In Plain Language
By
HO Ching Him
“ありがとうございます [Arigatou gozaimasu]” – literally “Thank you very much” in
Japanese – is a phrase that implies a lot more than it appears to be. Indeed every language, including
the weasel words of Hong Kong Executives, embodies trust, love, hatred, disguise and many more
implications than its literal self. This is the reason people sob when they hear, Rose on the Titanic say
to Jack, “You jump, I jump”, but not when this comes from the mouth of a pair of long-jump athletes.
It is from the twists and turns in my exchange journey in Tokyo that I realised: language evolves,
language interacts, and most essentially, language lives with our society.
Into the Desert of English
“OK so if you can speak good English, you can talk to everyone in the world.” Not until the
start of my semester in Tokyo did I find out this catchphrase of my English teacher in elementary
school was nothing more than an exaggerated lie. English in not almighty, at least not in Japan.
Having studied in the United Kingdom, I understand that there are always some sort of cultural
shocks, either mild or turbulent, whenever people start to live in a new place. This time the shocks
struck me no later than the instant I started to ask for directions at the information centre in a JR
station.
“Excuse me,” I asked the staff, in English, as I was basically zero in Japanese at that time.
“Should I get off at the ‘Waseda’ Station or the ‘Nishi-waseda’ Station if I’m heading to Waseda
University?” My bad – I would have known which “Waseda” to go if I’d done thorough pre-trip
check.
“Umm…, umm…, no.” The lady uttered her answer, which was a simple “no”, after a
two-second halt with an outlandishly friendly smile in-between indicating nothing but
embarrassment.
“……” Frankly, at that moment I was completely speechless with surprise because I have
never encountered situations like that in Hong Kong, not to mention the UK. I couldn’t tell if she was
too afraid to talk in English or it was the fault of my British accent which was notoriously
incomprehensible for foreigners.
“OK. No worries, cheers!” I came up with a direct reply, turned around, and resorted to
Google Map on my phone – as I knew it was almost impossible to find a person randomly in the
station who could speak better English than a staff. In fact, I really appreciated her kind assistance
but at that instant I couldn’t help wondering why she answered “no” to a question that concerned
“where”. From this trivial incident in the station I realised I couldn’t have been more wrong to
believe that interactions with locals can be done smoothly in English there.
Thanks to the British colonial schooling system, it is not surprising to know that most
HongKongers are trilingual – the fact that we speak fluent, if not native, English allows us to
communicate with people from different parts of the world. However, the
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“English-means-communication” thing just did not work in Tokyo since Japanese people generally
are, in my opinion, feeling uneasy when they talk to foreigners in English, although many of them
actually have good command of this global language. I realised that being conversant with English,
like most of us are, can be a mixed blessing. Our proficiency in English becomes our comparative
advantage over the students from other Asian countries and makes us proud, but at the same time the
contentment built upon this kind of pride indulges us. It creates an illusion that English is an
almighty language we can use to converse with every person not from our ethnicity and therefore,
English should be the only language to acquire in addition to one’s mother tongue. Not until the
moment when English is no longer an effective communication tool somewhere in the world would
people start to realise that they have overlooked so many useful and beautiful languages around them
– this is exactly how I felt when I first came to study in Tokyo. The language barrier has given me
countless difficult moments when I tried very hard to convey what I wanted to say by inept gestures.
Using body language, occasionally I succeeded in ordering food simply by pointing at the pictures,
but apparently most of the time I failed – I mean, there’s no way you can tell the grocer that you’re
looking for breakfast cereal by a pose!
New Language Challenge
Adjusting to a new language is certainly the major difficulty that has put tremendous pressure
on my daily life in Tokyo. This city was unexpectedly monolingual which gave me the feeling that
there’s no way I’d enjoy my journey if I couldn’t speak or understand Japanese. “There’s no going
back,” I told myself on the first day of school, and quite paradoxically, this kind of pressure has
turned into my motivation to acquire the language as fully as I could. Attending three hours of
intensive Japanese course every weekday, reading Japanese children novels during lunch breaks and
joining language enhancement activities in holidays have made me completely submerged into the
world of this new language.
What really appeals to me was the fact that the language is extremely scrupulous about the
rules of courteous expressions, as people are bound to use appropriate wording on a specific courtesy
level that matches with the situation, the medium of communication and the relationship with the
listener whenever they write or speak. Let’s say – no kidding – there are more than seven ways to say
the word “go” on different levels of politeness! Native Japanese speakers can unconsciously switch
to more ‘polite forms’ of words when they talk to people in higher social status, like their teachers
and bosses, but the transition between various ‘forms’ of words became a challenging task for me –
ten seconds to figure out and translate what I wanted to say in Japanese and then ten more seconds to
choose the suitable ‘form’ – literally it took me forever to say even simple sentences like “Let’s go
for dinner”. Sometimes my friends might have already started a new topic by the time I constructed
the whole sentence! I realised that every language echoes with its respective culture, and from this
affectionate language I see the importance of social manner in the Japanese community. Mutual
respect is beautifully reflected in their language.
“Always use the ‘honourable form’ of words when you first meet someone,” said my
Japanese teacher. “It shows that you’re an educated and polite person who can keep a proper distance
with an acquaintance, if not a stranger.” Apart from its practical use, as I thought deeper into the
nuances of this language, I found that civility, which is intrinsically entrenched into the language, can
be a two-blazed sword. The rigid rule of language signifies speaker’s respect to the listeners as well
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as the arbitrary segregation of relationship. If I talk to you in the ‘friendly form’, it shows that I see
us as friends; but if I shift to the ‘polite form’, our relationship may be no more than just classmates
or colleagues. That is why I could always tell that a pair of couple has just broken up (or had rows) if
one day they suddenly switched to converse in the ‘polite form’ which shows a lower level of
intimacy. It is perhaps because of this very rule of language, which obliterates the ambivalence
between different levels of relationship, that has made Japan a nation globally renowned for its
politeness and efficiency.
“So…are there any special features in your mother tongue too?” asked my Japanese teacher,
who was trying to initiate a discussion in a classroom full of international students. “Yes,” I
responded, with my right hand in air and my eyes glittering showing my passion to share the broad
and profound history of profanity in Cantonese.
Kendo-mania
At this point you may think I might have turned into a real nerd, burying myself into
language textbooks and preparing for Japanese quizzes every day. It is not at all true. The fact is that
I soon realised language acquisition has a lot more to do than just reading books and memorising
vocabulary – interaction with people is the gist. This triggered me to join the student-led Kendo club
in Waseda University.
Kendo is a kind of traditional Japanese martial arts that two players, who are protected by
armour and helmet, combat with each other with a sword made of bamboo. The Kendo club was
founded and managed by veteran student players so there were no teachers at all. Instead, some
seniors, who I called “senpai”, played the teacher’s role to teach newcomers the basic skills and rules
of Kendo. It was not that common for an exchange student (especially one who was not proficient in
Japanese) to join the Kendo club so I was quite a “strange person” at the beginning.
Practising Kendo was a period full of new challenges for me. In the first few weeks, barely
was I able to comprehend the tradition-bound regulations, like to bow every time I enter or leave the
stadium (I didn’t even know who I was bowing to!), let alone senpais’ complicated instructions to
attack or defend. There were times I had no choice but to knee-sit on the side and watch how the
others practised the moves because I had no idea what the senpais had asked me to do. However, out
of my expectation, I started to be able to react to senpais’ instructions before long – step to the right
when they said “migi”, to the left when they said “hitari” and to the front strongly when they said
“fumigomi”, even though I did not understand the meaning of words at all.
This intriguing phenomenon of the jargon of Kendo reflected that language is never limited to
its spoken self. It is not merely from the vocabulary, but also from the context and the ambience of a
conversation that we understand each other. We bow, without saying much, to our opponent at the
end of every Kendo combat. We nod, with a smile, to people we are not quite familiar with in the
same Kendo stadium. Both of these interactions do not involve much talking but they convey
people’s thankfulness to their practice partners as effectively as the language does. It made me
realised that the essence of communication comes with, and sometimes transcends the barrier of
language. Just as Adele sings, people understand you “from the way you talk, to the way you move”.
A speechless greeting can always be more heart-warming than an aloof response of “Thank you very
much”.
“ありがとうございます [Arigatou gozaimasu]” – this phrase signifies the speaker’s
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sincere gratitude and implies a lot more than a simple “Thank you”. My sojourn in Tokyo made me
wonder if the so-called “plain language” really exists – as the more “plain” a language is, the more
candid and lively it becomes. Language is more alive than we thought it is, isn’t it?
Me in preparation for next rounds of Kendo combat
Last Kendo practice before I returned to Hong Kong – guess who’ve lost?
About the author
HO Ching Him is a 4th-year student in the Asian Business Studies (ABS) programme, with a minor in
Japanese language. In the spring semester of 2015-16, he participated in a semester-long exchange
program at Waseda University, Japan.
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