Established: 1902
519 Sixth Avenue S.
Seattle, WA 98104
(206)623-0100
mail to: info@napost.com |
   
Serving As Your Voice of the Nikkei Community Since 1902
Vol. 63, Issue 22 / May 21, 2008
Bilingual Sansei
By David K. Yamaguchi
The North American Post
Linda Suyama, living her dream.
 | RECENTLY Shihou Sasaki of this paper e-mailed to remark that Linda Suyama, of Azuma Gallery, speaks even nicer Japanese than Susan Oki (of Nikkei Concerns). Shihou's finding surprised both of us, because Susan had been our informal "gold standard" of Japanese language achievement by Sansei-my generation of working-age Japanese Americans now a century removed from Japan.
Hearing of Linda's skill was pleasing for me, because I know something of how she grew up. Her brothers were among the urchins who descended on the baseball diamond in my Okamura cousins' well-worn backyard, where all the kids hung out. From this, I know that Linda grew up in an ordinary JA household on Beacon Hill. All this is a roundabout way of introducing the topic of Japanese-English bilingual Sansei.
Background on my linguistically challenged generation's native Japanese language ability is in order. One youthful memory paints the picture.
Shortly after starting the seventh grade at Asa Mercer, I remember sitting in that big second-floor classroom overlooking the playground at Japanese school. The room is known mainly for its great windows, out of which the likes of "Poko" Egashira, Mike Ikeda, James Hachiya, and I would waft paper airplanes, one of many boyhood fine-arts that we perfected there. At the start of that year, a new girl, Feliciana Bergano, joined our class, which I remember because later everyone at Mercer developed a crush on her.
In any case, the teacher prompted Felly to say something to us, so on the spot she came out with "Mina-san, mainichi, asagohan to hirogohan to bangohan no toki ni, nani wo tabemasu ka?"*
I remember the teacher's jaw dropping-not at Felly's statement, but at the realization that most of us had no clue what she said, even though it is routine everyday conversation. By then, most of us had attended Japanese school for six years of Saturday mornings! Unlike most of us-the progeny of Nisei parents who were striving to be Americans, Felly could speak Japanese. Like Jean Sequina [Nakayama, of Maneki], she had a mom who was from Japan. The rest of us would remain clueless in class, week after week, year after year.
Fast forward three decades. Today there are Sansei like Linda, Susan, Kanako Kashima, Linda Ando, and Lynn Miyauchi-of the Japanese consulate-all of whom speak wonderful Japanese.#
While there are probably a few others that I have missed-for example, when I dropped by Linda mentioned her Franklin High partner-in-crime Leslie Habu-the point is that we are looking at maybe a dozen individuals out of the hundreds who passed through Japanese-language classes. Thus, the path to bilingualism is apparently difficult enough-and uncool enough-that the number of Sansei who have achieved proficiency compares with the few who have similarly achieved success on the daunting roads of the Japanese martial arts-kendo, judo, and the like.
This ancient history matters because Yonsei are now at the point of making life choices that will determine whether or not they can be Japanese linguists. You have to be well en-route by your twenties or it won't happen. It takes a young brain to be able to retain the words.
What does it take? The journey is seldom spelled out. My experience is that it takes thousands of hours of exposure. Think of students of SCUBA or of flying who measure their experience in the hundreds to thousands of hours. Learning Japanese is like that. It requires a willingness to stick with it for the long term. One must be a diligent disciple for ten years.
A misunderstanding angle I hear now and then from young people is "I'll learn when I get to Japan." This isn't the right approach for Yonsei, whose faces are indistinguishable from those of natives on the streets of Japan. Rather than coming across as retarded, my experience has been that it works better if you are clearly a bilingual JA from Day One. You should be able to respond intelligently in Japanese from the point of checking in for your flight at SeaTac. The clock is ticking on your aging brain. Yonsei hoping to complete the journey need to be learning now, wherever they are, however they can. Without advance preparation, you'll waste valuable limited time in Japan learning to sound like an idiot. So the question becomes, how and when in life can you accumulate the necessary hours?
In my case, the 6000 hours it took to get to the point where I could comfortably deliver lectures in Japanese, and travel off the beaten track in Japan without the crutch of a dictionary, follows.
Senri no michi mo ippo kara. A thousand-mile journey begins with one step. Young Yonsei-How about you?
Jpn. school (2 hrs/wk x 9 mo x 12 yr)
High school (2 hrs/wk x 2 yr)
College (20 hrs/wk x 2 yr)
Adult study (in my car, 8 hrs/wk x 6 yr)
Japan in-country (10 hrs/wk x 2 yr)
*"Everyone, what do you eat daily for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?"
#There are also unusual cases. One is Binko Bisbee-Chiong (of Kobo), whose mother was Nisei, but spent 1946-1964 in Japan, where Binko attended kindergarten. Another is my cousin, Diane Y., whose mother is Japanese-Canadian. Vancouver Nisei like Auntie Sue had to be serious about learning Japanese in their youth as they lacked Canadian citizenship.
Back to Sansei Journal
|
|