Fish Tree Tales

I’d never thought about the advantage I sometimes have with English as my native language, until I moved to Japan to teach it. I’ve studied six foreign languages, and when I was studying, I’d often wished osmosis would occur. I’d put a dictionary of that language under my pillow at night, hoping to simply absorb all the words and grammar in my sleep. Of course, that never happened. I had to study and practice like everyone else, making mistakes and learning along the way.

In the first years of learning Japanese, I often made mistakes with word choices. I’d forget the word I wanted, or say another word instead, rendering a completely different meaning to the sentence. I still make mistakes but they are usually of the less interesting, mundane, grammatical sort. In the early days, my mistakes were funnier.

One night at dinner with the family I was living with for the summer, there were many people sitting around the table, all of us eating and talking and having a good time. I was mostly listening, since I didn’t understand 98% of the conversation. At this point in my Japanese language journey, I was fluent in numbers and colors, but not much else. At dinner that night were aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, boyfriends and girlfriends—it was a large, happy group and everyone was quite jolly. They were happy with me and encouraged my stumbling attempts to communicate. Fortunately, several members of the group also spoke English, so we all had a backup.

After awhile, the food was being passed around for the third or fourth time. I was so full, but I thought that saying “no” was considered impolite, so I tried a different angle. I was very polite and I turned down the offer for more food, believing myself to say, “My stomach is full.” Immediately, everyone thrust their hands at me, palms up, as they grinned from ear to ear. I must have looked pretty funny at this unexpected reaction, and I searched the crowd for someone who would tell me what was going on….

And this is how I memorized the difference between the words for “stomach” and “money.” You could say this was osmosis of a different sort!

That was during my first month in Japan. Years later, on my third venture to this country, one day I realized I was speaking Japanese that I didn’t know I knew. I hadn’t studied since leaving the country five years earlier. I had studied Portuguese, however, and experienced an interesting phenomenon during that time. While studying lists of Portuguese vocabulary words, I would try to remember and use them in common sentences. However, instead of translating them into English, I found myself translating those words into Japanese, making Japanese sentences with them. It was bizarre, but it seemed to work and, in the end, gave me a much-needed boost for my move back to Japan a few short months later. When I got to Japan that third time, I realized that I could say things I’d never “gotten” before. It was eerie, and cool, at the same time.

During this third time living in Japan, I frequently went to one particular bar, “Eddie’s.” I loved going there. For reasons no one quite understands, there seem to be people from all over the world in Kofu, so I got to know people from many cultures. Some of us could only speak Japanese as our common language, even though it was native to none of us. After awhile I was going to Eddie’s almost every night, and friends knew they could find me there. We’d eat and drink and be merry. We’d talk and joke and discuss world events. We’d play chess or cards or backgammon, game after game after game. I had arguments there, got terribly drunk there, laughed and cried and got scared there. I fell in love there. It was very much a part of my world.

One evening when I was ready to leave, I went to the cash register to pay. In a clear, loud, perhaps drunken voice, I announced my desire to pay: “Hatarakita-a-a-ai !!!!” My good friend Kazumi, who was the waitress, looked at me strangely, then handed me a towel and said, “dozo”, or “please, go ahead.”

Huh? Ah, it was another example of the wrong word coming out of my mouth. I had meant to say “haraitai”, which is “I want to pay.” What I’d said was, “I want to work.”

Even after five years, mistakes and errors found their way into the course of a normal day. Once, my friend Margaret and I were walking along the riverbank that led from near our apartments to the downtown area. It was one of those stunning, glorious, early spring days when the air is soft and the cherry trees are all at the perfect level of blossom, just barely at full-bloom and only hours away from falling off. The cherry trees are so copious in Japan that a soft, pale white-pink bathes the light of every corner, blurring the mind to a soft focus of the world. It is simply breathtaking and wonderful for about a week every year.

So there it was, a splendid, glorious day, and I was moved to sing. What else, under the cherry trees, would one sing, except the cherry blossom song? If you’ve ever eaten in a Japanese restaurant, you probably have heard this tune. It’s one of those Japanese things that got itself exported to this country, like cars, chopsticks, “sayonara,” and karaoke. So I began singing: “Sakana, sakana…..” It’s a lovely little tune, although I don’t know what words come next in the song. I just knew, and so sang, that part. “Sakana, sakana….”

…at which point Margaret began laughing so hard she had to stop walking. Now, I know I’m not the world’s greatest singer, but I thought this was a bit overdone. I stared at her, wondering what was up. When she could catch her breath, she told me I’d sung “sakana” instead of “sakura.”

Sakura, you see, is the word for cherry blossoms. Entirely appropriate to the day. Sakana, on the other hand, means…. Fish Now I’m doubled over with laughter, then we cried because we couldn’t stop laughing. Then, finally catching our breath, we continued on.

But we were noisy foreigners who ruined the “wa” of all the Japanese in our hearing, because we couldn’t help singing at the top of our voices, as we continued along the river, “SAKANAAAA, SAKANAAAAAA!!!”