I’m at work, it's Sunday four o’clock and I hate the fact that this computer capitalizes “I.” Is the first person so important that it needs to be capitalized? Actually I hate the bloody English language and that I have been a fake for 3 years. How the hell did I pass as an English teacher in Japan for 3 years? I can’t speak this language never mind write. The rules confuse me, grammar doesn’t make sense, and then there are all these words that trip me each time I use them. I don’t know enough words to describe how I feel…I feel inadequate. Language is supposed to bring people together but I feel defeated by it. There is no accuracy in the way I use it, and the pleasure people feel when they use the exact word, well I can’t say that I’ve experienced that. If there is one insecurity…okay I have many insecurities but grammar is on top of that list. You know people hate the way they look, their weight, the fact that they can’t talk with the opposite sex, don’t earn enough money, think that their lovers think that they are bad in bed, pressure of choosing a career, dying alone, not doing enough, doing too much…NO!!! I am not haunted by any of these. I am haunted by grammar. I cringe when I see green underlined words on my computer screen. I hate subject verb agreement.
One of the characters in the Skin of the Lion by Michael Ondaatje hates words. He prefers fucking to speaking. He said that you could never fuck yourself into a corner, whereas words could push you so fast that you wouldn’t know how it happened. That is how I feel about grammar. I feel that I’ve been speaking English since I was twelve, why can’t I get it right? If I can sleep with grammar, I would have done so long time ago, then there wouldn’t be this frustration and anger on my part…actually most likely there will be…okay I have to stop this and return to work
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Memories
Telling and retelling stories solidify events in the past. It is an adhesive that constantly needs to be applied so that our memories survive the struggle against forgetting. A friend of mine, her father was telling a story about a man who won the lottery in Seballes. As I was listening to his narrative, I recognized the words he was using were identical to the ones my friend used to tell the same story. It brought me to question, what percentage of this story was his? What percentage was my friend's? How many times was this story retold within their family before this version I am hearing was completed? And does ownership really matter when it comes to memory?
For months I tried to retrieve childhood memories. My mind kept drawing a blank. I couldn't rely on photos for the few printed images I have of my family were in a box stored in a friend's house. I wanted time to move backwards and to bring me back to my uncle's salt farm in South China Sea. It’s been too long since I visited. And time tends to erase memory, making me doubt the existence of my past.
In my early twenties I used think that my past was trapped in another country and another language, that I could reclaim them by returning to the place where I grew up and by speaking my native tongue. In the late nineties I returned to the islands after 15 years of being away. But I didn't find the country I left behind and my Tagalog was poor after years of being unused. My oldest brother told me that my tongue was too soft, it undulated and that I needed to roll my tongue so that I could sound Tagalog. I took his advice. I knew that in time my language would return and my country would reclaim its lost child. It didn't happen. Was Thomas Wolfe right? I have moved away for so long and have changed so much, how could I have thought that everything would remain the way it was, just because in my mind it was suspended in time.
I tried a last attempt, language and geography could fail me but memories wouldn't turn their backs on me. Even though I had to dip into English to describe the past I knew that the individual memory has to be combined and shared with others so that it would survive. Memories are collectively owned, that is why we tell and retell stories.
Natatadaan mo pa ba noon malilit tayo. Lagi tayong pumupunta sa asinan. Naglalakad lang tayo. at lagi akong natatakot lalo na kung tatawid ako sa maliit na tuwid. kasi sa tingin ko, ako ay mahuhulog at iiwanan ninyo ako. Natatandaan mo ba ang puno ng sampalok sa asinan. Wala na noon bumalik ako, wala na rin yong la mesa. Ang pinaka gusto ko sa asinan ay ang hangin, dala nya ang lasa ng asin. Gusto ko rin yong kuwento ng maliliit na tao, na nakatira sa lalim ng lupa at pag gabi na ay umaakyat para maglaro sa asin. Natatandaan mo pa ba.
For months I tried to retrieve childhood memories. My mind kept drawing a blank. I couldn't rely on photos for the few printed images I have of my family were in a box stored in a friend's house. I wanted time to move backwards and to bring me back to my uncle's salt farm in South China Sea. It’s been too long since I visited. And time tends to erase memory, making me doubt the existence of my past.
In my early twenties I used think that my past was trapped in another country and another language, that I could reclaim them by returning to the place where I grew up and by speaking my native tongue. In the late nineties I returned to the islands after 15 years of being away. But I didn't find the country I left behind and my Tagalog was poor after years of being unused. My oldest brother told me that my tongue was too soft, it undulated and that I needed to roll my tongue so that I could sound Tagalog. I took his advice. I knew that in time my language would return and my country would reclaim its lost child. It didn't happen. Was Thomas Wolfe right? I have moved away for so long and have changed so much, how could I have thought that everything would remain the way it was, just because in my mind it was suspended in time.
I tried a last attempt, language and geography could fail me but memories wouldn't turn their backs on me. Even though I had to dip into English to describe the past I knew that the individual memory has to be combined and shared with others so that it would survive. Memories are collectively owned, that is why we tell and retell stories.
Natatadaan mo pa ba noon malilit tayo. Lagi tayong pumupunta sa asinan. Naglalakad lang tayo. at lagi akong natatakot lalo na kung tatawid ako sa maliit na tuwid. kasi sa tingin ko, ako ay mahuhulog at iiwanan ninyo ako. Natatandaan mo ba ang puno ng sampalok sa asinan. Wala na noon bumalik ako, wala na rin yong la mesa. Ang pinaka gusto ko sa asinan ay ang hangin, dala nya ang lasa ng asin. Gusto ko rin yong kuwento ng maliliit na tao, na nakatira sa lalim ng lupa at pag gabi na ay umaakyat para maglaro sa asin. Natatandaan mo pa ba.
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Cycle
Since twelve, the longest I’ve stayed in one place is three years. Three years on 369 Mountain, 95 Gardenia Bay, 225 Tyndall, in a single door room bed on 110 Tache. As my time in Japan draws closer to an end another address will be added to my list. Even my relationships with men carry this expiration date: 3 years with my high school boyfriend and 3 years getting over an obsession with a small town Manitoban farm boy.
This time interval is not always self willed, some had been forced, but it is the former that is the hardest. Leaving Japan and returning to my adopted country is going to be hard. I am full of anxieties and fear. I find it hard to balance or identify my emotions. Most of the time I am not really here, I’m lost in June’s haze. I stare for hours in smudged blue mountain peaks of Yatsugatake until the sky becomes dark and frogs from rice paddies below my balcony start to serenade me.
Japan has been an accommodating place to live, and teaching English here is a well paid, secured job that only required minimal qualifications—I can see why people choose to stay.
This time interval is not always self willed, some had been forced, but it is the former that is the hardest. Leaving Japan and returning to my adopted country is going to be hard. I am full of anxieties and fear. I find it hard to balance or identify my emotions. Most of the time I am not really here, I’m lost in June’s haze. I stare for hours in smudged blue mountain peaks of Yatsugatake until the sky becomes dark and frogs from rice paddies below my balcony start to serenade me.
Japan has been an accommodating place to live, and teaching English here is a well paid, secured job that only required minimal qualifications—I can see why people choose to stay.
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