Tomo has been asking me to tell him a story… daily… in Japanese so that I can practice my speech and conversation skills. It’s been helpful, but extremely difficult as I have been needing to look up every other word, and I must confine myself to very simple subject/object/verb sentences. Often times he laughs at me and says “oh we don’t say that…” because I had tried to directly translate an American thought into Japanese and botched it. Sometimes he doesn’t even tell me at all.
The first day I told him a story, he said something that really made me think. He told me that I “look different” to him when I try to speak Japanese. He said that he is so used to hearing me speak clear and perfect English that hearing me speak Japanese was very different. I had to stop… It startled me to realize that the feelings I had recently discovered were mutual. Wait. Let me back up a little bit…
Now, Tomo speaks English very well, but he has a very strong accent. His accent contributes to this kind of image of him that I have in my mind. I’m positive that other people also have a kind of language-based image of him too… but they respond to it differently. (Some people patronize him. Some are merely amused. I’m attracted to it.) When I first met him, Tomo appeared to me to be an intellectual and semi-introverted person. And maybe just a little bit shy. But then, a few weekends ago, Japanese Student Association was getting ready for Japanese Night. Tomo’s section of the project was the creation of these great big decorative balls called Kusudama. We had this big “Kusudama making party” at Fumi’s house. The majority of the people there spoke Japanese, and thus, so did Tomo for most of the night. Tomo’s appearance there seemed to morph drastically. He lost all trace of his previous shy-ness and began organizing, conversing, laughing and working in a way that I had not seen before. He was funny, and assertive, and very quick. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. It made me blush… because this Tomo was extremely attractive… and I felt kinda funny thinking that I was dating him… because it was like seeing this new exciting person… I got this brief tingling feeling like “god… I want to go talk to him. I’d like to get his phone number.” before I stopped and realized that I already had it… and I’d be going home with him when the party was over. I got a tiny glimpse into a world that I won’t ever really be a part of. I can never become a Native Japanese speaker. I can never change my physical appearance. Maybe I won’t ever truly be accepted into Japanese society. But those issues are part of human sociological nature and I don’t resent that. I was just so enthralled to be given this glimpse into Tomo’s “true” form.
I think perhaps Tomo sees a similar kind of change in me when I speak Japanese. It makes me wonder what I look like. I’ve always been curious what my accent sounds like to people from other places… But this takes that to a completely different level. It is an entire identity change… not just an accent. What do I look like to someone from New Zealand? What do I look like to someone from Russia?
It raises the question of how much of our identity is determined by the way we speak. People who don’t speak the standard version of their country’s language might be seen as less-intelligent, less educated, or misunderstood. Their speech might be seen as incorrect, or sloppy. Culture (and the languages and dialects it supports) is one of the most misunderstood things in Human society.
I think it is sad how our image of someone can be so irreversibly distorted simply because of the way that we speak. Speech seems like such an insignificant part of our identity. Our clothing and our attitudes usually are identified with first. Speech seems to be a sort of unconscious divider. Speech is the thing you are referring to when you tell someone that a new acquaintance “is nice, but… not my type”.
How much of our identity is dependent on other people’s views of us? If our own view of our self is the only true version of us, how do we communicate that to another person if we can’t even trust our language to accurately portray our true essence? Their perspective is inherently different. But who are we to say that the person in their mind is incorrect? Who are we to say that that image of us is false? It is the person that our lovers and boyfriends have loved all along. Is it ok to tell them that they have been kissing the wrong person this whole time? Our parents too. Would it be wrong to inform them that you are not the daughter that they know and love, and that the one they know has never existed? Does the version of Me in Their minds exist somewhere real? If so, that would make her part of who I am. We may have a million different versions of Self floating around in the universe, most of them totally unknown and totally unique from the others.
The Self might not be contained in a single shell. A thousand mirror images, reflections, refractions, each of them an Original to the soul who sees them. Does this mean that I am not an I at all? Does this mean that I am actually a We?
Wow. What a mindfuck. (Maybe I’m the sixth Eva pilot)
