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Ah, it's so nice to be back in San Diego!
Although I love my adopted home of Japan, nothing beats the
freedom of zooming down the 805 freeway in an open Miata.
There are many ways to approach an interest in
Japan, through classical arts such as ikebana, for example, or
through appreciation of Japan's manga and anime culture, if
that's your thing. During my Japanese studies, I read quite a
bit of Japanese literature, especially novels by some of Japan's
greatest writers such Souseki Natsume (the guy on the previous
1000 yen note), who wrote Kokoro, the touching story of a tragic
love triangle in late 19th century Japan. Souseki, along with
others like Mori Ougai, were modernizing Japan's literature at
the same time Japan was Westernizing its institutions, actively
borrowing elements from European novels and short stories. For a
while there I was reading quite a lot, and decided to take on
another favorite book of mine in Japanese: Flowers for Algernon.
It was interesting to read how the Japanese version substitutes
mistaken kanji for the misspellings of Charly Gordon in the
beginning and ending sections of the book.
If you ever want to really learn something,
try teaching it. I never realized how little I knew about the
structure and grammar of English until I became an English
teacher, and had to wrestle with difficult questions from my
Japanese students. Why do we say in a movie theatre but on a
ship? How big does something have to be to qualify for
"on" status? Since students want to know the
"why" and not just what "sounds right" to my
ear, I had to pour over grammar books to find the answers
students were seeking. I never realized that verbs come in sets
of three -- present, past and past participle -- that ESL
students have to memorize, e.g. swim, swam, swum, drink, drank,
drunk, etc. I really learned a lot about my own language from
teaching in Japan.
And now it's time for our annual ceremony --
the 22.5 hour drive from San Diego to Dallas, for A-Kon 16, the
fantastic anime convention held June 3-5 at the Adam's Mark
Hotel. Although making the 1500 mile drive straight is hard,
it's a fun road trip too, a chance to really get out and see an
America that's as far removed from Japan as could be. We've got
Hotel California on our iPods and will enjoy the change of
scenery of the desert. If you're going to be at A-Kon, we'd
really like to see you there! See http://www.a-kon.com for info
on the show.
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