The language barrier

Imagine waking up one day hearing nothing but the sound of the outside world. You walk outside to talk to someone but they just look at you funny and try speaking in another language. You try reading something but realize you're going cross-eyed trying to  decipher the characters on the page. You just want to understand something...anything.This is my day to day experience in Japan. Now I paint this as a pretty bleak picture but its not that bad. I challenge someone to spend a week talking to no one outside of your house. Go shopping, take public transportation, and eat out. If you actually feel like talking just talk in Gibberish. Its actually a pretty interesting phenomenon.

You'll actually find that you can do a lot without ever being able to converse. Though it will feel like you have this bottle of words inside that you that you can't express, you'll actually be able to do just about anything you need. The nice thing about here in Sendai is they are pretty accommodating. Menu's generally have pictures. The cashiers will talk to you but you can ignore them. You'll eventually figure out that all they are asking you is do you want a bag if you're at the store. If you're at a Starbucks or any restaurant its usually for here or to go? They will stare at you until you give a response. I made the mistake several times with just saying Hai/iete (yes/no) to the latter question. After a while, you get used to just pointing and playing charades.

**While typing this, I just had a friend who called. She was on her way to meet a friend by bus. Turns out she got on the wrong bus. Like me, she speaks zero Japanese, has no cell phone currently and had no clue how to get home. There's nothing around here in English to help her and the people here speak little to no English. Luckily, by the grace of god some kind person was able to understand her charades enough to get her to the bus station.

The more I'm here, the more I want to explore and see everything. This means more interactions with people outside of MeySen. It can be really intimidating trying to talk to people when you know you don't speak their language. Last Thursday, I went to play tennis with a friend and found out we had to pay to use the court. We had to somehow relate that we wanted to play on the courts for an hour and fill out some paper completely in Japanese. Its really these little things we take for granted. What should have been a one minute exchange turned into 20 minute ordeal with 3 different employees coming over trying to speak broken English.

The sunny spot here in these stories is that we learn so much about ourselves and what natural humanistic things come out of us when we are unable to verbally communicate. We place our faith in God that he will get us through anything and he always provides. Its truly amazing to see what could be a scary situation turn into a manageable one because of people's good will and ability to communicate across any language barrier. I feel like we in the US seem to take for granted our ability to communicate with each other. We almost expect everyone who visits us to be completely fluent in English...cuz were Americans. I definitely have a better appreciation for ESL learners, and anyone that has difficulty in effectively communicating.

Also on the bright side, I try lots of new things here because I have no clue what it says on the package but it looks good. Rule of thumb: when in doubt it probably has squid in it. They even have squid flavored candy. Also I kind of feel like a celebrity with everyone constantly watching me. Not an A lister you'll go up and ask an autograph for but one of those D listers that you saw in a TV show many years ago and are staring at them to try to figure out which character on "Charles in Charge" they were.