I have a fascination for shapes. I like the way the veins on a leaf interlace. I like the curls of a seashell. I like the repitition of man-made shapes, the way a lot of cones are lined up or the windows in the side of a building. I like the way a nut fits exactly onto a bolt and all the spirals there. I love watching milk dissolve into coffe.

I think this is what drives me as an artist and a photographer. I want to capture those shapes and keep them forever. Most of the pictures I post here are me hanging out with friends. But most of the thousands of pictures I have on my computer are shapes of clouds, flowers, buildings that I saw. I end up taking pictures of my potted plants every time there's a new leaf. My collection of seashells is cumbersome. And I love drawing.. creating my own shapes, and watching them take form into larger things. People, composed of little interesting lines.

When I was in Chicago I thought, "I never knew buildings could have so many shapes!"

Not to say I don't like buildings in Japan. It was in Japan that I realized I loved architecture. I'd lived in the suburbs of Colorado all my life. Where every house and yard looks the same, everything's made of the cheapest wood, and everything is just simple, sharp angles. Going to Denver was cool because buildings were tall. I think I never got over the tallness and failed to see anything else about the architecture around me.

My first day in Japan, riding on the tour bus, watching the buildings go by outside the window. . . I noticed texture. The wavey roof tiles, the cool cement, the ceramic roof ornaments, the paper sliding doors, the futuristic glass sliding doors. When I'm in Japan, it's the combination of elements that I like. The old mixed with the new, the ancient temple next to the modern hotel. The school that looks like a prison next to the house that looks like a spaceship, the abandoned places in the mountains. . . I love that.

In Chicago, after being six for 7 days, I finally got over it! My ear never cleared up fully, but when I finally stopped having fevers at night and my throat stopped aching, Yossi and I went out to the big city and explored the hell out of it for three days. I have to say I love the buildings in Chicago. Like Japan, there are so many textures. But unlike Japan, I feel like each building is designed with a specific purpose in mind. Each building has its own presence and personality. It's not just rows and rows of buildings smooshed together into a city. In Japan, I admire the skyline. In Chicago I admire each building separately. And there is history and pride in each of those skyscrapers. Pride is something I almost never feel in Japan when looking at architecture.

So I made some pictures as reference for myself while I'm sketching. To remind myself, even in Japan where apartments are made of bathroom tile and bathrooms are tiled in plastic, that buildings don't have to be shaped like shoeboxes. If you're an artist, or if you like photography, feel free to take a look. I put them up on DeviantArtfor anyone to reference.

http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=scraps

By the way, our wedding barbeque is going to be on October 20th, in Kobe. Please come!! We'll send out formal invitations next month. Since most of you can't come, you can at least enjoy getting an invite, right?

Jennifer

P.S. Subject is the name of what I believe to be a CD store.. didn't go inside.

So where was I? Ah yes, getting in to Chicago. I was sick for most of the trip, but the day of my sister's wedding I was so full of adrenaline and euphoria that I almost felt fine! The next day I was feverish and had to go to the doctor's for stronger medicine, but my sister's wedding was like this moment of clarity amidst the foginess of the whole trip.

In one of the textbooks at my school we have a lesson about weddings. The lesson goes along the lines of, "This is a Western style wedding, how does it differ from your country?" There are various activities where students have to insert words like bride, groom, bouquet, reception into sentences. The problem is that so many students have never participated in any weddings in any culture, or don't care what's the same or different, or have no intent on ever having anything to do with a Western style wedding. I mean imagine you're a high school boy squirming in your chair in front of some weird foreigner who suddenly goes, "So how do weddings differ in your country?" So I try to avoid teaching that particular lesson. Especially since if you haven't experienced both types of weddings before, there's not a lot you can compare and contrast.

That aside, I brought in a bunch of pictures of the wedding to show my students. Mostly I wanted to show off how pretty my sister is and what I look like in a dress. As I opened up the pages of my album, the students went, "Oh! It's just like the textbook!" That wasn't what I was expecting their first reaction to be!! They started listing off the words they'd memorized from that lesson. It was adorable. So as I showed off my pictures, they showed off their English to me.

If you're interested in how Western and Japanese weddings differ, I think I wrote a blog about that way back in the day here: http://japanshin.livejournal.com/47813.html

I wanna tell everyone about my sister!
I think my sister is the most beautiful person ever!
I spent a whole lot of my life being jealous of how smart, sexy, and talented she is.
Here are pictures of her and the wedding:
http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000SisterTransformation.jpg
http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000TriciasWedding.jpg

- Jenshin

My trip to Chicago.

April 26th.

The first part of my journey to the USA is spent, not flying out of Osaka at 8:00 am, but taking a shinkansen to Tokyo at 10:00.

The night before my trip is spent, not packing, not in anticipation, but at the urgent care center where I am in such tremendous pain that I can't really hear what the doctor is saying and I cry when he tells me no matter what, don't ride on any airplanes.

There's too much fluid in my ear and the tubes are all swollen shut. If I go on an airplane, the change in pressure could force all the infected liquid into my spinal chord.

By midnight, my fever subsides.
The pain in my ear goes away, but there's still a lot of fluid there. I can scarcely hear out of that side. We call up the 24 hour airline service center, only to be told that they don't operate between 10 pm and 7 am. So we take the earliest bus there and arrive at 6:30. Now I'm feeling quite a lot better, but we ask the staff if we could cancel our domestic flight and take only the direct flight from Tokyo. The staff says no at first, but we explain how I'm sick and she goes off to find someone who can give us real answers. Eventually our request gets OKed. So Yossi and I hurry to Osaka city to catch a shinkansen.

And so the first part of my journey is spent staring out the window of a train, watching the cherry trees of Shiga, the rice fields of Aichi, and the mountains of Shizuoka go by.

By 4:30 in the afternoon, when our plane actually takes off, my ear doesn't feel so swollen anymore, but I have a fever and spend the whole 12 hour ride tossing and turning in my seat. Special ear plugs save me from pain. We arrive at the O'Hare airport exhausted and unmotivated, facing a train and bus ride to my sister's house in an unfamiliar city. The thing that saves me is Subway.

I could use the difference between an American Subway and the Japanese Subway as some kind of metaphore for Japanese culture. In America, I walk into the store and no one's there. The door opening causes a bell to ring, and after a few moments a plump young woman comes out from the backroom in not too much of a hurry, wiping off her hands. She asks me, "How are you today?" before asking what I'll have. When I order a sub, she takes this to mean a foot-long one automatically. So Yossi and I decide to share it. There's a lady in front of us picking vegetables. "Can I have a lot of olives? I looove olives. Ooh, and gimme some of that spinach too." Then Yossi and I are asked, "What vegetables do you want?" and we spend some time picking and choosing. Near the register there are giant sugar cookies that look bland and unappetizing. We're given cups to go fill our drinks ourselves. A handful of napkins are dumped on our tray and we sit down at a table to eat.

Okay now for Japan. I walk in to the place and a woman is standing at attention behind the counter, asking me what I want in a rehersed manner and I feel almost guilty making her wait while I scan the menu. She gives me a 6-inch sandwich automatically, not imagining that I'd want anything bigger, and continues to ask questions as if reading from a script.. What bread would you like? Would you like it toasted? There are a few people in front of me, but they're only ordering coffee. Instead of asking what kind of vegetables I want, I am asked if there are any vegetables I don't like. Then exacty two of each vegetable is placed carefully on the bread with no room to ask for more or less of anything. I order tea and have to wait for another clerk to come over and fill up my cup. At the register there are an assortment of cookies, maybe one third of the size of the American ones for the same price, with flavors like "coconut chocolate" and "honey and white chocolate." Each cookie is labeled with how many calories it carries exactly. Then I am given my tray with my food and drink, one small napkin placed delicately under my cup, and I go over to a carpeted room with plush chairs to sit down and eat.

In the US, I feel like my money is going toward the food. I get a lot of food, for cheap, and a big drink. Whether I come back again or not is determined by how tasty my sandwich is and my freedom to choose anything ensures that I get exactly what I like. When I leave, I feel like I have paid for food.

In Japan, I feel that I am paying for a service. I am paying for the people to be precise, for the seats to be comfortable, for my time spent in line to be a smooth, orderly process without any emotional discomfort. When I leave, I feel like I have paid for some space to sit down quietly, with a little food involved.

After eating, Yossi commented that in the US, vegetables must be really cheap. When vegetables are cheap, then not only feeding people is cheap, but feeding animals is also cheap, so meat is cheap, and a staff member doesn't care if the customer wants one or ten olives. In Japan, they can't give me cheap food, so instead they give me service. And to ensure service from even the most clueless 18-year-old clerk, the rules are rigid.

Anyway, I really like going to Subway in both countries.

I'll talk more about what I did in Chicago next time!
In the meantime, have a really nice photo of Japan from the airplane!! http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/TanboSunset.jpg

Jennifer

Pictures!
http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000QuillAndMiyuki.jpg
http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Kurama.jpg
http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000PlayingWithTrees.jpg
http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000KamoRiver.jpg
http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000AwajiRomp.jpg

Walking around on the mountains of Kyoto with my friend Quill and his wife Miyuki, something occurred to me.
There's this thing... Silence.

Silence is just the absence of sound, right? It's not something, it's the lack of something. At any time it can be filled, even with the slightest noise it disappears. The absence of something is a fragile thing, always broken or forgotten. But there's nothing wrong with that, right? The world is full of sounds, wonderful ones, grating ones, that all give us information about what's around us.

Wandering through the mountains, though, I started to think of silence as like a space. And through this space the sounds are coming at me from different angles. When one sound disappears it is replaced by silence, and then another sound comes from another place. It's like silence is always there, no matter how many sounds, silence is that space through which sounds are traveling. Instead of simply an absence, I felt that silence became a volume. A capacity for sound. When that space is filled, it's difficult to see how much is there. Like how we don't know the depth of a lake when it is filled with water. But when there are less sounds, we can appreciate how vast silence is. Like looking down into a canyon.

Silence, I think, is made more beautiful by sound. And sound is made more beautiful by silence.

I'm going to be in Chicago in a few days. It seems strange and unreal.
I'll be back in Japan after Golden Week.

Don't forget, my wedding party is in October. Anyone's invited!! Who's coming??

Jenshin

Hello! Happy April!
Some pictures to start off with:
http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000PlumForest.jpg
http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000SpringAdventures.jpg
http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000SpringColors.jpg

For those of you living in Japan, happy new school year and good luck teaching or studying or whatever you do!!
Speaking of school, someone asked me a question in my last email that I thought relates to education.
How does a society get so that to be uniform, united, caught up in the masses, is preferable to being an individual and standing out above others?

When I talk to one Japanese person alone, I don't really get that feeling. I didn't really see how these people I know who love traveling and trying new things could be caught up in this Japanese Group Mind that seems to lay over the "rest" of society. Where do my friends fit in to "the rest"? The group mind was all around me, but I couldn't find its source and the only place to look for it was in the people I know here.

It took a few years before I started to see that there really is this feeling in all of the people around me. I'll give some examples. . .
I tell my staff a story about how my friend stole a traffic cone just because he could and she said, "But... why would you take something that's not yours? I mean, its. . . NOT YOURS. I just don't understand why any people would want to touch things that aren't theirs."
I told my old roommate that I play piano. She asked if I passed the red book or the yellow book. I told her I had many books and what was she talking about? I guess in Japan everyone uses the same books to study. She told me that there's some comfort in knowing that your neighboors are all doing the same things that you're doing. That despite living in different homes with different backgrounds, everyone uses the same books to play piano, everyone uses the same cleaning products, everyone is saving up money for the same Louis Vitton bag.
And finally, I asked a student why I shouldn't be allowed to dye my hair or paint my nails for work. Why do all businessmen have to wear black suits? Why do all business women have to wear short skirts and heels? The student told me that image is not just for image's sake, when you put on clothes, you are entering into that role. A role is not just about what you do, but you have to look the role, your mannerisms have to reflect that role, and it's not just you who are in that role, but all the people entering the same role throughout all of society are expected to adhere to these things.

I had this feeling that these three opinions given to me by my staff, my roomie, and my student, are all part of this Japanese group mind.

So how does one come to have these sort of opinions about society?
I put some terms in a search engine and started reading articles.
I came to a few conclusions, but I would LOVE to hear what other people think.. What's your experience with group mentality in Japan? Where do you think it comes from?
My biggest conclusion is that everything has a role. Not just every person, but every THING. Everything has its own purpose, its own way to be handled, its own place. My boss, an Australian, has the hardest time convincing his wife that it's okay to wipe his hands on the dish towel, or use the dish towel to wipe off the table.. In her mind, each of these towels has a separate role and those roles do not overlap.

My teacher at Japanese school says that we are not to use pens in school. The role of a pen is for business. The role of a pencil is for study.

Every package or container comes with instructions on how to open it. Sometimes my staff opens a box of cookies the wrong way and goes, "Oh no I did it wrong!" It's a tiny remark, soon forgotten, but it reflects something in Japanese culture that isn't in Western culture. This idea that there's a right and wrong for everything. Imagine growing up in that kind of environment.
THIS is a pencil. To be distinguished from THIS which is a pen.
THIS is a student. To be distinguished from THIS which is a businessman and THIS which is a store clerk and THIS which is a mother.
This student is going to THIS school, which will be distinguished by their school uniform by THOSE students who are going to THAT school.

And how does such a system stay together? Despite rebellious teens, despite western influences, despite economic hardship and lousy political leaders. . . How is it that these roles have survived?
The answer I'm seeing is respect for the boundaries of those roles.
When I got a bad grade, I ran home to my mom and said my teacher hated me and my mom said that yes, she was kind of a bitch and gave the woman a phone call about it. I learned that I don't have to repsect my teachers, I have the same privaledges as adults, and I can get my way whenever I want so long as my mom supports me. And then in college, I was refusing to go to class at one point because I thought the material was so beneath me. Another teacher came up to me and said, "Jennifer, you are a student. It is your duty as a student to follow the teacher's instructions and that's that." That really hit me. It was the first time I thought of my position as a student as a role instead of just a lifestyle.

I imagine that that feeling rests inside of all the students in Japan from their first day of school. They are not just living out their lives, but they are taking a part in a role. And their teachers and parents respect the boundaries of that role. Even if you don't fit 100% into the role, the best you can do is wear the uniform and try not to stand out.

Growing up under that kind of society, I can see why there might be a group mind. For one, everyone is attempting to adhere to a role. And for two, if you do something that goes against your role, it is wrong.

I'd like to hear what people who actually work in Japanese schools think of this!!

- Jennifer

Spring is kind of here!
Kind of because. . . Well on the day of the spring equinox, it was frigid. The ume are blooming almost a month late. I have yet to see a sakura. And on the other hand, my sister, who lives in the northerly, chilly city of Chicago, is complaining that it's so hot they need air conditioning, but the heat is at such a surprise that the machines aren't working properly yet.
So happy kind-of spring to all of you!

(P.S. I will be in Chicago in less than a month!!)

It's the end of March now, the busiest time of the year for Japan! My work is certainly feeling it. . .
And it's also the time when city officials are spending a crazy amount of money on construction, so that they can get more money the next year. Seriously, they dug up a manhole near my house, and then put it back in again the same way it was before... To what purpose, I have no idea. But this is where our taxes are going, and next year consumption taxes will go up to 8 percent, and the year after that they'll be at 10 percent. Goodbye monies. . .

A few people asked me why I haven't kept in contact recently.. Have I been busy? Yes. Life is generally busy and crazy all of the time. And then after that kind of answer, I usually get a "well good luck" or "hang in there" or "I'm sorry" or "Is it work?" And I have to explain. . . Nooo, I'm rock climbing one weekend, off to Kyoto the next weekend, having lunch with one friend and dinner with another, with a bit of a run up the mountain and down in between. In the morning I'm studying at Japanese school, in my break at work I'm writing short stories and doing some art. My friend from Himeji invited us to her gorgeous house twice, and on the way there, there are bookstores and botannical gardens to stop at. . .

I've made a few more collages for you guys.
First is from my part-time job teaching English to study abroad
students. (From China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc.) We call ourselves
Crazy English Club:
http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000CrazyEnglishClub.jpg
The pictures I'm in were taken by Phuc.
Next are some textures from desert plants:
http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000CactiTexture.jpg
And finally, the late spring that still seems reluctant to come:
http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000LateSpring.jpg

Also, if you're interested, I rennovated the "Japan" section of my website. Now things are in order by prefecture!
Still working on the "comics" and "Abandoned places" section, but feel free to check those out, too!

www.randomisgod.com

Thanks you guys!

So last weekend was pretty interesting in an utterly random way. In the middle of Random Asian Dinner Party on Saturday, the doorbell rang and it was my wedding ring! Then the next day, Yossi swept me away in a rental car to go horseback riding. At the stables, I randomly heard someone saying "Jennifer! Jennifer!" And I thought Wow are my ears going bad.. I keep feeling like I'm hearing someone call my name. But this is Japan, no one here is named Jennifer. Then some guy ran up to me and told me that a woman on a horse was calling for me. Really? I went over and it turned out to be one of my crazy old-lady friends\ taking a lesson. That was a really random! After we left, we used the car navigator to try finding random nature points.. And ended up at some bird watching lake where we watched a guy catch 7 giant fish. Wow! Yossi was inspired by the good weather and open area, so we turned to the navigator again and found a batting practice area. It's a short ways from my house, so Yossi can go there as many times as he likes! Finally we went home and Yossi's friend from Tokyo called us up to say he'd be coming down for the night randomly. Fun times all around!

So what have YOU been up to recently?
I'm running out of things to write about in Japan! Does anyone have any ideas?

- Jenshin

To friends, family, and mentors,

Today is the first anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake that so devastated the country I love. Last night, a baseball team from Taiwan came to Tohoku for a memorial game out of respect and the kindness of their hearts. I really appreciate that they did that. The Japanese team won!

Today, one year ago, I was at work when the earthquake happened. For a few moments, I noticed the door of my classroom swaying. The students had their faces to me and didn't notice it at all. Little did any of us know how much that little moment would change all of our lives. Then everyone's phone started ringing, and news began to trickle in about what had happened up north.

Yossi and I did volunteer work in Miyagi prefecture last April. I want to say that changed how I think about the world in a few ways. For one, I had a chance to combat a lot of fears up front. For two, Yossi and I had a chance to put aside our own lives and feelings for a whole week, at the same time, and I think that is ultimately what made our relationship so close so quickly. But being in Miyagi made me realize how little two small hands can do in the fact of the massive amount of devastation. I was able to help out at five households. Just five. Imagine your entire city reduced to rubble and uprooted trees, and a team of six volunteers comes in for 4 days and is able to help out only five households. Even a year later, I still feel unsatisfied and I hope to be able to go back again this year.

I can't do much now, working full time with no paid holidays until summer. What I can do now, though, is just raise awareness. (I know I already said this in my last post, but I added more people now. Sorry for double posting!)
I'm uploading all my volunteer photographs to http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com
You can see the whole gallary at http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/gallery
And I'm only halfway through. I'll continue uploading more every day throughout the week.

Basically I want to say - This happened. Remember this happened. Disasters like this are a part of the world we all live in.
And I want to say - It's still like this. There are still overturned boats, cars, and piles of trash that won't go away. There are still people living in cardboard set-ups in school gyms. There is still a mostly-melted-down nuclear reactor that is still dumping radioactive water into the sea.

The people there, who's trashed lots and broken houses I photographed, were more than glad to see someone with a camera spreading the news. They want to be recognized. They don't want to be forgotten. So today I'm doing my best to remember everything that happened. And spread the word. It's the least I can do.

Thank you for listening.

- Jennifer Hina

When Yossi and I went to Miyagi to do volunteer work, our contact was a wonderful boatsman named Yoshida-san. Last month Yoshida-san, sent us a whopping box full of oysters. My friend Kiyoshi, who also did volunteer work under Yoshida-san's guidance, made us a bunch of different sauces and we ate SO many oysters. At the beginnning of the night, I didn't like oysters much at all, but by the end of the night I was digging them. These oysters are pretty special in that without donations and special help, there wouldn't be any oysters in Miyagi. I believe Yoshida-san sent them to celibrate our marriage, but eating them I felt like we were celebrating Tohoku and the fact that despite all the difficulties, Japan is still functional. It was wonderful!

http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000KakiParty.jpg

It's been almost one year since the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. I know you guys all saw the footage of murky waves devouring buildings and just looking at the statistics of lives lost is chilling. But we are human, and therefore stalwart, strong, and spirited. As the world turns, we push foreward.

But spirit is not always enough. There has to be real, actual help. When I stood there in Higashimatsushima, looking out at an inlet that had not existed before, that had once been people's ricefields, homes, and livelihood, and I saw nothing but trash, vehicles and boats floating in muddy seawater, I felt that intensely. Even the most strong-willed person is not enough to pull a car out of their rice field without any help. You can throw as much money as you like at an overturned boat on top of your shop, and it's not going to come down on its own. Someone has to lend a hand, someone has to go there and fix something.

And one year later, there are still hands needed, there are still places where people steal food to feed themselves, there are still homes waiting to be salvaged. . . A student of mine said the most surprising thing about going back to Iwate after one year was that not so much had changed. Not enough.

One year later and the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant is still melting down, they are still dumping radioactive water into the sea, the images on TV are still the same. . . Not much has changed.

So I want to remind everyone of this. Sure, there are lots of natural disasters everywhere, and you don't have to feel any guilt over Japan whether you do something or not. I just want to say - Remember that this happened.

This week I will be posting all the pictures I took last year in Miyagi Prefecture to http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com
I will post three pictures every day until I've exhausted my stash. If you could take the time to at least look at my pictures some time, remember what happened here, and know that it's not over for any of the people there. . . Just knowing that the world hasn't forgotten would make me feel better. And if you know a way to lend a hand otherwise, thank you.

I also posted this on facebook and DA... so sorry for the double posting for some of you! Ah facebook... I still can't figure it out 100%... Like why do I get email notifications sometimes but not every time? And is my "status" and my "wall" something different? When someone posts something, are they posting it to their "status update"? And how can I search for people based on location if I don't know their last name...??

Anyway. . .
In other news, I've been doing some massive rennovating on my website.. And hanging out with new Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai friends. Of course, I've been doing hiking, climbing rocks, hanging out in Osaka, and the other usual things I do. But I've been busy studying and working on my website, so I haven't been posting much to you guys. Sorry!

Jennifer

A few items:

1. I am going to be in Chicago from April 26th to May 5th for my sister's wedding. If anyone wants to hang out with Yossi and I, let me know. We're going to be staying at my sister's flat near Lincoln Park. We have 0 plans aside from the wedding... Yossi likes sports and beer, I like nature and art. Anyone have any ideas for something to do?

2. I failed to mention a while back that I uploaded a bunch of pictures to my DeviantArt photography account. Here:
http://antiretrovirus.deviantart.com/gallery
The snowy mountain ones are from our Tekitou Adventure to Mie Prefecture.
Snow is. . . Pretty.

3. How are YOU doing? What's changed since we last spoke? Have you made any embarrassing mistakes lately? Have you cooked anything really delicious? Tell me something new!

4. I did the dirty deed and got a Facebook AND a GooglePlus account. Feel free to add me or whatever, but. . . I'm really not online much contrary to popular belief.
I am considering, instead of sending out these mass emails, just putting up a link to my blog on FB whenever I update it. Who would be up for that?

5. Yossi and I went to a botannical garden to see. . . Cactus! These pictures were all taken with my sister in mind, so if cacti or carnivorous plants are not your thing you can skip these.
Goofy giant carnivorous plants - http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Shokubutsuen.jpg
Cactus and patterns - http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000CactusGarden.jpg
One with the Cacti - http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000HappyCactusGirl.jpg
My new awesome succulent - http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000MoyoPlant.jpg

6. One of my students was practicing for an interview. A sweet little girl of 15. I asked her to describe her personality and she said in all sweetness and sincerity, "I am vengeful." Not quite the thing you'd say at an interview. . .

Jenshin

So I've been thinking a lot about language lately.

Well I should say, since I'm a language teacher and have dedicated a lot of my life to learning another language, that I think about language pretty regularly. So I guess this means I've been thinking about it even more than regularly. Especially since I've started a new approach to learning at my Japanese class. I may not have mentioned to most of you that I take formal lessons at a specialty school for foreign students. I go there once a week. And then Yossi and I only speak Japanese with eachother, and I see him every day. All my friends in town, Takiko, Mai, the Myanmar lady, they all just speak Japanese. So pretty much my life outside of work is full of thinking in Japanese. And my life at work is thinking only in English. These two lives of mine are something I spend a good deal thinking about.

Recently I was thinking about this.
What is fluency?
Do you have to become just like a native speaker to be fluent?
What is a bilingual person and how do you know when you've become one?

It just occurred to me that this is going to get kind of long. So before I saw more, have a picture of some just plain craziness from Japan. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000SayWhat.jpg

When I was a kid, I used to think that no one could become bilingual who hadn't been using two languages since birth. I was pretty narrow-minded about that idea until I started meeting people who, before my own eyes, were speaking another language fluently. Like the editor translating for Nihei-san at the convention. . . I thought, "Maybe I can do that too some day!" I saw him as bilingual, then. Now, with the knowledge I have, I wonder if perhaps he wasn't bilingual, but he was good enough to get messages across. What is fluency? Does perfection figure in to it or not?

Why do I think he wasn't bilingual? Because I don't consider myself to be so fluent, so how could he? I make mistakes all the time, I can't understand the news on TV yet, I can't read a book. But then here I am, living in two languages. I speak to Yossi in the same language that I can't read a book in, and he understands me. We talk, we debate, we argue, we make up, we express our deepest emotions, we make jokes together. . . in this language that I tripped up in the other day at the convenient store and the lady there decided it would be easier to attempt to talk to me in English.

And yet, I met a woman the other day who's studying abroad. She looked me in the eye and said I was bilingual. What? Me?

A long time ago, back in college, when I had completed my first formal year of learning Japanese, I thought - I know the basics. Now all that's left is the details, and I'll be there!
Now, years and years later, I'm still learning the details. And I still don't feel like the basics are quite under my belt yet. I forgot some of them, too.

The thing that's different between that college girl and this person now, is that in college I was studying a language. It was a subject. There were tests, there were right and wrong answers, there were people who were better than me or worse than me - a ranking.
Now there are no right or wrong answers, there's no one better or worse than me, there's no language. . . There's just talking. Ideas going back and forth. People ask me if I ever get tired of having to speak in Japanese all the time. That's like saying - do you ever get tired of talking? Yeah I guess you might, if you did it too much.

My Buddhist mentor (I mean English student?) tells me that there's this moment of awareness that we have every time we see an object. It comes in to our view. And there's a moment between seeing it and giving it a label. I see a plant and I think, "plant." And in between those two things is this space of awareness in which there is only the object before me, without yet having been labeled. To be Enlightened is to be in that space where nothing has labels, to hold on to that awareness. The difference between speaking English and speaking Japanese is that that space is larger.

Someone who is not fluent, I suppose, sees the plant, and thinks first "plant" and then upon thinking of that label, finds a sub-label. A label for the label. Another word. "Shokubutsu." Whatever plant is in that other language you know. That's translating. Labeling the label with another word. Speaking is having just that space, and in that space, whether it be a short one or whether it takes a full minute, the label comes up in the language you weren't born to speak. That's what I call, "Thinking in Japanese." I can feel very keenly the difference between thinking a word and translating a word. When I learn new words, I start off with translating, but after a while I can feel those connections between labels fading, and the word has only one meaning, in only one language, in only one side of my brain. When I use that side, no labels come up in the other language. That's what bugs me about Japanese friends who constantly go, "Hey what's the word for this in English? How do you say this?" It's hard for me to think that way. I can explain what something means in English or Japanese, but I can't just flip between the two of them. I'm not a translator, I have no training for it, and I've never bothered to wire my brain that way.

Finally, I'm wondering what kind of advice to give to people who want to be like me.
More specifically, my students. None of them know I can speak Japanese, except maybe the Buddhist man. But I know that if they did know, they would want to know how it happened, and what they can do to get like this. How?
My first answer is - try.
I heard a coworker say the other day that while he considers himself proficient in Japanese, he doesn't think he could ever express himself in it like he does English. The idea of doing that is so far off to him, despite his proficiency, that he can't even imagine it as a goal.
And my thought to that is - he probably just has no motivation to try.
Maybe he had a bad day. And someone asked him in another language, "How are you?" And he said, "Just leave me alone."
That's fluency, but not communication.
Becoming fluent AT communication means taking every single little emotion you're feeling, and finding words for ALL of those! And having all of those words on hand to use at any time. It means explaining to Yossi what is making me cry while I'm still in the act of crying. It means instead of taking the easy way out and laughing, to tell someone that their joke was bad. And doing so politely in a friendly way, so that they'll keep on trying to joke with you more.

When I feel something, I try to think of a way to explain it to someone. I think this is a personality trait, and one that's helped me become as fluent as I am now in Japanese. At first it was slow to come, next it involved a lot of writing in a diary and listening to the way people talk and asking questions constantly. Now it just involves effort. Reminding myself not to take the easy way out. When you first learn a language, it's a little frightening and embarrassing when it takes you 5 minutes to say something that you can explain in English in 5 seconds. The great thing about communication though, is that unlike school subjects and studying, there's no final test. If you get it wrong, you can try again. And while you think you're making an ass of yourself, you're actually not. No one actually minds, no one is judging you the way you think they are.

My new friend, the study abroad student, told me that she noticed only people who are not fluent correct eachother. Native speakers rarely do.
Because a fluent person doesn't think in terms of right or wrong.
What's wonderful about Yossi is that he knows what it's like to speak a different language. So when I do make a mistake, he doesn't get shocked or confused, he just lets me trip up and gives me time to try again. If I tell Takiko I cooked dinner on my space heater, she'll be pretty weirded out. But if I tell Yossi, he'll take it in stride and let me change my word to "cooking stove" without making a big deal of it. A good communicator is someone who is comfortable with listening to mistakes. I think I failed at that a lot in the U.S. when Spanish speakers would talk to me. I didn't know how to handle communication mistakes. Now I do, and I often pick my friends based on their ability to handle mine.

One last part of this rant!
Living two languages, two lives, having two words for every item. . . I feel a little distant from friends and family in the U.S. They only know one side of me. They can only understand half of my way of thinking. But at the same time I feel distant from my Japanese friends who could never sit down long enough to read all these long, English sentences that you have read. So I'm part of two worlds that will never be one.
On the other hand, I have one whole world more than a lot of other people.
Let's celebrate a world in which this can happen!

- Jenshin