Suits/Nihongo/Should/the real generation gap
When I see men in suits I'm always amazed at the inhumanity of their clothing. Do they ever have itchy asses? Sore legs? Do they long to adjust their underwear? What do they do if they want to scratch in front of the boss? Do they heroically repress the urge to urinate when the urge hits them in meetings? The life of the body doesn't seem possible in a suit. Men in suits are faces and hands, mind and doing, with the rest of the body - associated with premodernism and blue collar work - walled away and sheathed in dark fabric, the only departure - the tie, the glimpse of shirt - only serving to direct the eye back to the face, the mind.
---
Learning Japanese while living in Japan is like adjusting a radio very, very, very slowly. Gradually, words become perceptible objects, familiar, instead of pauses amidst a flow of sound. But in terms of expressing myself, I'm like a child. There is a real comfort for me teaching 2-year-olds, because they're about as equipped as I am to deal with Japan. Our vocabularies are on par. It's incredibly frustrating for me, because talking is one of the things I enjoy most in life and there is a thriving, thrumming conversation around me all the time but I am deaf to it, I cannot understand. Seeing Kiyono and hanging out with her non-English-enabled friends is galvanising me as well and I'm starting to sop up Nihongo quicker than I thought possible. But for now I am clumsy, recruiting words to do more than their fair share of work - crude instruments, blunt, with no nuances, no sophistication. I'm starting with needs and working towards wants; starting with necessity and working towards the pleasure of dialogue for its own sake. It's a real thrill, recreating the environment in which I first learned language. Nani kore, I say - what's this? what's this? - and I actually remember more than I think I will. The smallest transactions that I manage are a joy - navigating a mobile phone contract with a smile and a catalogue; informing the taxi driver that I didn't have the cash to get home; declining a bag at a konbeen (convienience store). It's so, so interesting learning Nihongo, because here is a country which is like an alternate ending to the story of modernity - a different evolutionary path; same technology, different culture - and their language is utterly foreign to me. So many times I ask for a word for a concept and there is no equivalent and I wonder what shade of meaning I am communicating when I say it, what people actually hear when the word is said. Row told me yesterday that there are perhaps 4 variants of Nihongo - informal, polite, keigo (ultra-polite company/work speak) and the Nihongo which is only spoken to the Emperor, which reaches new levels of politeness and respect. I'm learning the informal version (I don't meet many businessmen), sans kanji at present but informal is hard enough for me. Still, the thrill of making meaning flow from me to someone else is an amazing, amazing feeling. Language is built to let us bridge the gap of self; I've been walled away from most other people my whole time here, and dismantling that wall is difficult, rewarding work. Learning Nihongo and teaching English is making me reflect on my own language, too - why exactly we structure English the way we do; what, exactly, it means to say 'almost' - on a percentage scale of likelihood, where is it? If I keep one thing from Japan, I want the language, I want access to the culture.
---
On Friday night, Kiyono's friend, F, said something unexpected. Doug, you always seem peaceful. Why is that, she asked. F's been through a rough patch, so I welcomed the chance to actually talk about it. Sometimes I pretend, I said, and sometimes pretending makes it real. But other times, I am peaceful because I have given up all the 'shoulds' in my life, now that I am in Japan. While talking to F, I realised that it was true - one of those times when you say something and then realise its resonance only afterwards. I have given up 'should'. I should get a career. I should do this. I should improve myself. I should, I should, I should - always, I should do something. Here, I've been able to largely kick the habit. Should? Fuck that. I want, or I need. I want to be with Kiyono. I need to work to buy food and pay rent. I want to get a little drunk. I need food. That's it. F nodded at this (not the interior monologue bit) and agreed, saying always she thought of should, should, should. But should is the influence of other people, should is a nasty, nasty word. 'Should' is unhappiness.
---
On Friday night, a little drunk, Kiyono, T and F were running up the escalator, darting around middle-aged men and women in sober suits, laughing and weaving and it struck me, looking at the disapproval on the faces of their parents generation - what an injustice, that you work your lives away piously hoping that your children will have a better life than you did, more opportunities, more fun, but then once you achieve that and your kids grow up, flourish, take drugs, love wildly, run up escalators, you resent the little shits for having the gall, the sheer temerity to actually do it and not continue with the cycle of responsibility and Building A Better Future. Fucking little bastards, we are, fucking little bastards.
---
When I see men in suits I'm always amazed at the inhumanity of their clothing. Do they ever have itchy asses? Sore legs? Do they long to adjust their underwear? What do they do if they want to scratch in front of the boss? Do they heroically repress the urge to urinate when the urge hits them in meetings? The life of the body doesn't seem possible in a suit. Men in suits are faces and hands, mind and doing, with the rest of the body - associated with premodernism and blue collar work - walled away and sheathed in dark fabric, the only departure - the tie, the glimpse of shirt - only serving to direct the eye back to the face, the mind.
---
Learning Japanese while living in Japan is like adjusting a radio very, very, very slowly. Gradually, words become perceptible objects, familiar, instead of pauses amidst a flow of sound. But in terms of expressing myself, I'm like a child. There is a real comfort for me teaching 2-year-olds, because they're about as equipped as I am to deal with Japan. Our vocabularies are on par. It's incredibly frustrating for me, because talking is one of the things I enjoy most in life and there is a thriving, thrumming conversation around me all the time but I am deaf to it, I cannot understand. Seeing Kiyono and hanging out with her non-English-enabled friends is galvanising me as well and I'm starting to sop up Nihongo quicker than I thought possible. But for now I am clumsy, recruiting words to do more than their fair share of work - crude instruments, blunt, with no nuances, no sophistication. I'm starting with needs and working towards wants; starting with necessity and working towards the pleasure of dialogue for its own sake. It's a real thrill, recreating the environment in which I first learned language. Nani kore, I say - what's this? what's this? - and I actually remember more than I think I will. The smallest transactions that I manage are a joy - navigating a mobile phone contract with a smile and a catalogue; informing the taxi driver that I didn't have the cash to get home; declining a bag at a konbeen (convienience store). It's so, so interesting learning Nihongo, because here is a country which is like an alternate ending to the story of modernity - a different evolutionary path; same technology, different culture - and their language is utterly foreign to me. So many times I ask for a word for a concept and there is no equivalent and I wonder what shade of meaning I am communicating when I say it, what people actually hear when the word is said. Row told me yesterday that there are perhaps 4 variants of Nihongo - informal, polite, keigo (ultra-polite company/work speak) and the Nihongo which is only spoken to the Emperor, which reaches new levels of politeness and respect. I'm learning the informal version (I don't meet many businessmen), sans kanji at present but informal is hard enough for me. Still, the thrill of making meaning flow from me to someone else is an amazing, amazing feeling. Language is built to let us bridge the gap of self; I've been walled away from most other people my whole time here, and dismantling that wall is difficult, rewarding work. Learning Nihongo and teaching English is making me reflect on my own language, too - why exactly we structure English the way we do; what, exactly, it means to say 'almost' - on a percentage scale of likelihood, where is it? If I keep one thing from Japan, I want the language, I want access to the culture.
---
On Friday night, Kiyono's friend, F, said something unexpected. Doug, you always seem peaceful. Why is that, she asked. F's been through a rough patch, so I welcomed the chance to actually talk about it. Sometimes I pretend, I said, and sometimes pretending makes it real. But other times, I am peaceful because I have given up all the 'shoulds' in my life, now that I am in Japan. While talking to F, I realised that it was true - one of those times when you say something and then realise its resonance only afterwards. I have given up 'should'. I should get a career. I should do this. I should improve myself. I should, I should, I should - always, I should do something. Here, I've been able to largely kick the habit. Should? Fuck that. I want, or I need. I want to be with Kiyono. I need to work to buy food and pay rent. I want to get a little drunk. I need food. That's it. F nodded at this (not the interior monologue bit) and agreed, saying always she thought of should, should, should. But should is the influence of other people, should is a nasty, nasty word. 'Should' is unhappiness.
---
On Friday night, a little drunk, Kiyono, T and F were running up the escalator, darting around middle-aged men and women in sober suits, laughing and weaving and it struck me, looking at the disapproval on the faces of their parents generation - what an injustice, that you work your lives away piously hoping that your children will have a better life than you did, more opportunities, more fun, but then once you achieve that and your kids grow up, flourish, take drugs, love wildly, run up escalators, you resent the little shits for having the gall, the sheer temerity to actually do it and not continue with the cycle of responsibility and Building A Better Future. Fucking little bastards, we are, fucking little bastards.
---
posted by Doug @ 5/08/2005 05:57:00 pm
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