Sexist Language

My ears are open wide every time I am in the teachers' room at school. I listen constantly, hoping to absorb Japanese in any way possible. The English teacher next to whom I sit frequently said "よし," or "yoshi" (but it is drawn out, and sounds like "yoshhh") before he would go to class. I thought about what it meant, and eventually realised that it was used as a way to mentally prepare yourself for something. I grew to love the word, especially because it is one for which we don't really have a translation in English. So, of course, I adopted it into my vocabulary. I began to say it before class and before anything that I was nervous about doing. 

Saying よし became as much of a habit as breathing. I used it when I was alone. I used it in public. Yoshi! Just thinking the word made me feel so much more prepared for the task before me. 

YOSHI!

Then, today, my spirits sank.

On Sunday mornings, I teach a class in Konosu. The students are Japanese men aged 60 and over, and teaching them is extremely fun for me. Their English is already at fluency level, and they love listening to my grammar rants (people generally hate when I correct their grammar, but not these guys). They also enjoy answering my questions about Japanese.

So, today I decided to ask them about "yoshi." They stared at me wide-eyed and didn't hesitate whatsoever to inform me that ladies NEVER say "yoshi," and that it is something ONLY men can say. I felt panic come over my face, perhaps a bit extreme of a reaction. But, but....よしwas something I came to love! I couldn't fathom the idea of parting with such a wonderful word! I begged them, irrationally, asking if there was any way I could use it. Perhaps my status as a foreigner meant it was okay and I could get away with it? Please?? They simply shook their heads. They told me I had to let go of よし. I had to move on. But, I simply can't grasp that idea. I just can't let go of my beloved よし. 

Why must Japanese be so sexist? As I spoke a slew of other colloquial phrases I had picked up in the teachers' room, they informed me that 85% of them were not acceptable for females to speak. I felt so unbearably crushed. I just can't accept that. 

So...regardless, I say よし! Perhaps not in front of them, however...

In My Own Defense

Man, people just love attacking me, or at least judging me, in comments lately. It is for this reason that I am considering ending my blogging endeavors on this site entirely. Actually though, many people online and in person have judged me on the following issue: the fact that I do not speak Japanese.

Let me just point out that I speak Spanish fluently, a bit of French and some Portuguese. I have studied Russian as well. So, by no means am I unilingual. I will also point out that prior to arriving in Japan TWO MONTHS AGO I studied no Japanese whatsoever. Already at this point, after studying on my own, I can ask basic questions, understand some answers, count, and read two of the three alphabets. I think that is pretty impressive, and I don't care if I am tooting my own horn.

Yet, people STILL say to me all the time: "you need to learn more Japanese," and ask me "why isn't your Japanese better?" or "why don't you study Japanese?" I'm WORKING ON IT, people! I have books, I have Rosetta Stone which I study often, and I always talk to Japanese people to try and improve.

Language learning doesn't happen overnight, I'm sorry to inform all you Captain Judgements out there. If you know of some method to make me magically fluent in Japanese overnight, please tell me about it. Otherwise, get off my back. I'm not taking any more of this crappy criticism. That is all. 

The Little Things Count

At first I thought it was strange how people here keep speaking at me in Japanese and expecting me to understand if they just say the same things over and over. Then I realized that I do the exact same thing in English. The other day, I was showing my pictures from my Kyoto trip to one of the teachers and I noticed that I kept rambling on and on in English and he just stared blankly, but I just continued explaining things because it just felt natural to me. 

WHAT ARE YOU SAYING??

Another thing that Japanese people often do when they are trying to get me to understand is they use gestures that perhaps make sense in their minds, but in reality don't help at all. I do the exact same thing. I was trying to explain that a picture was the view out of a window in my friend's apartment building, and I just did a broad movement with my hand while I said "view" and it probably meant absolutely nothing to the teacher with whom I was speaking. 

This steel-enforced language barrier in place has taught me that every little gesture matters. I can’t speak Japanese or English with some of the teachers, but that doesn't mean we can’t communicate. One teacher said “Merci” to me after I gave him a candy, and I responded “de rien,” and his face instantly lit up when I spoke the proper French response. Now, that is our method of communication. When he speaks a word of French, I respond in kind. It doesn't seem like much of an interaction, but to me it is.

I also learned some very basic Japanese to use with the teachers and students, and that alone has done wonders to bolster our relationships. I ask the kids the simple question “what movies do you like?” and their faces light up like a baseball stadium after dark. I got sick of the awkward silences in the copy room simply because of an inability to speak to coworkers so I learned to ask how they are and how their weekend was. Simple things like that makes them so cheerful, which in turn makes me cheerful.

And, at least in Japan, sometimes all it takes is a nod. 

Dead Elephants at a Speech Contest

Yesterday, after hours slaving away practicing and practicing, it was show time. The speech contest had begun. I gave my student, with whom I had spent so much free time preparing for the big day, as best of a pep talk as I could muster. I told her to pretend that the rest of the audience was not there, and that she was just speaking to me. She was ready. I was probably more nervous than she was. 

I'll spare you from hearing about the extreme amount of blah, blah, blah welcoming remarks from teachers and big wigs in the education system here. Let's fast-forward, shall we? The first student in the contest approached the microphone and as she began to speak, I instantly knew I need not worry, since her gestures were beyond over the top. Sorry, dear, but no one in the English-speaking world does an interpretive dance to accompany their speech. I became more and more relaxed as the speakers presented, some of the poor kids forgetting lines here and there and others making the same mistake of accompanying their dialogue with spazzy, unnatural gestures. 

Then, my face grew cold and I broke into a sweat. My student was about to present the speech which I had spent so much time editing. It was show time. I froze to the spot, rooted in suspense as she spoke each line, unable to relax until the last word of her perfectly-memorized speech left her mouth. 

I Beamed as She walked Offstage, Knowing That She Blew the Other Contestants out of the Water.  Relief WAS My short-lived, However, WHEN the Next contestant Began to Speak with Hardly any accent About an Extremely personal and Emotional topic. Uh-oh . The last student also had me worried, as the content of his speech was extremely pertinent and entertaining and he delivered it with natural ease and gestures.

Following the section with students reciting speeches that they themselves had penned came the recitation section where students chose a speech or story written by someone else. Most of these speeches were light-hearted versions of princess stories like Cinderella and Snow White. However, there were a Couple of sad ones Sprinkled in, like The Happy Prince , My favorite Bittersweet Tale Written by Oscar Wilde The speech contest Concluded with literally one of the MOST depressing Stories I've ever heard;. a true Tale About three Elephants That Were Starved to Intentionally death at a Tokyo Zoo. BECAUSE of the war, Bombs Were Being dropped on Tokyo daily, and the Government did not Want to Risk Dangerous Animals escaping. Read the full Story, Faithful Elephants, by Clicking here . It IS a Serious Tearjerker. Wow, and here I thought they would conclude the speeches with an upper, not a speech that made ​​me want to get a Zoloft prescription. 

NOT THE ELEPHANTS !!

So, fast forward to the results. I could feel my heart racing in my chest as the woman stepped up to read the results. First she announced the 5th, 4th, and 3rd place winners. My student was not mentioned. I knew at that moment that she had to be in the top two. The runner up was not my student either. She WON first place, and I could not suppress my squeal of delight. I finally knew what it was like to be so amazingly proud as a teacher . Afterwards, her family thanked me profusely and took some photos of me with their daughter. Back at school, one of her other teachers bowed at me and told me it was because of me that she won.

Now on to the next contest!

Lost In Translation

Sorry to those who thought they were about to read a review about one of the best movies ever made, but this post is about how much is literally lost in translation here in Japan. The language barrier is thicker than a brick wall reinforced on both sides with a steel titanium alloy. This means, of course, that I am out of the loop on basically all topics when it comes to discussions in the teacher's room. For example, one day I slaved away all morning in preparation for my level three classes only to discover once I got to my first one that it was a different schedule that day. The English teachers all seemed shocked that no one told me, and I realized that they probably did, but in Japanese.

Most moment of best movie ever

 Being out of the loop is better sometimes, however. During the sports day at school where the students participate in relay races and other games, I was told shortly before one relay that I would be participating as a runner. Had I known about that ahead of time, I may have backed out due to anxiety from anticipation. The same goes for when I found out that I would be judging an English speech contest. I suppose, to be fair, I had pretty ample notice on that one- about one week. But, when I was told about it, it was in a tone expressing shock that I was unaware of it before.

Sometimes the attempted translations are just plain hilarious. The other day, I went to an electronic store to find out about getting a phone here. The whole process was just ridiculous as the representative did not speak a word of English and we took turns using his iPad translation app to communicate. My favorite was at the end, before I left after trying to explain that I would have to think about it, he told me to wait and typed something into his translator. He turned it to me and it said "I would like to be your partner." I almost burst out laughing on the spot. I'm not sure if he was trying to ask if we could meet up and practice English because he seemed all excited when he noticed that I was an instructor on my ID card, or if he was saying he wanted to be my salesperson if I returned, or if he was just plain being creepy and wanted to be my partner.

I've also realized that sometimes, teachers express understanding when I explain an activity to them, and once we get to class and attempt to execute said activity, it is clear that there was no understanding whatsoever. 

Honestly, some days I want to crumble in to a heap of hopeless sadness on the floor because I just so desperately want to get a point across and be able to communicate with some really cool people. But then I realize that there is absolutely no point in doing so, so I gather myself up, hold my chin high and embrace the challenges posed by cultural differences One thing is for sure:. being thrown into a new country makes learning the language a heck of a lot quicker.

The way to cause that wall preventing communication to come crumbling down? Put everyone in a room together and get a drink in their hands. And then after that drink, refill their glasses and repeat, until fluency is achieved. It works like a magic charm. 

Doodles and Mouses

How is it possible that EVERY child in Japan is a perfect artist?? Seriously, they can all draw amazing anime characters in mere minutes. I feel like they must all have a gene enabling them to do so. I graded papers today covered in mindless doodles of Disney characters that would have taken me hours to draw even half as well. 

This takes kids in Japan 30 seconds to draw perfectly

Speaking of Disney characters, I love that it is acceptable here for people of ANY age to have cute cartoon characters on EVERYTHING they own. Grown men and women have Winnie the Pooh coffee mugs, Snoopy pencil cases…anything cute is totally fine. I have embraced this wholeheartedly with my Mickey Mouse water bottle and my Moominvalley planner.

This would be totally normal for me to have here, and that is awesome

Speaking of Mickey Mouse, I realized today the ways that English can be befuddling to say the least for those learning it. When my students were writing about a famous cat character named Doraemon today as per my assignment, one girl wrote “Doraemon is a cat. He doesn’t like mouses.” When I explained that the plural for mouse is mice, her mind was instantly blown, her reaction like the one below:

Believe it or not, people ACTUALLY make that sound to express their state of surprise. It is hilarious.

Because they write cute sentences like “Doraemon is a cat. He doesn’t like mouses,” I end up keeping a substantial amount of the assignments I have the students do. For one activity, I made sentences, printed them out and cut them in half, and the students had to match the two halves of the sentences. One of the sentences was: If you get 70,000 yen, you should buy Miss Marisa many presents. Another was: If you are hungry, you should eat Indian curry. One group of students got really creative and wrote: If you get 70,000 yen, you should eat Indian curry. I let that one slide because, let’s be honest, I would DEFINITELY do just that if I got 70,000 yen.

Kid-Appropriate Language?

As an occasional babysitter for numerous families, I have come across every method of parenting you can imagine. I am more than happy to adhere to the rules of different parents; THEIR kids are the ones I am caring for, after all. The one thing I wish they could all come to agreement on is the kind of language I am permitted to use around their kids and that their kids are permitted to use around me. It's more confusing than the conundrum debating whether it was the chicken or the egg that first made its appearance to try and keep straight when I can say "crap" and when it is considered the worst swear word known to man. I did not know it was possible to be opposed to "crap" until quite recently. 

The easiest kids to babysit are the ten-year-olds around whom I can say, literally, any swear word I want and they can reciprocate. Getting angry during video games is so much more simple when my mental filter isn't making me say ridiculous words like "shoot" and "drat" and "oh, fudge!". However, there is one catch to my sailor speech around these kids- I cannot use foul language in a manner that can be construed as directly insulting to the kids. That is kind of a no-brainer to me. I feel like anyone who calls a ten-year-old a "f***ing a**hole" is just asking to be targeted by social services. 

Thankfully, I can put up and tear down my foul-language barrier quite easily. Even some of my friends are more sensitive to certain derogatory words than others. It varies by nationality, too. For example, J.K. Rowling throws the "C word" around in her book The Casual Vacancy like it is no big deal whatsoever, an act which I imagine would shock most people from the United States. I learned that the "C word" is common vocabulary in Canada and Australia as well. 

Having the radio on around kids is another huge roll of the dice. Some stations bleep out the word "ass" whereas some leave the foulest of foul language perfectly in tact. I thought there were regulations on that kind of thing. If the kids are in the car and one or two swear words slips through the censorship cracks, I like to hope it is not the complete and total end of the world. I'm sure that people swore like sailors around me as a kid all the time in restaurants and other public places and I never registered it in my little brain. I don't consider myself permanently damaged, anyway.