first of all, i would like to thank for the comments. i didn't expect anyone would write back anything. i only mean to have some personal notes. i really mean to start writing in order to have a chance to recall what i have thought of. when toby asked me about the comment form steven, i really needed to read my own writing once more in order to know why he responsed so.
secondly, i didn't expect i would make steven feel i hate japanese or so. i am not. even american, i just can't stand what they behave. i hate it, the behaviour, which can be done by anyone, but i don't need to hate anyone. however, i do think sometimes we need to do something so that we can see less what is going on badly, as we know we can't change the world. so, i can only admit that i have bias towards some people.
in order to deal with my presentation class, i wrote something about my observation in the past half a year. at the beginning, i thought i need to gather at least several points to make up a five-to-ten-minute presentation, but while i was writing, i found that the use of foreign language in japan was not just my first point i wanted to make, it is actually a core factor, which reflexes a lot more behind, and also can link it to my other puzzles towards this culture.
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pls take a look of the words from the extended entry if you are interested.
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after the presentation, we had very good exchanges over the topics: ota's experiences in conservative belgium, irish eddie's (our instructor) experience in england, and a question regarding the identity of chinese from nakahara (owing to his canadian chinese friend). which makes me be more interested in this culture thing.
try to think:
why do japanese people think katagana words are english (which mean foreign words)?
why do they think at the same time kanji is no longer chinese, but japanese.
i think in the opposite way. or, to me, they treat kanji and katagana in the same way.
is this just caused by time?
it's too bad that there was not enough time. and actually, there is no way to have an open-end discussion in class.
we have only touched on a little of how war gave a change to asian, perhaps, the segregation between japanese and other asian. further, why does asian prefer to learn more european languages than other asian languages.
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presentation script
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start with language and see what it can reflex
as a foreigner, especially this is not the first time for me to live abroad, cultural shock or cultural adjustment was expected. however, understanding doesn't mean i won't feel the shock. living in japan for almost half a year this time and in iamas for almost four months. me, a foreigner without an obvious look, do have some uneasy feelings and puzzles. today, i would like to share a bit what i feel and hope i can have some feedback form you in class, not just while we are drinking, so that we can have a different level of dialogue.
first of all, of course, it's about the use of english. i have mentioned it many times to many people in iamas. i totally don't understand how japanese people in general deal with this second language. how to be able to write an academic paper, but not able to have dialogue a little bit; how to make website full of english, but not able to say anything. i never agree the english of any persons that i have met in japan is bad. it's just a matter of how much the person is willing to say. of course, i have no intention to complain here. however, this puzzle is not easy to be solved because this is also related to the culture which brought me up, a british-colonised chinese culture. also, this makes me think too much of what the western people have been doing to us, asian.
owing to the historical background, there are two official language in hong kong, chinese and english. this also makes us to be able to claim that hong kong is an international city. i have to say that in fact there are not many people really good at english although we start learning so from kindergarten. how about japan? or iamas? similar to many other asian countries, i think, children start to learn basic english from primany school. no matter how simple the english is, all of us have been dealing with this foreign language for more than ten years. how come we still don't have the confidence in saying something with it. and one interesting observation is that people are more confident in speaking in other third or forth languages, which may even worse that how they can speak in english.
up to here, i have a question: is this a problem of how we receive the language, or is this about how english speaking person impose their language. try to use the experience in learning the third language as the case, we may actually feel easier to learn or more enthusiastic to discover more. why? i used to complain a lot to the education system in hong kong but now, especially after coming to japan, i started to think, it may not be the problem of the person who teach, but the problem of the whole english speaking world. try to compare the experiences of talking non-english speaker and native english speaker, do u speak differently in terms of the pressure of using of proper english? however, what is proper english? my english was always challenged by people in america because the words i used were strange to them. however, when i used some quite american words britain. people thought i was not civilised. what can i do?
i feel a lot of easier after i've found that there are actually more people have this kind of feeling than those who try to impose their superiority of the use of the language to foreign user. what i mean is in fact more non-native speakers are using english. english is just a tool for me to communicate to people from more places. learning english doesn't mean we need to communicate with english speaking people. this feeling was very strange to me at the beginning but i think it is at least partly true.
coming back to japan, i have also thought of whether japanese people have impose their superiority to me. i realised no. i didn't have such kind of experience. then, i was thinking where my uneasy feeling came from. i am not sure still but one thing i guess is that the way japanese deals with alien, which means foreigner, i think, when i look at my certificate of alien registration. perhaps, the use of this word may be the hint for me to explain why i have this feeling.
Posted by jamsen at July 21, 2004 10:05 PM