| My Street -- First Week of Snow, Dec. 2002 |
|
| This was only the first week... image how it was after 4 months of snow!! |
So last November, as I saw that the miserable Niigata winter was approaching... I pictured myself trapped under 20-foot high snowdrifts, bundled up like an eskimo, sitting on my fat touche in my uninsulated apartment eating high-calorie food through chattering teeth and slowing turning into one big fat cell buried beneath a snow drift.
I decided that action must be taken. So, I waddled my way on down the road to the oh-so-convenient Shimi tikukan (City Gym) and in my perfectly eloquent Japanese asked, "Pardon me, fine sir. Would you mind me bothering you to ask about enrollment in an aerobics class?" [My real sentence probably was more like "Uh, sorry... Uh.... I want aerobics.... Uh.... Please?"]
My theory on this whole aerobics thing was that I would be killin' two birds with one stone:
1. I would have a great Japanese lesson.
2. I would at least slightly alleviate my chances of turning into the human fat cell.
I also was keeping in mind the fact that Japanese people don't dance. Ever. So, I thought, "Hey, maybe my total and complete lack of coordination/rhythm won't be quite so noticeable here?"
But, as a funky-lookin' foreigner in the backwoods of Japan, I am innately noticeable... And I forgot to take into account that my lack of rhythm might reflect upon my country and foreigners the world over... I was really wondering if they went home after my first day of class and told their families, "Hey, there was a FOREIGNER in aerobics tonight. Boy, foreigners sure don't have any rhythm!!"
But, in this case, at least my lack of Japanese is working in my favor. And no one is going to hear me blow my cover and say, "Oh, no, it's not that I don't understand what the instructor is saying... it's just that I'm THAT BAD."
One interesting point to mention with my Airobiku dansu class:
On the first day of class, both of the instructors [after they recovered from the initial "Oh my GOD! There's a foreigner in my class! What am I going to do?" coronary heart failure] bravely walked up to me and apologized for not conducting the class in English: "Engurish dekimasen. [I can't English.] 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. Dake [Only 1-8]. Gomen Kudasai. [I'm so unbelievably sorry that I don't know how you will ever forgive me for not accommodating you and continuing to conduct the following class in Japanese.]"
I am only one person in a 50 student class, yet they feel guilty for not accommodating me -- the only English speaker. And so they use big gestures and occasionally throw in their 1 to 8 in English.... they check on me to be sure I'm OK... and tonight, the instructor was explaining something, and before she started, she turned to me and said in Japanese, "This is difficult Japanese... please excuse me. I'm sorry if it is difficult for you to understand."
Coming from north Texas where it sometimes seems there is a zero tolerance policy of "If they're livin' in this country, they gotta speak ENGLISH," I find this very very interesting. Not that I think that people should live in foreign countries and not try to learn the language... I really am trying to learn Japanese, but language acquisition is a slow process (especially when you can't really read anything!).
So the next time you stumble upon a non-native English speaker stumbling over words in a broken sentence that you believe constitutes the butchering of your beloved mother tongue... think of Jennifer in Japan and her frequent annihilation of the Japanese language... ...... ....... ...... and at least be patient. : )
|
