California Roll

It's Much Harder Than You Think

    It's a new place.  A very new place, yet an old place, a familiar place, but the faces are all different. Everyone's hair is black, everyone speaks Japanese in this place except me.
    I stand out. I'm the only one with blond hair, this somewhat blond hair.
    Forty sets of eyes staring at me.  Forty serious, straight line mouthed people. They sit in rows, stiff, upright, but they all know I'm here and their eyes see through the backs of their heads.
    After the message, we are told to go in two's - at least that's what I think because everyone turns and talks to someone.  Who speaks my language?  I don't know. I can't speak theirs, except for, "I live in California.  Where is the toilet?"
    A short man, a pudgy young man, with an upturned mouth moves his chair to where I sit, silent, alone, afraid.  He tells me his name - Seito.  I say, "Watakushi no namae wa, Ca-ro-ru desu."
    He smiles, a broad, open smile. He is not afraid to show the whites of his teeth, as many are.  Most cover their mouths if they laugh.  He tells me he gets up at 3 am every morning to go make bread for a bakery. 
    I tell him I've come to teach English for four weeks at his church here in Tokyo.
    He puts his hands on his knees and leans forward.  This stranger is coming closer to me.  He announces, "Let's play."
     "What?"  I ask.
    "Let's play."
    I'm scared.  Has he mistaken my American friendliness as an overture to amorous activity.  I can't do this, but he may be the only one here who speaks English.
    My eyes are open so wide I feel a breeze coming in.  I wonder what to say, what to do, how to avoid offending this only one who speaks my language somewhat freely.
    He lowers his head, clasps his two hands together, not looking at my knees, nor my feet, but closing his eyes. 
    Now I get it.  We pray.

   

Lining up at Longs

    When I was standing in line for presecriptions at Longs on Saturday, a bald-headed man with square, brown glasses started talking to the woman in front of me.  He launched out with complaining about the personnel in the prescrip. department.  His complaints ran the gamut of they arrive late, it's poorly run, and then trying to lay blame - "it's because of the different ethnicities, I think they must get their pharmaceutical education overseas and then come here."

    Up to this, I had my eyes focused on my magazine, but at this crass statement, blatantly wrong in my opinion, I felt impelled to participate.  "I'm an ESL teacher.  A pharmacist could not pass the professional tests in the US if they weren't educated at least some here.  The problem is the difference between written and spoken English. A person may be able to read and write English very well, but not understand the same words when they are spoken."

    I say this not from specific fact (I've never questioned the personnel about their education so perhaps I'm wrong) but my knowledge of the language learning process - that it takes much time of hearing and responding to the spoken language to become fluent in conversation.

    When I first went to Japan, I had had studied Japanese intensively and diligently for a semester (20 weeks):  five classroom hours of Japanese language study each week, ten hours a week of study on my own -- listening to tapes to memorize dialogue and maniuplate grammar, going over vocabulary with flashcard and doing written homework assignments. 

    Despite all those grueling hours, when I went to Japan first at age 28, all I could understand was "Kudasai" (please) and "Doomo" (thanks) and "Massugo" (straight).   I was frustrated and extremely disappointed. The rapidity of speech and my inability to separate the sounds I was hearing into the words I knew by sight and through slow pronounciation without dropped or slurred sounds left me hopeless stuckin the muck.

    I returned to take another semester of college Japanese andathen my language study went dormant for some eight years.  When I moved to Japan with my family, I started studying with a tutor in my home because I was taking care of little ones.   It took me one and half years of study and being immersed before I could converse somewhat in Japanese.  And that was only simple exchanges on previously covered ground.  It would a dozen years of study and immersion to become fluent.

A friend of ours who was a practicing surgeon in Japan but decided to immigrate here, studied for some years in the US and worked in hospitals before he could pass tests and certify as a doctor here.  When he goes to the worship service at my Christian congregation, he can understand the pastors who speak slowly and clearly, not our main pastor who races ahead and uses many idioms and jokes.

    What stunned me about the man at Long's was his quickness to judge and blame people who have accents as being the cause of what he doesn't like.  He lacked information about the situation, as I also do I admit.  Personally, I'm thankful for whoever would want to work at Longs. I know the pay is not the best, the customers are often cranky and unreasonable.  Even doctors move from the Bay Area because the cost of livign is so high they can't buy the home they want with their pay.  Pharmacists are highly trained personnel.  A discount drug store is fortunate to get any qualified personnel with integrity in this strange locale where often an one-income family cannot afford to buy  as big or nice a house  as the one they grew up in.

    God, please make me aware when I'm making blaming assessments and assumptions.  Help me appreciate each person, whatever their accent and origin, and see them as you do.