Lessons in JapaneseOlivia Kehoe (DS 2023)

OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM
I’m on a boat off the coast of Ishigakijima, one of Japan’s subtropical islands. Trying scuba
diving for the first time ever, I have a 5-minute briefing amidst the flurry of activity on board,
after which I’m given an oxygen tank, weights, and encouraged over the side of the boat by
my instructor. Before I know it, the life jacket that has kept me afloat is being deflated and I
am steadily sinking. I am not prepared for how unnatural that sensation is, a slow butunmistakable descent as the turquoise waters turn a darker blue.
Already feeling out of control, I notice my mask starts seeping water, and have theoverwhelming urge to swim back up to the surface. I make the hand signal to the captain who
is beside me as clear as possible, UP! In response, he takes out what looks like a whiteboard,an underwater diving slate, and starts scribbling. As he turns it around to show it to me, myheart sinks. 手を…ください！He’s written instructions in Japanese, and I can’t read them.
Do what with my hands? I stare at the kanji I don’t know, desperately trying to piece together
the rest of the sentence amid the critical blanks. Save for the sound of my own breathing, I’m
in a submerged silence.

Ishigaki in December

in we go

Recalling those moments still makes my heart race involuntarily, and I’m honestly not quite
sure how that predicament was resolved. Through a mixture of gesturing and focus oncounting to 5 (that’s about as far as my tutorial went), I stayed long enough to be able toappreciate the bewildering beauty of the surroundings, and for a sea turtle to take pity as it
glided by.

an auspicious ‘eight-way glaring turtle’,seen to be staring from no matter whereyou look, Enoshima Shrine

IMMERSION
I recall this episode after thinking a little about what language learning has been like,particularly when ‘applied’. Anything holds the possibility of becoming educational, frombrowsing the aisles of a supermarket to sitting in a cinema. Not to mention, the numerous
occasions of being faced with important documents above your current reading ability, or
getting into situations you don’t have the relevant vocabulary for. Conversations atguesthouses have been some of the most eye-opening lessons in Japanese, from being madeaware of the existence of ‘blood-type personalities’ (type B is always good), to the age-old
Kanto/Kansai (East/West Japan) divide in dialect, disposition and even flavours of the samedishes. Choosing to stay at home has its own offerings – recently, that has been hearing
political candidates campaigning over loudspeaker as they drive past in the run up to the Tokyoelection (a green Joker, an ‘AI mayor’ and a 96-year-old among them).

interesting reading material from
Tokyo’s election candidates

The more kanji you can read, the easier life gets, across the board. I am reminded of this as Igrapple with my air conditioner’s advanced settings, something I wish I had practised backwhen it was a cool enough temperature to think. I wonder whether now, several months andtwo JLPT exams on, I could pass the more important kanji test back in the deep waters ofIshigaki.
Yet besides the diving incident, this first trip out of Tokyo over the winter break showed methe possibilities and joys of language learning. I spent an unlikely Christmas Eve in northern
Okinawa, where the former DJ-turned-owner of the guesthouse I was staying at played hisfavourite reggae records in the name of yuimāru (ゆいまーる), the spirit of cooperation, or
sharing in Okinawan dialect.

at some point in the night, out
came the didgeridoo

Boxing Day in Okinawa

I found myself in a similarly friendly guesthouse for New Year’s Eve, in which everyone wasinvolved in making toshikoshi soba (‘year-crossing noodles’, a symbol of longevity). Bowl after
bowl was enjoyed while tuned into NHK’s annual TV broadcast, an eclectic flavour of popular
music in Japan, and something of a ritual for households to count down the final hours of theyear. I got my first taste of Ryukyuan live music at midnight as the fireworks went up into thesky, the strumming of the sanshin speeding up to match the energy of the dancing crowds.
Back at the guesthouse the following day, it was the same TV we gathered around as thedetails of an earthquake on the Noto peninsula unfolded. The trip was filled with a lot of firsts,
and I returned to my Tokyo apartment with the feeling that somehow, I had only just arrived.

Myoshōji river, TokyoCOLLECTING THINGS
The speed and variety of encounters over the last months has been hard to keep up with, andeven harder to capture. I end up jotting down a word, a phrase, an idiom here and there, andnow have lists of incoherent, unrelated vocabulary that trace the randomness of each day. A
memo to look up later, or, if lucky, added to the folder on my phone named ‘extra special’, forwords that I felt worthy of amassing.
An extract from my extra special list
別腹 betsubara, having room for dessert despite being full
天の川 amanogawa, the Milky Way (lit. Heaven’s river)
夢中 muchuu, being absorbed in
親孝行 oyakoukou, taking care of one’s parents
穴場 anaba – hidden gem (lit. hole in the wall)
衣替え koromogae - seasonal change of clothing豆知識 mamechishiki, piece of trivia (lit. bean of knowledge)
ポカポカ pokapoka, being pleasantly warm (e.g. after a soak in the sentō)
One of these days, the rate of new input might slow down enough for me to finally consolidate
what I’ve collected, or so I hope. Although, once they’ve come up once, they often return
several more times. This must be one of the biggest luxuries of living here while learning thelanguage; being given second, third, fourth chances at latching onto a sound, or imprinting akanji character just enough to be able to pick it out from a sea of input again, this time being
able to name it. An unknown that’s been unknown before. Now these lists serve more as timestamps of my movements – from my first visit to the dentist to my day of watching sumo– andless as self-prescribed vocabulary tests. Nonetheless, when I was taught the phrase‘mikkabouzu’ by my language partner, a first-year student at Waseda, I couldn’t help but
identify with that sentiment.
三日坊主 mikkabouzu ( lit. a monk for three days)
A person who can never finish what they start

LESSONS IN BUILDING 22, WASEDA UNIVERSITY
As for lessons, classroom lessons that is, they have been
an experience in themselves. The ‘intensive’ element tothis program may well explain the bombardment fromall channels of Japanese grammar, manners, culture,arts, history, business communication, current affairs
and more. One morning might be a presentation on
Japanese comedy duos (manzai), and by the afternoon I
will have covered educational reform, the lyrics to achildren’s nursery rhyme and listened to a teacher
deconstruct the norms of Western bathing customs (theidea of lying down in a long, soapy tub) in front of
bewildered students (you reuse the water?).
What is it we have been learning? ‘Japanese’ seems
simultaneously too narrow and too broad. In truth, the100-minute classes are ambitious from the very
beginning in the topics they promise to delve into, andoften the language, in the sense of its acquisition,
becomes a secondary haphazard endeavour.
Meanwhile, I’ve learnt more than I ever expected toabout what it was like to grow up in parts of China,
Taiwan and Korea thanks to new friends and classmatesfrom across the world; we’d do so negotiating a
muddled Japanese, where English was not necessarily acommon denominator.

the Haruki Murakami Library, Waseda
Universitya ‘business communication’ classsmiles after one term over

READING THE AIR: BEYOND THE CLASSROOM

Being something called ‘half’, I’ve alsoquestioned what it means to acquirea voice in Japanese – what it is I want
to be able to say – are they the samethings as in English? I think it’s a common experience for self-expression to change based on
the language being spoken; each come with their own sociocultural norms and idiosyncrasiesof course. In this case, learning Japanese necessitates learning Japanese ways of thinking, andthe ability to ‘read the air’ (空気を読む). The most immediate and probably universallylearned example is being praised for your Japanese ability – nihongo jouzu! – and responding
something to the effect of ‘not at all/I’m still learning’.
As I consider the possibilities of staying here longer, I wonder whether this ‘Japaneseness’ will
become more internalised, or, on the other hand, if a growing confidence in the language
would lessen the need to ‘fit in’ culturally (while still being polite and behaving appropriately).
At root these questions require an idea of what the goal is in the first place, whether it is topass as native, something less, or more, than that. Appearances and associations with others
go a long way, so it’s not just a question of language, but one of identity too.

In truth, the diving episode I recall at the beginning was a unique one, not just because of thekanji incident, but because it happened at all, arising out of an ambiguity: where does beinga ‘foreigner’ stop and ‘Japanese’ start? In this case, I was enthusiastically brought into the foldof the latter, joining a boat of Japanese divers based on simple greeting. I am always gratefulfor these sorts of receptions, but also feel conflicted when on occasion I’ve sensed theduplicity in attitudes towards ‘outsiders’ in their perceived absence and can’t help but feel outof place. Belonging is a mutual endeavour, but requires concerted effort and openness on
both sides, and navigating through these with an as yet imperfect grasp of the language has
its share of challenges as well as rewards.

sleeping in a free mountain hut with lots of company, Yamanashi prefecturespoon-carving club, TokyoI’ve been able to meet people from all walks of life, each with their own ideas of their placein Japan; travellers circumnavigating Shikoku’s 88 pilgrimage, to ‘regular’ Tokyo shakaijin(working adults) who have been so ready to share their side passions, from spoon-carving tomountain climbing. Lessons of this kind have been the most memorable, where I feel theimprovements and shortcomings of my Japanese at its most acute. As we prepare to graduate
from the role-played scenarios of language school, I wonder what forms the next lessons thatawait us will take.