Spring Bulletin 2012 - The Park School

nearer, I knew I wasn’t ready to give up studying
literature. I toyed with trying to get my
PhD in French Lit, but I knew my limits: to
really be marketable as an academic in French,
I would have to be willing to move, maybe
even outside of the U.S. So I decided if I
earned by PhD in English, I would have a better
shot of at least staying in the U.S., and
maybe even in Boston.
Again, I was wrong.
I did earn my PhD in English and loved
studying literature for six more years, even if
it wasn’t in French. But then I fell madly in
love. With a man from Osaka.
My husband, Toru, is the oldest son, and
as such in a Japanese family, we have the
responsibility of caring for his parents as they
age. When we met, he was pursuing an Executive
MBA in Boston and I had started a career
teaching writing and literature part-time at
the university level and writing part-time as a
freelancer. Toru works for a huge Japanese
corporation, so when we married, we realized
it was easier for me to transfer my career as a
freelancer to Japan than it would be for him
to move to Boston —especially when his
mother passed away and we really wanted to
stay close to his father in Osaka.
All this was complicated, however, by the
fact that when Toru and I met, I spoke no
Japanese. So for the past seven years, I have
been struggling to learn a new language as
we’ve settled here in Japan.
Japanese, I’ve discovered, is even harder
than French. It’s actually quite easy to pronounce
for native English speakers (unlike
“Oui” was for me at first), but the grammar
and syntax are completely different, and in
some cases the exact opposite, of English or
other Romance Languages. There are also
different levels of conjugation not just for the
past and present but also for where you are in
the social hierarchy compared to where someone
else is. So sometimes I long for the simplicity
of just trying to remember whether a
word is masculine or feminine!
I’ve taken Japanese classes off and on for
about four years, and I’m always struck by
how, when I’m searching for a word in Japanese
that I don’t know or can’t remember, my
brain automatically substitutes the word in
French. It’s as if the part of my brain associated
with grasping for language is forever
connected to French.
I speak English with my husband and
Japanese with my father-in-law, whom I adore
(although in truth, we mostly just do a lot of
bowing and smiling at each other, since my
Japanese is still so rough!).
I’m lucky that the Web has made it
virtually seamless for me still to work as a
freelance writer for U.S. publications and universities,
so my career has not been impacted
negatively by my move to Japan. And I feel
lucky that my experience at Park helped give
me the courage to explore living my life and
exploring my world in a new language.
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