The Confessions of a Late Bloomer—Episode 2: About Reading Books (and Two Languages)

 

As I have mentioned previously, I am a daughter of Japanese immigrants. This means that I speak Japanese at home and English outside of home (except at the Japanese community school where Japanese speaking is a must)—a norm for my family and me.

Because I was learning two languages at once, I struggled with reading and writing at school. Communicating was not too bad, as long as I blend in with my schoolmates by learning the conversational English used on the school grounds. At home, same thing, as long as my parents understood what I was saying. With my siblings (my brother and sister), we communicated in a mixture of Japanese and English.

If you are wondering what kind of bi-language mixture my siblings and I used, here is an example:

My brother: “I borrowed some manga (Japanese comics) from nihongo-gakkou (Japanese school).”

Me: “Nani karita (what did you borrow)?”

My brother: “Doraemon.”

Me: “We need to keep that from Mammi (we called our mom “mammi,” our version of “mommy” or “mom”). You know she will okoru (get mad) when she finds them.”

My brother: “I’ll hide it at the bottom of my kabann (school bag).”

 

You get the idea.

 

Because my siblings and I tried to survive life by using English at school and Japanese at home, we struggled with reading and writing both languages. I chose picture books as a choice of literature (illustrated fairy tales in English, manga books in Japanese) because I felt I got more from the pictures and illustrations than black letters on a white page. That being said, I did not stop there.

Our school principal encouraged reading by setting 30 minutes nearly every morning for all students to read. The students have freedom in their choice of literature (as long as the content is appropriate for their age group—which includes comic books).

One day, one of my classmates in grade four, who was an avid reader, made a recommendation to me. It was “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” Sadly, I was one of those who chose a book by its cover (and its thickness and size of print), so I passed on the book. However, I realized I needed to read something with more substance than just picture books, and that was when I came across a slim volume of short mysteries called “Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective” written by Donald J. Sobol in my classroom library. I found myself engrossed in the book and soon I wanted more.

Within my grade four learning, I borrowed more “Encyclopedia Brown” series then moved on to other chapter books (“No Flying in the House” by Betty Brock, a collection of fairy tales by Brothers Grimm, “Socks” by Beverly Cleary, and more). After reading those books, I finally picked up “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and read the entire book.

Reading was a challenge for me, but once I discovered that not only it was possible to accomplish, but I also found the joy in reading. I hope that my readers (or future readers) will be encouraged after reading this.

The Confessions of a Late Bloomer—Episode 1: A Story on Homework

    As a daughter of Japanese immigrants, English was a challenge in school. It was especially more so when I told them, “I have homework.” Their usual response was: “We don’t know English, so don’t ask us.”

    Because of this, I would take home my assignment and bring it back to school untouched. (Besides, the whole point of homework is taking the work home, right?) This went on from grade one all the way to grade four.

    It was in grade four. My teacher, seeing that I brought home blank pages, finally cornered me, and had me stay in class after school. I remember crying my eyes out in the office, telling my mother over the phone that I was told by my teacher to stay after school because I did not do my homework. Imagine my shock when my mother said, “Ok. Just come straight home when you’re done.”

    Interestingly, I was not angry at my teacher for keeping me after school. I knew I deserved the punishment; however, the problem remained: I did not know how to do homework. The easiest answer is “just do it!” but to me it was more than that. This was a report that was assigned to me. I was told to do research by looking up information in books and write a report based on a subject I chose, but I did not understand how to write a report. Kids in my class knew how to put their thoughts into writing on paper and would write something that showed their understanding of their researched topic. I, however, struggled to put my thoughts on paper, let alone write up a report.

    In the end, my teacher did not directly help me, but had me sit in class to finish my report while she did her teaching preparations for the next lessons. Much to my surprise, I wrote up the report and handed it in. Later in the week, I got it back with a positive mark that was other than a “D” or a big fat zero.

    After that incident, I did my homework promptly and turned it in on time.

    I hope that one day I could meet my grade-four teacher and say, “Thank you for having me stay after school and finish my assignment.”

Languages I Have (Sort of) Learned—Final Episode: Bengali

 

Another door of opportunity opened for me—teaching in Bangladesh. When I announced my new teaching job to my family, they looked at me and asked, “Where’s that?” We have heard about Bangladesh on clothing labels, but it was another country we were not familiar with.

Upon opening an atlas, and after some research, I have learned that Bangladesh:

• The country is in the eastern part of India, close to Myanmar.
• It was earlier known as East Pakistan until the country fought for its independence (through civil war).
• It is largely known for its textile and cloth production.
• The religions are Muslim (89%), Hindu (10%), and Christians and Theravada-Hinayana Buddhists (1%).
• The language spoken is Bengali (also known as Bangla).

To prepare for my new job posting, I prepared myself by listening to Bengali language tapes just so I could familiarize with the language.

Soon the day came when I flew to Dhaka, Bangladesh, where other teachers like me were picked up at the airport and brought to an apartment in the capital city. The sights, sounds, exotic fragrances, and locals in their saris and other ethnic dress pressed into our senses.

I worked at a Canadian school in Dhaka for one school year as a prekindergarten teacher with another team teacher who taught in the next classroom. Being an introvert who steps back and watches her environment before joining in, it took me a few months to get adjusted to the overwhelming environment, not to mention the warm, humid climate. It took me a while, but I came to interact with some of the locals.

The staff at the school—those who managed, cleaned, maintained, and secured the school property. I was approached a few times with the question, “Sina?” (I later learned that they were asking if I was Chinese because of my East Asian features).

Because I taught in a Canadian school where we spoke English, I did not learn Bengali (or Bangla as the locals called it) as much as I would have liked despite my ten months living in Dhaka. However, I love the people there. The local staff who took care of the school building, the rickshaw drivers who became regular drivers (if not, guides) for me who took me to local shops, the Muezzin’s voice calling local Muslims to prayer, and those I have befriended during my stay (some who opened their homes to let me celebrate Eid with their families).

Would I want to learn Bengali properly? To be honest, I am not sure. But if God is willing, and I had another chance to meet those who have been kind to me during my stay, I would like to learn enough to say, “Thank you for all that you have done. Your generosity and kindness have been an encouragement to me while living in Dhaka. God bless you.”

Languages I Have Learned—Episode 5: Mongolian (Part II)

My weekly Mongolian helped me go to the market and purchase groceries by asking for bread, fruit, and other items I needed; although my phrases mainly comprised “Hello,” pointing to something and say “That, please,” and “How much?”

I was once told by a Mongolian friend, “You look Mongolian, except when you walk.”

I guessed she meant I kind of blended in—which I took as a good thing.

Because life in Ulaanbaatar was my first time living overseas, I had experienced culture shock on top of my languages learning.

“I missed the honeymoon season,” said my American roommate who shared an apartment flat with me. We both had to agree, the moment we set foot in the country with our individual opportunities (mine being a homeschooling teacher, while my roommate was there to learn the language) we immediately had to swim in the sea of culture shock. It was all or nothing—at least that was how it felt to me. However, I didn’t regret it. I made friends with the locals, and the kindness of my host family and another family I taught helped me with adjusting to my life in Ulaanbaatar.

Some memorable experiences included having a balcony as our walk-in freezer during the winter; discovering that Mongolian tugrik money bills smell like mutton, frequent visits of little roaches (how I hated those guys!), that the electrically powered buses stop in the middle of the only main street in the city and its patrons had to get off and walk (fortunately, most of the places were in walking distance); and tea leaves that were sold in solid blocks (I discovered much later that they had the similar blocks of tea leaves in mainland China). The food was greasy with foods such as fried khuushuurs (deep fried pockets of ground meat and vegetables), pizza with unique toppings (from pickles instead of olives and the occasional shredded carrots), and buuz (mutton dumplings that are fried or steamed). Beverages were undaa (beverages, usually soda, in old-fashioned squat glass bottles) and tsai (salty milk tea, which was a bit of a shock to those who taste it for the first time).

Despite these small delights, Mongolia was still rebuilding from after the Fall of the Iron curtain (this was in the early 2000, by the way). Soon news of Mongolian patriotism came with reclaiming their native writing, though some foreigners bemoaned this news.

“No! Not after all that work learning Cyrillic! And now they want to bring back the Soyombo writing!” I overheard an American foreign worker complain.

The Mongolians derived Soyombo script from Tibetan Sanskrit.

Meanwhile, as I continued with my teaching, my contracted ended at six months. It was a short overseas experience with a long winter that lasted the first four months of my stay. That last two months comprised a brief spring (about a month long) and a taste of summer. With warm weather, bright sun and colours replacing the winter greys, I left the country with a heart full of thankfulness to those who had shown me kindness.

Languages I Have Learned—Episode 5: Mongolian (Part I)

 

When I learned about a teaching opportunity in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, I took it thinking, “Mongolia shares a border with China, and since I learned Mandarin Chinese for a few years Mongolian should not be that hard.” Obviously I did not learn how different the two languages are until I arrived in the country.

I have never heard Mongolia spoken where I live (Alberta, Canada) other than a song that a friend from my Mandarin class introduced me to (when I think about it, the song was actually a song another Chinese dialect, not Mongolian). So when I first heard Mongolian spoken, to me it sounded like a combination of Russian and something else. Compared to the Russian I have heard on language tapes, Mongolia did not have the harsh tones and rolling r’s. Instead, it was much closer to an Asian language like Korean or Japanese than Chinese.

A Canadian missionary who hosted me in the country told me that Koreans and Japanese people could probably pick up Mongolian faster than North American speakers. The missionary and his wife learned the language by trying to find something common with the language they knew (English and biblical Greek). He told me he learned by matching some Cyrillic letters (used in Greek and Russian) and identified the sounds and worked from there.

When I arrived in Ulaanbaatar, it was 14 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Cyrillic letters were used in the Mongolian language—something carried over from the Soviet occupation (Mongolia was a buffer zone for the Soviets, which explained a lot of Soviet influences from buildings to some political values, and of course, writing).

The missionaries kindly introduced me to their Mongolian language teacher, a teacher at a local school, who taught me Mongolian. To my delight, I found it was easier for me (with a language background in Japanese).

Mongolian had a similar grammar system to Japanese (and, I was told, to Korean) so I just needed to remember where to plug in the correct Mongolian words to make a sentence. The part about learning Mongolian that was difficult were certain sounds: the rolling “r” (as we Canadians would say, “Rrrroll up the rrrrim to win”) and the exhaling “l” (you exhale as your tongue touches the roof of your mouth making a “hla” sound rather than a “la” sound). Imagine how much trouble I had just to say “thank you” in Mongolian (which is “bayal-hlah,” by the way). I think it took me a month or more just to get the sound right.

Despite the language mishaps (mispronouncing the rolling r’s and exhaling l’s), the minus 40 degrees (celsius) weather plus windchill (I lived in Mongolia during the winter months), and other things (did you know that tap water had hepatis A and B, so you need special filters or drink bottles beverages like pop or juice?); life in Mongolia was full of surprises.

Languages I Have Learned—Episode 4: Mandarin Chinese (Part 2)

    After, a positive experience in learning Mandarin Chinese for three years in high school I wanted to take the language course again. In my third year of university, I did, but with some challenges.

    Like I have previously mentioned in one of my previous entries, this time, Japanese interfered with my Mandarin learning.

    “You are thinking in Japanese, aren’t you?” my Mandarin instructor said with a grin.

    “How could you tell?” I asked.

    “Your grammar is not Mandarin.”

    I tried again; this time I was told I was using English grammar with my Mandarin Chinese. By the end of the course, I did not get as high a mark as I did in high school, but I still passed and graduated.

    Oh, and there was another reason I took Mandarin again in university: I had a teaching opportunity in Mongolia after graduation. Thinking that the Mongolian language shared something with Mandarin Chinese, I took the course. Later, I have learned that, again, the two languages were completely different.

Languages I Have Learned—Episode 3: Mandarin Chinese (Part 1)

 

 

   Some could pick up languages quickly, like a brand-new tool, and use it immediately, while others, like myself, had to build the craft just to communicate, whether verbally or in writing. For those of you who are still learning, keep learning and see the small rewards you find along the way—a smile returned with a greeting, a flurry of words that are a progressing conversation, or just an odd look.

    After learning French for three years in junior high, I signed up for another year of French in high school, until I discovered Mandarin Chinese. In high school, I had Chinese friends whom we sat in the hallways in front of our lockers during lunch time and played card games. During these games, Chinese (Cantonese) bubbled from our conversations to the point I felt left out. Being Asian, I guess the group was so comfortable with another Asian that they forget I am an Asian who does not speak the same language.

    In another situation, I have heard some think that Japanese, Chinese, and Korean are all the same. Unfortunately, they are all different languages. When you ask a Japanese speaker what it says on the cover of a Chinese magazine, for example, it is like asking an English-speaker if they could read Russian because it had Romanized lettering similar to the English alphabet (for those who know; they use Cyrillic letters which look like the English alphabet but have distinct sounds for the letters). Or, when you ask a Japanese-speaker, while watching a Korean drama, what they are saying, it is like asking a Dutch person to translate a French dialogue.

    Much like these examples, I have thought that if I learned Mandarin Chinese, I could communicate with my Chinese friends; however, I learned that there are more than one Chinese language—and Mandarin Chinese is one of them. The language that my friends spoke was Cantonese (commonly used by Hong Kong Chinese). Mandarin Chinese is the most common dialect, that standardized form of Chinese used in China, Taiwan, and Singapore. The difference in not just in the languages, but also in the writing (Mandarin uses simplified Chinese characters while Cantonese uses traditional Chinese characters). It was until I learned Mandarin Chinese that I understood these differences.

    If you ask me how my Mandarin learning went, I did well—better than French (sorry, Francophones). I would like to say that my knowledge of kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese) helped.

    For now, I will say that I was glad about my decision to expand my language borders by learning another language.