Being immigrants from Japan, my
parents spoke Japanese at home; because we lived in an English-speaking
country, my mother was worried about communicating with her children in Canada,
so she had us attend a Japanese language school provided by the local Japanese
community once a week.
The assignments from the language
school were hard. We learned hiragana (the Japanese letters), katakana (Japanese
letters used for words foreign to Japanese), and kanji (Chinese characters used
in Japanese). We learned reading, writing, poetry (both traditional haiku, tanka
and other forms), folklore, and essay writing. Because the community school used
a curriculum according to the ones used in Japan, during Christmas and summer vacation
we had homework (I could still remember how my Canadian friends from school
looked at me weird when I mentioned I had to do homework during summer vacation).
The work was hard growing up, being
different and learning something that others did not; but looking back, I
recall I did not hate it as much as I thought I would. Yes, there was homework;
double the amount if you count the ones I brought home from my local Canadian
school. Yes, at the school they strictly enforced us not to speak English, even
if we did, we got scolded for doing so, which was the extent of the punishment.
Despite of all the challenges and
hard work involved, I would not trade it for anything else. It was a legacy
that I polished for my family, knowing that one day I would use that language
skill when I go to Japan or help others with Japanese. And those days came when
I travelled to Japan to visit relatives, translated for Japanese visitors who
visited Canada, and enjoyed Japanese novels, movies, and music.
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