Interlude

We have some more blogging to do about our regional travels since returning to Osaka but I'd thought I'd fill the void with some thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head.

It actually started when we were hiking through a temple area outside of Kyoto on Mt. Kurama. After our hard slog up the steep hairpin paths covered with mud and snow, we were almost racing down the hill as we headed back to the road. I/We'll probably go into more boring detail later about this up and down, but what I noticed as we descended was the constant "konnichiwa"s we we exchanged with those making the much slower ascent. After several of these it occurred to me that I was saying konnichiwa with much more fluidity and "correct" accent than many other words that I regularly use, and yet it still felt like a strange, special utterance each time. I know what it means, it made sense to be exchanging greetings with each group as we passed, but it still felt somewhat detached. After this went on for a while, the sense of strangeness increased and the word began to feel somewhat gnomic. It was as if konnichiwa were just the thing to say as we passed, and contained no actual meaning. I'm sure that this is common in one's native language as well and I'm just noticing it more because my Japanese skills are so limited. 

In any event, in the following days this led to other thoughts about language and living here in Japan. In particular, I've felt and increasing disjunction between my knowledge and study of Japanese with my ability to use it in the real world. I'm sure that things would be different if I had a regular native Japanese speaker to converse with, but as it is, I only get to use Japanese in restaurants, café's and other retail situations. At first, things were progressing apace and I felt like I was settling in to some sort of basic Japanese competency when it comes to understanding basic questions and making basic requests. But lately I've felt something of a slippage in my confidence in these situations. I was unsure what was going on... but then the other day it dawned on me. The large number of things I order at coffeeshops, etc., are simple transliterations from western languages. E.g., (in bad phonetics) "burendo koh-hee"="blend coffee", "hot-to tee"="hot tea", "my-oh-nay-zoo"="mayonaise", etc. 

At first I was just stumbling through by saying these things in English and pointing if they didn't understand. But now I've come to realize that even though they look English, French, etc., the pronunciation is so different that it really does matter how I say it and I can't just get by with my English pronunciations. So now I've got this traffic jam in my head when I see words that I know are borrowed from English but I have to use a Japanese pronunciation that doesn't feel at all natural. 

So these are some of the things that occupy my Japan-brain when I'm not slogging through facsimiles in French for my writing... I trust that you've been riveted to your seat by my musings on these vital issues in our time. 

Anyway, as I said, we'll have more to report about our winter shrine visitations soon.