Philip,
This is a very lovely post! Thanks for sharing it with your fellow bloggers.
And the very best to your friends.
We enjoyed your visit more that words can describe. It was great to get back in touch. Althought the speaking of the Japanese can get a little much when others at the table don't quite understand!! Hope to see you soon.
I don't speak any Japanese, but my wife and I muddle our way through Russian and French (and occasionally German and Latin) when trying to talk over our own children's heads. Is Japanese easy to learn?
Oh, and if you are willing, could you tell us some more about your parents, missionary work, and Japan?
Chris,
Japanese is not difficult to learn phonetically, as its grammar is relatively simple and the language is atonal, monosyllabic. The written language, however, is considerably more difficult, making use of seemingly numberless Chinese characters that it calls "kanji," which are ideogramic symbols, as well as two additional scripts -- both syllabaries, one used for foreign terms, the other for the parts of written Japanese not covered by the "kanji." As for my parents and their mission work, you can find out more than you ever wanted to know from "Stories of Our Lives," based on my late mother's diaries, and edited by my father with help from my wife.
Philip,
Glad to hear you had a good trip to our neck of the woods. And I thought we knew all the Japanese-speaking Americans in Atlanta...
The thing I had the hardest time with was keigo (different levels of politeness required by context). If you're speaking to a social superior, you have to exalt them and humble yourself. (i.e., "Mr. President of the Company, might I intrude on you for a moment?") If you're speaking to a social inferior, you get to speak more plainly, with a bit of an attitude. ("Hey, you! Coffee!")
Jim Cork,
Wish we could have seen you! As to the difficulty with 'keigo,' I know what you mean. Here's the end of a speech I gave at a wedding in Osaka in April, transliterated into Arabic alphabet (or "Roma-ji"):
"Honjitsu-wa kono omedetai sekini sanretsu dekimashita koto o makotoni kouei-ni zonji, ofutarino zento o shukufuku-itashimashite, watashino go-aisatsu-to sasete-itadakimasu."
When confronted with levels of formality like that, which seem to approaching that of the imperial court, one practically wants to throw up his hands and toss in the towel.
Oh, if only we could recover (retreive?) a bit of the social distance/ legal class awareness which used to exist in English!
Good thing the Japanese don't place a high importance on originality when using keigo. I'm usually able to fool a few people by memorizing a few phrases. My wife is much better at it than I am, but she has more opportunity to use it--she works at the Japanese consulate, and the last consul general had her emcee just about every dinner he had. My boss, on the other hand, is only about 3 years older than I am; and he's from Okayama, so usually I revert to Hiroshima-ben when we speak.
Jim,
How I would enjoy hearing your run at a Hiroshima-ben! I'm afraid I would be at a loss, though I could manage a Dosanko dialect quite easily. For example, we call corn "too-kibi," instead of "too-morokoshi," and we say "Oban-desu" instead of "Kon-ban-wa." =)
Phillip, Emily sure is beautiful, and I bet she would make a great missionary. I would like to meet her and discuss such a position that has become vacant in my area. Any chance of putting us in touch?
... can I also say how much Mr. Bell resembles a conservative Hunter S Thompson ?
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