Japan becomes a different place once one can read – even a little.
After years of start-and-stop study, I could at long last follow road directions, shop signs, menus, and advertisements. When stuck with a bill, I not only knew how much I owed, but what it was for.
What the silliness below doesn’t show is that learning to read takes diligent effort, with a major stumbling block being Chinese characters, known as kanji.
Kanji flashcards used to clutter my office like flakes of dandruff on a dark suit. An analogy that really works for me. I am glad those years are past. That’s right: No more kanji cards. And no more dark suits.
I was not, am not, nor will ever be a skilled translator, but I know many people who are. One of those is indeed a friend surnamed “Baker” down in Yokohama, who appears parenthetically near the end of this column. He can do highfalutin scientific reports too.
But not me. I handle lowfalutin content only.
The Joy of Kanji
Feb. 17, 1999
When I first came to this country, I never thought I’d have to learn the language.
Oh sure, I wanted to pick up enough to perhaps order a cold drink on a hot day, but figured I’d be back in America long before I needed much more.
Then an odd thing happened: I married a Japanese and ended living here forever.
Thus, I learned how to tack together sentences and how to wiggle out of an endless comedy routine of language errors.
Like last summer, when I tried to ask for a little ice in my drink and instead asked for a little dinosaur (kori vs. kyoryu)
But the spoken language has been the “easy” part. The written word – those cursed kanji – has always been the real ice down my communicative pants.
I know there are some foreign language learners who actually enjoy kanji. Just as I know there are some people who liked being tied down with leather and whipped.
I am not in either such group.
My wife, however, adores the written form of her language and claims never to feel so at peace as when, with brush and ink, she sits and solemnly practices calligraphy.
Have I, she asks, ever experienced such deep contentment?
Sure. When I eat pizza.
Like most Japanese my wife has kanji stroke order chiseled into her brain. With just her index finger, she can flash a kanji out in midair and every Japanese in the room will understand.
She argues that this is nothing special and that English writers can surely do the same.
I find that fellow foreigners can indeed keep up with simple air words such as a “dog” or “cat,” but once I hit the harder animals, forget it.
Try it. Lift your finger and scribble, “You look like a porcupine,” and see how many people nod their heads.
If she is not writing in midair, my wife will rapidly draw a character in her left palm.
She is not the only one. One of this country’s most endearing images is a room of Japanese trying to unravel a questionable kanji. Each and every person will stand there tracing the stroke order into their palm, all showing their work to each other for approval.
I never dispute kanji with my wife since she knows her stuff. But on occasion, I like to shout, “The character looks like this!” and with my finger sketch a wild maze of lines into my palm.
Sometimes she will blink at this so hard you can see the word “Tilt!” flicker in her eyes.
Other times she will just hit me.
Yet as a commitment both to my adopted country and my kanji-loving wife, long ago I made a determined effort to learn to read written Japanese.
This began with kanji flash card. Which I soon sought to return.
For while the English on each side was different, the Japanese sides all looked the same.
Informed otherwise, I worked and worked with those kanji cards and finally, through diligent, daily practice, succeeded in constructing some cool card houses.
Discipline was obviously what I needed, so I hired a tutor, a local task-master who moonlighted as a rugby coach.
But I lost confidence in this woman when she told me my written characters all looked like bugs.
Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, including even what I contrive in this column. Through the years, I have gradually acquired enough kanji ability that occasionally someone will ask me to translate.
In this, I have learned Murphy’s Law of Translation:
“In every document, there is at least one character that has never been entered into any dictionary anywhere.”
Add this to the fact that the number of kanji I still don’t know would fill the Tokyo Dome 500 times and you might imagine my challenge.
I get around indecipherable terms, the old-fashioned way: I make things up.
How? By working in impressive English phrasing like “indubitably” and “nincompoopian” as often as possible.
An example from a research paper:
“Indubitably dimwitted rats from Group A were joined via the lips to similar rats from Group B through a complex nincompoopian maneuver, using Superglue.
“After coating rats thoroughly with whipped cream, except for their eyes, pairs were stretched linearly, with their tails clipped into opposing light sockets.
“The rats were then given 90 gazillion kilowatts of electricity in two second bursts in order to test how well whipped cream sticks to electrified rats while kissing.
“While all test rats survived this procedure, three rats watching from the control group died laughing.
“Baker (Yokohama 1997) reports that, in similar tests involving timber wolves, not only did the entire control group perish, but also two researchers, including himself.”
I lose translation clients this way, but after long hard years, at last I am beginning to understand what my wife feels.
There is some joy in kanji after all.
© by Thomas Noah Wood
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