Learning Japanese

On Being a Student

にほんごのがくせい

I don’t know how to swear in Japanese.

Knowing how to curse is truly a mark of knowing a language and culture, so it’s no surprise that I’m clueless in this regard. I wrote before about how I’m living in an expat bubble here in Tokyo, and it's surprising how few Japanese people I actually interact with: our building managers, store clerks, a few parents at S—’s school, and teachers. There is no plausible scenario in which I learn cursing from any of those sources. This is an incredibly polite society after all.

Our experience feels more international than Japanese. S—’s best friend is French, our dog walker is Russian, S—’s soccer coach is Honduran, and her ballet teacher is Israeli. In my limited experience, the foreigner crowd breaks down into roughly three categories. The first comprises those seeking economic opportunity. (True of immigrants everywhere, of course.) In our community in Japan, for example, there are many Filipino emigrants who work as nannies and housekeepers. It’s one of those situations in which global macroeconomics are rendered on a microeconomic level: these bright, hardworking women—who typically speak at least three languages—care for the children and families of Americans and Europeans in order to send money to their own children and families back home.

(I don’t study economics, but I do take words seriously. In writing this post, I looked up the definitions of “immigrant,” “emigrant,” and “expatriate” / “expat,” and found a very sassy explanation from Merriam-Webster on the topic. Apparently, dictionary writers can be shady!)

Toddler gazes out at Tokyo skyline.

The second category of Japanese immigrants I encounter are the adventurous, people genuinely interested in the country’s culture, or in having a broad experience, who come here to teach or seek other work on their own. Many speak the language, or learn it, and some fall in love with native Japanese and end up make Japan their home. I admit I only know most of these people via Twitter and Instagram. By following them, I get a sense of how difficult it can be to establish residency here, and the ways in which a country they love very much can also be very problematic. (e.g. Landlords can and do discriminate against foreigners, and it can be very difficult to find an apartment. And when I say “can,” that could either mean there is no law against this discrimination, or such a law exists but is not enforced.)

Photo by @jlhopes via UnSplash. Many of the bloggers/Gram’ers/Tweeters I follow in Japan are here for these kinds of vistas, and capture them so much better than I ever could. Here, the iconic Mt Fuji in the background.

I am in awe of both of these categories of people, at their resiliency and openness to change. You have to be nimble and pack light if you want to be a global citizen, and our family definitely doesn’t fit this mold. Remember Desmond and all his metaphorical baggage? Not to mention all the stuff we just had packed up and moved across the Pacific: some by plane, the bulk by container ship. I feel this mixture of guilt and disbelief when I look at items like our shitty Home Depot patio furniture, the parchment and foil we bought long ago from Whole Foods, and my daughter's pink princess tent—and think of the two separate moving teams that handled all this pointless crap on both sides of the Pacific. Such is the spoiled, sheltered life of the third category of people living abroad, the one into which I fit: company-sponsored expats.

Expats like us are here for a limited time, and receive assistance with everything from finding (and sometimes paying for) housing, registering with our wards, buying cell phones, and obtaining driver’s licenses or other documentation. Many of these expats don’t know the language, and have no desire to learn it because it’s not strictly necessary. The reasoning behind maintaining ignorance makes sense in some ways: an expat like me is only here for a brief time, which is not long enough to gain actual, useful language skills. By the time one might obtain some proficiency, it's time to leave! Also, why spend time in a classroom when one can be out exploring the country, and generally enjoying the cushy expat life?

I understand those arguments, but decided to learn the language anyway, and have dedicated much of my time to it in the past few months. For two months, I attended and intensive class for two hours a day, four days a week. Now I am taking a more typical part-time schedule of two hours, twice a week. The result? I recognize two out of the three Japanese character systems, which I guess means I have the reading and writing proficiency of a kindergartner, though I am way way behind a 5-year-old when it comes to speaking and listening skills. I can give directions in a cab with some proficiency, and ask for or refuse a bag at the store. My fellow expats aren’t exactly wrong in their cost-benefit calculations: I could do most of these things anyway with Google maps and hand gestures.

Nevertheless, there are still reasons to study Japanese. First: what else am I going to do? Due to the “panorama” (which I am beyond tired of thinking and talking about) I limit the amount that I visit indoor venues, dine out, and take the train. A shame, because the subway system is incredible here, exponentially better than New York City’s. When I visited Tokyo in 2019, most days I would pick a spot from a map or guidebook, and S— and I would hop on the train and go explore. Oh, the freedom and spontaneity of the Before Times!

But back to the present. The second reason I’m taking Japanese is that it’s an opportunity to actually get to know Japanese people, ask them questions, and learn about the culture as well as the language. (With the exception of knowing how to swear.) From my teachers, who have all been funny and incredibly kind, I’ve learned a lot about Japan beyond just the language.

One of my instructors said nikujaga—a sort of meat stew—was emblematic of Japanese home cooking I found a recipe online and gave it a try. Pretty good!

A third reason for taking Japanese is so I can support S—, who is immersed in the language for half of her school week. We could have easily sent her to an English-only program, but decided against it because I always wanted a language immersion experience for my kid, because it is something I wish I had. (Brief family history: my maternal great-grandparents immigrated to Detroit from Poland. My grandparents spoke some Polish, but never to their grandchildren, and very little to their own children, because the pressure to assimilate was so strong. Damn you Henry Ford and your melting pot!)

I never thought S—’s second language would be Japanese, though she can continue to use it when we return home: there are two Japanese-immersion elementary schools that we know of in Seattle. Maybe that will be motivation enough for me to continue my Japanese when we return home—and also brush up on and improve my Spanish.

Again, why should I invest my time and effort in learning other languages? In the US, I don’t need to know a language other than English. And when (if?!) normal life resumes, I can travel all over the world speaking English, and essentially make everyone else accommodate me. (Which, ugh, I also hate that part of my American-ness, that sense of entitlement.)

I turn 37 this summer, and by that age, it feels like I am meant to be set in terms of growth: I am who I am, for better or worse. But at this moment, I can’t really say that I’m a teacher or a professor, as I’ve been off the job for over a year. I feel like a fraud if I call myself a writer. I can’t call myself a housewife or stay-at-home mother without chafing at the internalized misogyny of it all. But I like the idea of being a student; I like learning Japanese. I’m not too old to change, and I hold out hope I’ll be one of those adventurous global citizens one day: packing light, landing somewhere new, and experience what life is truly like in an unfamiliar place.

Here is my embarrassing attempt at practicing my hiragana and katakana characters using a real calligraphy set. I probably did not mix the ink right, my stroke order is likely wrong, but…learning!