Most signs in Japan are written like this.
Unfortunately for me, I moved here without being able to read any of it, or speak it for that matter so seeing a sign like that meant nothing to me except maybe not to feed your children to trains.
Don't get me wrong, I knew enough spoken Japanese to order fried chicken, fries and a Coke because really, how hard is it to say "furaido chikin, furaido potato to Coca Cora"? But reading is another matter.
I have no memory of ever being illiterate. I don't remember kindergarten or most of elementary school. For as far as my memory goes, there's always been a book, a piece of paper or more recently some electronic device that allows me understand, learn or entertain myself or make myself understood. Most of us take our ability to read, write and communicate for granted.
When we moved over here, I was more concerned with my kids' ability to integrate themselves into the school system, make friends and communicate. But children have an uncanny ability to learn new languages. I've seen my seven year old son play with his school mates and they talk to each other in their own languages and answer back as if they knew what the other was saying. The first time I encountered this was years ago when my friends Anita and Tyler adopted a boy from India. Their six year old daughter played with him and they would talk back and forth without issue. When my wife asked her how she understood, her answer was "I just know what he's saying". Kids are amazing.
But us adults are not.
Besides the words Japanese has borrowed from English, Spanish or Portuguese, the three languages I can speak and read, I knew nothing of this tongue when I moved here. So often I stare at the pictures on signs or just shrug and move along because I can't read. Or when someone speaks to me I nod and smile and I can see their expression change from friendly to "what's with this stupid foreigner?"
To solve this I did what every person in my situation would do. Go to You Tube! No seriously. There I started looking at videos of Japanese lessons just so I could get acquainted with this language so different than any other I know. I found one goofy guy that has hundreds of instructional videos in a series he called Japanese From Zero. I've learned quiet a bit from it but it's not my main source of instruction.
Along with You Tube, I found a resource the City of Osaka offers. Several times a week, the city has free Japanese lessons taught by volunteers, mostly retired teachers, at elementary schools. Fortunately for me, one of those is offered at a school about a 15 minute walk from our home. About eight weeks ago, I went to my first lesson on a Friday evening at 7:15.
First, before going into the classroom, you have to take off your shoes and put on these silly green slippers. Needless to say they didn't have any size 13 slippers. Or 12. Not even a 10. The lady in charge of the class saw how absurd I looked wearing size 9 slippers and laughed at a very high decibel level. I just knew this place would be a good fit for me in spite of the tiny slippers. I kicked those ugly green things off and proceeded to just go in my socks. No use looking ridiculous and feeling uncomfortable.
The lady showed me to my seat, provided me with a pen and gave me a questionnaire, completely in Japanese, and told me to fill it up and walked away. Hmm... how am I supposed to fill this paper when I can't read it? After a few minutes I was able to get her attention and told her the phrase I've used the most over the last three months: "Nihongo wakarimasen" or "I don't understand Japanese". She was speechless. She appeared surprised and in my sarcastic mind, I said to myself "of course she's surprised, because everyone coming to this class speaks, reads and writes Japanese fluently!"
She told me to wait so I sat there confused and wondering if this is just not for me. After what seemed like a month, this little lady in her sixties, wearing a surgical mask and three jackets, in spite of it being 80 degrees, ran into the classroom, bowed deeply and apologized. The lady that handed me the still blank questionnaire went to her pointed at me and they both came to me. The newcomer introduced herself as Mrs Higuchi and told me in a mix of English and Japanese that she would be my "sensei" or teacher. Visions of "paint on/paint off" and "wax on/wax off" flooded my mind.
Japanese has three forms of writing: Hiragana, for words original to the Japanese language, katakana for words borrowed from foreign languages, like the aforementioned furaido chikin, and kanji which are characters borrowed from Chinese. On that first lesson she assessed my level of Japanese, which at the time was as fluent as a one year old and she started by showing me how to write the vowels in hiragana. At the end of this first lesson she sent me home with a stack of papers showing how to write each hiragana character and that we would work together in learning them all.
I find her method of teaching fascinating. She wants me to learn to read first. She believes that I should master reading and writing hiragana and katakana and that the meaning of the words is not important yet, the meaning will come later. Paint on/paint off, wax on/wax off.
So every Friday evening, I sit in a corner with Higuchi sensei and read story books for first graders. And every day I work at writing hiragana over and over again at home. I've filled up four notebooks with the same characters, page after page. I hear them and see them in my sleep and every time I go somewhere I look at the signs and I identify the characters. And every day I wonder if my almost 50 year old brain still has enough juice left to learn a new language.
After eight weeks, I was finally able to write the entire hiragana set of characters from memory and without hesitation. It was exhilarating! And in that moment of triumph, I remembered the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson that so poetically describe this voyage my family has embarked on:
Come, my friends,
T'is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds:
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
