Language, Time Capsules, and Japanese Class

“Sumimasen” (すみません) is a magical word. Depending on context, it can mean “I’m sorry,” “Excuse me,” or “Thank you,” and it can get you out of almost any pickle you happen to find yourself in. JTE talking too fast? “Sumimasen, can you repeat that, please?” You trip over someone on the train? “Sumimasen, sumimasen!” (and throw in a “gomenasai”—the real “I’m sorry”—too, for good measure, so they’ll quit thinking darkly, “Pinche gajin…These foreigners are ruining our country!”

I felt happy yesterday because I felt like I helped the gaijin cause. First, the woman behind me in line at the sushi counter dropped a 100-yen coin but didn't realize it. When I picked it up and handed it to her, with a maybe impolite, “Anata-no desuku?” (Is this yours?) she gave me a shocked look, stared incomprehensibly at her palm with the other coins in it, and stared back at me. Then she let out a string of “sumimasen”s, which could have meant, “I’m sorry to have troubled you,” or could have been, “Thank you so much for your trouble!” or maybe, “OK, thank you, goodbye.”

Then on the bus headed home from the Takasaki train station, a woman’s wheeled suitcase flew across the floor when the bus driver took a turn too fast. Since I was the closest to it, I picked it up for her and rolled it back to her seat. “Sumimasen! Suminasen!” she cried. Score two for the white girl.

(This may or may not balance out the butter incident in Tako-machi, Chiba-ken. I put two sticks of butter on the counter to pay for them. The cashier looked at me, looked at the butter, looked at me again, and asked hesitantly if I want a bag. No, thank you. Is a sticker ok? Yes, quite ok. He put the stickers on the butter and slid them across the counter to me. I showed my wallet. Aren’t I supposed to pay for these? He made an embarrassed noise and rang them up. 200-odd yen. I paid, got my change, left. Half-way back, I realized he only charged me for one. Do I go back? How do I explain? Did he do it on purpose? Was he too shaken up by the sight of a non-Japanese person that he forgot what he was doing? In the end, I didn’t go back, and I let my guilty conscience accompany me home. I still feel kind of bad about it.)

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HOUSE

There is something absolutely comforting about being in my apartment—wrapped up in a quilt on the couch, or curled up on my 4-layer deep futon—that just seems like home. I wonder, though, if home is just anywhere I am, if I just make it home. No matter where I’m living, it seems like I always end my day writing in my diary and reading a book. Last night before I turned out the lamp, I looked at my bookcase and saw the same titles that have accompanied me for the past ten years: some Ray Bradbury, some poetry, some Cortázar, and a bound blank book that serves as journal. I guess it’s these rituals that keep me grounded.

Speaking of rituals and being grounded, I got an email yesterday from Forbes.com. Apparently, I had signed up for its 5-Year E-Mail Time Capsule on November 8, 2005. I’m not going to copy the whole thing, but here’s part of it:

“Well, it’s noon on Tuesday, November 8, 2005. I’m sitting in my office at [X] in Greensboro, North Carolina….I’ve got a lot of plans for the next five years and I really hope they happened.

1. Travel to Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, and/or London. AT LEAST Mexico!!!

2. MOVE OUT OF THE HOUSE I’M IN NOW and get a real house in the country with lots of room and space for a garden and animals.

….

4. Be happy.

I am 23 years old right now. I will be 28 in five years. Lord, Lord, Lord.

…

And so, I leave you here, at 12:08 p.m., sitting in this office wearing your fuzzy GAP pants and shirt, about to take a phone call.

Love,

Jaimie”

Funny, isn’t it, how time flies. In 1997, I put together a “time capsule” in a checkbox, taped it all together, and wrote in capital letters: “DO NOT OPEN UNTIL AUGUST 29, 2007, 1:07 P.M..” When the allotted hour arrived, I tore open the tape eagerly, having forgotten everything I had put in there. And much was my disappointment when all I found from 15-year old Jaimie was a couple of pictures of Leonardo DiCaprio, some plastic hair clips, pages ripped from a teen magazine, and something written about a boy I had a crush on then (yeah, you know who you are). I think I had just been cleaning my room back then when the urge to preserve some part of my life struck me—or maybe I was just bored with straightening up?—so I packed it up quickly from random objects strewn around my room. Next time I’ll have to do a better job.

But back to this 2005 time capsule. Well, in the past five years, I’ve managed to go to Mexico three times and Bolivia once, although I still haven’t gone to Argentina or England. And I can certainly say I moved out of my house…. and city…and state….and country….Check. Of course, Japan isn’t really known for its “lots of room and space for a garden and animals” but I guess I’ll get that when I go back home to stay. I will also say I feel quite happy with my life now (except when I'm in Japanese class, as you will see below). I just wish I knew where those fuzzy GAP pants and shirt were. . . .

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Japanese Class

It still gives me a headache. Yesterday, I was so stressed out from 2 hours of not understanding and not being able to communicate (“Quit giving me new assignments when I don’t understand the old ones!!!!”) that as soon as I got in my car and drove ten feet, I screamed at the top of my lungs for 30 seconds. It didn’t help. I went home and did 20 push-ups quick. It still didn’t help. I was furious, furiously furious like I haven't been in a long time. I threw on my tennis shoes and pounded down my neighborhood streets in the dark, stopping at the corners and high-speed jump-roping until I was so out of breath my lungs hurt. After about 20 minutes of this madness, sprinting and jump-roping, I wore myself out. I stumbled home and sprawled out on the couch for the next hour, sipping water and trying to breathe. Then I read “Dance, Dance, Dance” and went to sleep.

This morning I woke up and my knee hurts again.

What does this tell me about teaching a foreign language? About language-learning? About me as a teacher and a student? What can I learn from all this?