Today is July 1st. Normally, this would not be too memorable of a day; regular school is usually on break, and summer school wont begin until after the 4th of July. However, this year is unlike previous years because of my study abroad here in Hiroshima. This day marks the beginning of the last full month I will have in Japan. I will only have two weeks in August before I return to Hawaii, and begin a new year at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. As much as I want to go back home, I am filled with fear, not quite unlike when I came here. While I know that I will overcome them, the uncertainty of it all worries me.
First of all, my friends in Hawaii have changed. Not that this is bad, or unwanted; indeed, it would be wrong of me to have expected them to have stayed frozen in a year. But that's just it; a year has passed, in which they've done things, experienced things, and may not be like when I left them. While as far as I can tell, they're all still friends, they may have met people whom they have become closer to, while there are others who have left their life. How will I deal with this? I would not like to offend anyone, but what if I ask them about someone or something that brings up unpleasant memories or feelings? I cant be sure exactly of what kind of changes have happened, because I have only kept in contact with them through facebook, but I would be really surprised if everything were as when I left Hawaii.
But what really bothers me is how much I've changed. And I'm not talking about my Japanese ability (which, to be honest, got only marginally better, imho). For one thing, I've developed a relationship with alcohol. I still maintain that I'm not a hardcore partier, who drinks it every night, and gets drunk all the time, but I would be lying if I said that it had never happened, or that I understand the allure. But how this will integrate with my life in Hawaii is something I do not know. I know that I will not be able to drink as often as I do here, because I will be more concentrated on my schoolwork. But also, how will I drink? I am not inclined to go clubbing, but will my friends want to join me at 居酒屋? We wont have a lake to gather around like we do here, so will someone's dorm or common area be acceptable? Who will join me? I'd rather not have hardcore people there, but will my regular friends join me, drinking what they will, while I have my 梅酒?
Another hard change for me will probably be focusing on school work. While I never slacked off as hard as some people, I didnt try as hard as I could have in school. I mean, I passed alright, but not as amazingly as I could have. And things havent gotten better here in Japan. Because I dont understand everything the teacher says, I've let a lot of things slip by, instead of looking them up, or noting them down. And it doesnt help that Japanese standards are a lot lower than American ones, which means I'm getting by on things that would never fly in America. I guess you could say that my academic abilities have degraded somewhat here in Japan. However, when I go back to Hawaii, that must change. I'll be entering my senior year, which means I'll be taking more upper division classes. Those are going to be more challenging than anything I've taken before (hopefully), so it is unlikely that I'll be able to just slide along. And also, because they're upper division, they'll be more important to my majors, Japanese and (soon) political science. So it is imperative that I learn what I need to learn from them. But most importantly, since I want to apply to grad school, I'll need to be in top form. I'll need to maintain a high grade point average, and get good grades. I'll also need to get friendly with teachers so that they can write me really good letters of recommendation, or give me advice about the future (class discussions, grad school, jobs). I've said it often, but I really do need to get rid of my bad study habits and kick it into high gear. Japan has encouraged me to slack off; how quickly can I get rid of that kind of mentality?
When I came to Japan, I was worried about getting along with my fellow 留学生 and making new friends. Unexpectedly, I'm having the same worries about going back to Hawaii. Will I still click with my old friends? Can I get out of my Japanese college student mindset and back into an American one? Unfortunately, I will not find out, until I actually get there.
Showing posts with label Hawaii. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hawaii. Show all posts
Friday, July 1, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Lingua Franca? I Think Not.
In the HUSA program, we have students from all over the world. Besides us Americans, there are British, Koreans, Chinese, French, and a couple of Germans, to name a few. Since none of us are perfectly fluent in Japanese, we have to use another language to speak to each other. Lately, English has become the lingua franca in the world, a language that various people can speak. You'd think that this would make life easier, that we'd be able to communicate somewhat easily. HOwever, this has turned out to be a false assumption.
I was talking earlier to one of the British guys. He's one of three British people, and they all come from three different parts of England. But, as I told him, I cant hear any difference between them. I imagine that if I listened carefully to them speaking I could hear some kind of difference, but to my American ears, they just sound British. But as my friend explained to me, although they spoke close to Received Pronunciation English (basically Standard British English), the other two sometimes slip into their own accents. One guy is from the northern part of England, and speaks as they do. The other, a girl, is from the London area, and sometimes uses a slightly different vocabulary. Luckily for my friend, he's from the middle part of the country, apparently where the two accents overlap.
Among us Americans, we all feel that we speak "American English", and I dont think anyone one of us has a particular regional accent. That is, we dont have a Bostonian, New Yorker, or Texan. In fact, if no one told me where they were from, I probably would never have been able to guess. It is accepted by all of us Americans that we speak the same language, with the same accent: Standard American English. But according to my British friend (and really everyone else), one of us Americans has a particularly strong accent. They cant fully articulate what it is, but the accent is so strong that it sometimes overruns the pronunciation of certain words. It has been described as a long stream of "grrgrgghrhrgghrhrrg" or something. To be quite honest, the Americans do not understand the problem.
It was at this point that my friend asked me to speak in my accent. Unfortunately, I couldnt perform for him. I was raised to speak "proper English", so using Hawaiian Creole English, aka HCE aka pidgin, has always been a bit difficult for me. However, I've noticed that when I become agitated, eg upset, sad, extremely happy, it starts to come out more. Also, since entering college, I've started using it a lot more. I think it's because I made a few new friends after high school, friends who had no problem speaking HCE. Since I couldnt show my friend, I turned to the great resource that is Youtube, and found this video. It's a pretty accurate and educational video on how a lot of people in Hawaii speak. It's also pretty legit, because I think I've seen the "Pidgin Advocate" before. I linked it on my facebook, but on the off chance you missed it, I'll repost it here:
To be quite honest, I love talking and learning about dialects. Perhaps not enough to push me into linguistics, but I do enjoy looking at the "cracks" in the monolithic thing that is a language. I feel that language education is a bit of a lie. It presents the target language as a single way of speaking, one that all natives of a country or ethnic group speak. However, this is not true. What we call a language is really just a heading, a way of seperating large distinctions in the world. Within a "language", we have different dialects and accents, and even within those subdivisions, there are even tinier divisions. My native language, English is a perfect example: There's British English and American English. Within American English, the English that's used in New York City is different from the English used in California, which is different from the English that's used in Hawaii. And in Hawaii, the English I use is sometimes different from people from another island. I'm slowly learning that the same is true about Japanese. The Japanese that I watch in dramas, that I hear in music, that I'm learning in class, is the dry, dusty, boring Standard Japanese (標準語). But that's different from the Japanese I'm trying to learn, which is the Hiroshima Dialect (広島弁). And 広島弁 is different from what my friend is learning in Kyoto, 関西弁. It is simply fascinating that there is so much diversity! Doesnt it make you want to learn another language?
I was talking earlier to one of the British guys. He's one of three British people, and they all come from three different parts of England. But, as I told him, I cant hear any difference between them. I imagine that if I listened carefully to them speaking I could hear some kind of difference, but to my American ears, they just sound British. But as my friend explained to me, although they spoke close to Received Pronunciation English (basically Standard British English), the other two sometimes slip into their own accents. One guy is from the northern part of England, and speaks as they do. The other, a girl, is from the London area, and sometimes uses a slightly different vocabulary. Luckily for my friend, he's from the middle part of the country, apparently where the two accents overlap.
Among us Americans, we all feel that we speak "American English", and I dont think anyone one of us has a particular regional accent. That is, we dont have a Bostonian, New Yorker, or Texan. In fact, if no one told me where they were from, I probably would never have been able to guess. It is accepted by all of us Americans that we speak the same language, with the same accent: Standard American English. But according to my British friend (and really everyone else), one of us Americans has a particularly strong accent. They cant fully articulate what it is, but the accent is so strong that it sometimes overruns the pronunciation of certain words. It has been described as a long stream of "grrgrgghrhrgghrhrrg" or something. To be quite honest, the Americans do not understand the problem.
It was at this point that my friend asked me to speak in my accent. Unfortunately, I couldnt perform for him. I was raised to speak "proper English", so using Hawaiian Creole English, aka HCE aka pidgin, has always been a bit difficult for me. However, I've noticed that when I become agitated, eg upset, sad, extremely happy, it starts to come out more. Also, since entering college, I've started using it a lot more. I think it's because I made a few new friends after high school, friends who had no problem speaking HCE. Since I couldnt show my friend, I turned to the great resource that is Youtube, and found this video. It's a pretty accurate and educational video on how a lot of people in Hawaii speak. It's also pretty legit, because I think I've seen the "Pidgin Advocate" before. I linked it on my facebook, but on the off chance you missed it, I'll repost it here:
To be quite honest, I love talking and learning about dialects. Perhaps not enough to push me into linguistics, but I do enjoy looking at the "cracks" in the monolithic thing that is a language. I feel that language education is a bit of a lie. It presents the target language as a single way of speaking, one that all natives of a country or ethnic group speak. However, this is not true. What we call a language is really just a heading, a way of seperating large distinctions in the world. Within a "language", we have different dialects and accents, and even within those subdivisions, there are even tinier divisions. My native language, English is a perfect example: There's British English and American English. Within American English, the English that's used in New York City is different from the English used in California, which is different from the English that's used in Hawaii. And in Hawaii, the English I use is sometimes different from people from another island. I'm slowly learning that the same is true about Japanese. The Japanese that I watch in dramas, that I hear in music, that I'm learning in class, is the dry, dusty, boring Standard Japanese (標準語). But that's different from the Japanese I'm trying to learn, which is the Hiroshima Dialect (広島弁). And 広島弁 is different from what my friend is learning in Kyoto, 関西弁. It is simply fascinating that there is so much diversity! Doesnt it make you want to learn another language?
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