letter from kyoto: regarding the bathroom, where is it?

by Chris Gladis

Of all the challenges facing a person living abroad, perhaps one of the most interesting, frustrating and illuminating is the challenge of language. One minute you’re a master communicator, able to use the words you’ve grown up with to accomplish even the most delicate of interpersonal tasks and the next minute — OK, 14 hours later — you’re functionally illiterate, unable to complete the most basic transactions without resorting to crude pantomime.

It can be a little jarring.

Of course, I could have gone somewhere like Europe, where, except for a few errant tildes and umlauts, they use basically the same alphabet, but no. I had to come to Japan, where as many as four different scripts are used in three different writing systems. A place where the grammar and even some of the fundamental basics of the language have nothing in common with either the language I grew up with or any other language I’d studied. In other words, I had a lot of work ahead of me.

Moving to another country isn’t like visiting, obviously. A visitor can get away with a few simple phrasebook expressions: “Hello,” “Goodbye,” “Thank You,” “Excuse me” and “Where’s the ______?” are your best bets. Your more determined visitor will, of course, learn more, but only temporarily; upon returning home there is no need to remember: O-tera wa totemo kirei des’ne! Reflecting on your trip you may think to yourself: “How do I say ‘The temple is very pretty’ again? Ah, screw it, what’s on TV?”

Those of us living in a foreign country aren’t so lucky. Mastery of, or at least a fragile competence with, the local language is essential, and if you are one of the smart ones you did some studying before you went. My brother, for example, studied Spanish for years before he went off to live in Spain, and while the transition from classroom Spanish to real Spanish wasn’t exactly silky-smooth, he did have a leg up on people like me who knew absolutely nothing.

Seriously. Couldn’t read, couldn’t write, couldn’t speak or understand. I tell my students that I knew exactly four things in Japanese when I got off the plane: Arigato, Sumimasen, Wakarimasen and Gomen nasai. In other words: “Thank you” and three different ways to say “I’m sorry.” Oddly enough, these phrases were all very helpful. But the rest? Overwhelming. For the first time in my memory, I couldn’t read anything, which to a heavy reader like me was incredibly frustrating. I had been told by all sorts of books and websites that one of the central guidelines to interacting with Japanese people was politeness, and I was pretty sure that asking a person, “Duhhhr…. Toilet?” didn’t fall under the heading of polite.

But I learned. My first night in Japan, my new flatmate took me to the most Wonderful Restaurant in Creation, where I ate okonomiyaki and learned new vocabulary, such as oishii (delicious), ippai (full) and yopparai (drunk). And I was thrilled to know that biiru meant exactly what I thought it did.

Slowly, my vocabulary improved. Not by leaps and bounds, but as it needed to. I found myself alternatingly full of enthusiasm to study and master this new and vexing language and depressed and frustrated by my inability to learn this new and vexing language. Some words stuck that I really didn’t need, such as yabanjin (barbarian) and katajikenai (an archaic form of thank you) while other, more important words slid off my brain. The same went for the written language as well. While mastering the kana was easy (two syllabaries which are used to phonetically write the language) learning the kanji (the writing system borrowed from China) was, and is, a real pain in the neck. I can easily write the character for “waterfall,” “housefly” and, to the amazement of most Japanese people, “rose,” but I have to look up the characters for “Osaka” every time I write it.

It will never be easy to learn a new language, at least not for me. Learning any foreign language requires not only time and effort but also an ability to adjust how you think. I don’t like asking for things in Japanese because “_____ wo kudasai” translates to “Please give me ____,” which to my English-speaking brain sounds rude no matter how many times I try to convince it that it isn’t. When I go shopping, no matter how hard I try, I can’t make “_____ ga hoshii desu” (”I want/would like ______”) fit neatly onto “I’m looking for _____.” Japanese concepts of politeness, vagueness and flexibility are often at odds in my brain against my well-formed American concepts of politeness, specificity and directness. My brain is stubborn, unwilling to accept change and, most importantly, really unwilling to make itself look stupid.

Which is, of course, what I need to do. It’s what anyone needs to do if they’re going to really embrace and even come close to mastering a foreign tongue. Some of the best Japanese speakers I know aren’t masters of grammar and syntax. Most of them have only a need-to-know knowledge of kanji, and none of them will ever be mistaken for a native speaker. But they all have one thing in common: they are unafraid to jump in and make mistakes. They might, as I have, switch kaminoke (hair) for kaminari (thunder), or anko (sweet bean paste) for unko (excrement). But to them, a mistake is a mistake, something to learn from. You may look like a jackass for a moment, but you let it go and try not to do it again.

So I get by. I know enough to be dangerous, as a visiting friend of mine once said, but I have not yet figured out how to give up enough of my pride to let myself look foolish. I can shop, I can take a taxi and go to the bank and buy movie tickets. I can even, if pressed, talk about what nice weather we’re having. But much more than that and I’m shot. It’s a little shameful, considering how long I’ve been here, but I try not to beat myself up about it. If my struggles with Japanese have done anything for me, they have made me more aware of how much my students must be struggling with English, which, I believe, makes me a better teacher.

I may never get past the Kyo no tenki wa ii des’ne? stage, chatting about the weather. I may never be able to argue in a bar about whether or not the SDF should be involved in the War on Terror or discuss the finer points of ikebana and its relationship to the ancient art of the tea ceremony. But every now and then I surprise myself by managing something complex — buying a home appliance or filing my taxes — and that kind of little victory reminds me of why I love living here. There is always something to learn and there’s always progress to be made. You can’t ask for much more than that.

tagged under:asia, language, living abroad