children. Modern society, individualism, everything, to put it nicely. But in fact, people who do not integrate into the village will be interfered with, forced, and eventually exiled from the village. And his comments that Keiko is also an outlier finally makes Keiko understand that she is also ostracized, interfered with, and seen as an outlier.
We, who are awakened by Shirako, in addition to Keiko and the book, are based on the deep sense of substitution that characterizes first-person writing, and we stand in Keiko's point of view, unaware of the reality that Keiko is regarded as an alien in reality. When we hear the true thoughts of others from Shiraha's mouth, and when we look back at the fragments of the past, we will find that discrimination and exclusion have already occurred, just as Keiko perceives.
In the Japanese described in the novel, if men and women are neither willing to find a formal job, nor marry and have children, and have no reasonable reason, then they will become outliers in the eyes of others. In order to become more "normal", Keiko decided to "live with Shiraha", and people who knew about it congratulated her and spontaneously made up reasonable reasons for Keiko, at the same time, they thought that they had finally pulled Keiko into the "normal" ranks, and their attitude towards Keiko had changed sharply.
The sense of absurdity presented in the novel at this time becomes the best contrast with reality, and being with such an unbearable white feather has become a thing worthy of congratulations, just like the forced marriages we see in reality, parents and relatives do not do this to make you happy, but to make you become like others. At 25 you should consider getting married, by 30 you should have children, if you don't, it will become less "normal", so the outside forces begin to pressure you to return to the "right way", back to the "normal" ranks.
As Keiko understands, the clerk is just a part of the convenience store, and only qualified parts have a meaning of existence, and unqualified parts are replaced. The same is true of human society, we are shaped in the invisible standard system, and then labeled as "qualified", all "unqualified" parts have to be rebuilt, if still stubborn, then exile may be the most "good" means.
But why should we obey all this, even at the cost of killing our own happiness and soul!
I don't want to be outliers to be cleaned up and ruled out
But I also don't want to be stamped with a qualified stamp and waiting to be listed for sale