Today my medical exam went off without a hitch. Since I’m under 40 years old I get to skip the blood check, and the tasty barium milkshake. Other teachers came in looking like they just had to swallow something awful. Like barium.
I think the results were normal – nobody freaked out when they saw my numbers. The blood pressure came in just fine 112/68, which I guess is OK. The other teachers were sweating bullets about their blood pressure, especially the ones that smoke. Sorry guys!
For lunch I had a great Chinese food meal prepared by some third year students. They dropped it off at my desk complete with a silver platter and the other teachers got jealous right away. The food was great – they did a good job and I’m not just saying that. I brought the dishes back to the kitchen and wrote up a little review for them to check out (in English). It was nice of them to think of me.
During my afternoon class they came in and took some pictures of me in action. I saw some of the results later on, and there were a couple where I looked like I was shaking my fist violently at my students. I’ll have to pay attention next time and see if that’s a compulsive thing or not. My blood pressure is low, so it must not be that I’m stressed, right? Right?
A couple of times today I had the chance to speak some Japanese with teachers and students, and people again mentioned that my Japanese is coming along. That gave me a lot of encouragement, and got me thinking about language learning in Japan.
People are really patient with my Japanese. It’s universal – I’ve never had someone get frustrated with the fact that I couldn’t communicate clearly with them. They are always polite, they look for other ways to say something, they find ways around the language gap. More and more I’m able to contrast this with the way that foreign languages are handled in America.
Say somebody comes into your workplace and fumbles with words, stuttering in broken English, and having to explain himself with gestures or by consulting a dictionary. I think people in America would do their best to understand, but also get frustrated. I know when I was living in America I would always say “This guy lives in America, why can’t he speak English?” Now I’m in the opposite situation.
Language-wise Japan is an isolated nation. There is no other nation on earth where you can go and speak Japanese to anyone you like and be able to communicate. The onus is on the Japanese to learn another language to communicate with the people of the world. Now compare this with English. If you speak English you can travel to countries all over the world, and travel easily. English is widely recognized all over the world, in brochures, books, and the internet. There is little to no burden whatsoever on native English speakers.
Maybe that helps create a “learn English or get out of here” attitude – one that I had before I came to Japan. It’s nice to see people around here being patient with me, because they recognize how tough it is to learn a foreign language.
Anyhow, I’ve got to say that working on learning Japanese has been one of the most satisfying experiences of my life, and I can tell it will be something that holds my interest for a long time to come. There’s this feeling you get when you are speaking or reading Japanese, and I’ve never lost it since I’ve been studying – it’s like a voice inside your head is saying “Holy shit! I’m speaking Japanese!”
