歴史教科書

初めての日本語論文である。日本人ブログを読んでいる人一人がいるので、時々日本語で論文をかざるそうです。（今日は裕貴！）今日のトピックは「日本の歴史教科書」である。

外国人は、日本についていろいろな先入観を持っている。一つは、日本人は自分の太平洋せんそうの歴史を知らない。「日本のせいとは正しい歴史の勉強をしない」としんじている外国人が多いである。私は、日本に来た前に、これは真実か真実ではないかどうか分からなかったが来た後で真実を習うために研究を少ししたかった。

海外で、一般的な意見は、日本の高校は正しくない歴史教科書を使う。高校の教科書は、太平洋戦争の事実関係を習っていないとしんじている。私は、日本に来た後で、この意見の研究をしたかったけど、教科書が日本語で書いているので、研究ができない。残念だった。でも、最近、この「歴史教科書のほんやくページ」を見つけた！このページに、本当の教科書の内容が読める。この内容は、オーストラリアの教科書とだいたい同じである。例えば、南京だいぎゃくさつの事実を含むしいあんふの話をしている。

私はびっくりしなかった。日本人は平和が大切だと思っているし、中国や韓国の関係が大切し、真実が大切ので、正しい歴史を習っていると思う。もう、日本に来た後から、外国人は正しくない日本の先入観をたくさん持っているそうだった。だから、外国人によるに事実をしんじられない。いつも自分でそうだんするほうがいい。この教科書の意見は外国人の正しくなくて悪い先入観の例である。

Some notes on the Time Person of the Year

In a rare moment of personal honesty, I reveal for my readers a picture of myself. There are, in Japan, many ways for one to refer to oneself, and the choice of reference is probably quite important. I have been told by one of my teachers that, in keeping with my haircut and my sports history, I should be referring to myself as "ore" (the kanji for which looks dangerously reminiscent of a turtle). Apparently, this is the tough guy word. However, the choice of how to refer to oneself is not nearly so important as the choice of how one should refer to others. In fact, dear Reader, we are faced here with a problem. How should yours truly (ore) refer to you, when speaking Japanese?

This is an interesting problem I have recently had to grapple with, because in my dealings as a teacher at the Technical College, and as a student at the University, I have seen various forms of second person reference used, and am at a bit of a loss as to how I will ever be able to understand the nuances of their use. To this end, last weekend while in Tottori I had a bit of a chat with the Stunningly Handsome Mr. H, my Tottori regent, regarding the various forms of address.

There are perhaps 3 main ways to call someone "you" in Japanese: "anata", which is the most formal and polite; "kimi", apparently reserved for men to use towards women with whom they are friends; and "oMae" (which literally means "honourably in front of me"), which is mainly now used by men in addressing their close male friends, or by parents with their little children. Occasionally, women may refer to a strange man they do not know as "onisan" (older brother), though this seems to be a bit of a smutty, trouble-making form of address. It is, for example, used by the Delightful Miss E's friend Crazy Aya, who is most suitably named. And even she can only use it if she adds the word "cool" to the front of it (as in "Oi! Cool older brother! I want to order!", to which the reply is inevitably "who, me?").

All of this is very complex indeed. So what was the Stunningly Handsome Mr. H's advice? Sadly, not helpful. I asked him "how do you say 'you'?" And he said "My brain does not contain the word 'you'."

That's right, folks, when Mr. H speaks Japanese he never says "you". He either uses someone's name, or he finds a way to rephrase the sentence so the subject is omitted. This is the huge gulf of understanding I now find myself facing. Japanese people regularly omit the subject and the object of sentences, so for example Mr. H would never say "could you please give me that?" He would say "give, please" and consider his speech to be politer for it.

This, dear reader, may strike you as a problem merely of cultural adjustment - that I should quit my whining, and get used to people addressing me with such bluntness. But it is not so simple. Because it is almost impossible for the average English speaker to think of sentences without using "I" and "you". Any such sentence seems to be both terribly poor language, and horrifically confusing. In my fumbling attempts at reading Japanese I am continually confused by this lack of reference to the subject and object, particularly when written in the passive voice. I recently read an extract (in Tokyo Graffiti) from a girl's diary about her first sexual encounter. She managed to omit reference to the actual act altogether, and managed to give several sentences of facts about the encounter in which it was impossible to tell who was surprised at whose inexperience, because nowhere was a subject or object specified. My Japanese teacher considered this situation completely satisfactory, and took 10 minutes explaining to me the meaning of the sentences.

From the very start of my education in language, I have been taught that a sentence is meaningless without a subject and an object. Now I have to learn to speak entirely in the absence of these concepts, and present events as dry, abstract facts, states of existence of which I am merely assumed to be a part. And furthermore, I have to learn to be polite by saying such gems of soft, deferential language as "give", "come", "go" and "sell". Were I to say something unsophisticated and blunt like "could you please give that to me" I might offend.

At least in all this confusion about who is doing what to whom, I will be able to avoid assigning my interlocutors the wrong honorific. But God only knows what I'll have them doing in the meantime...

mukadelicious fun

So, about a week ago, tsuyu having begun, I was sleeping happily in our little bed - which like all Japanese beds is really just a thin mattress on the floor - with my arm stretched out behind me, when I woke suddenly with a massive stinging pain in my right hand. I dashed from bed to the bathroom, thinking I had cut it, and washed it furiously, only to notice that I had, in fact, no signs of a cut. Closer inspection revealed two tiny little puncture marks on the inside of one finger. So, I tiptoed back to bed, turned on the light, and discovered my new little friend, a vicious little centipede bastard, nestling happily on the edge of my pillow.

So after waking the Delightful Miss E and engaging in the necessary immediate remedies, and after icing my finger for a good ten minutes, I searched the room top and bottom for any sign of any others, and went back to bed.

The picture you see is not of my hand - there's no way I'm that stupid - and the centipede therein is probably twice the size of the bastard that bit me. But that should give you some idea of their ferocity. After 10 minutes of icing, my hand still ached but wasn't too bad. The next day I had to write a 10 page seminar handout, using the same bitten hand, and it was now aching in little shooting pains halfway up to my wrist. Fortunately the ice had worked, and nothing had become swollen or unworkable, so by the end of my seminar everything was fine again (though I was very tired). I still have the lumps from the bite, and I am considerably more cautious in the house now than I was, but on account of that icing it wasn't too bad. Still, it has given me cause to conclude that I now know, without a doubt, the thing I dislike most about Japan:

the stupid insects.

Between stink bugs, massive spiders, hornets, wasps, midges that fly in my mouth when I am riding, dragonflies which fly in my mouth when I am riding, the spiders clustered above our door, and now these horrible multi-legged monsters (called 'mukade' by the locals), Japan has a wider selection of completely evil insect life than I had ever imagined. Between June and October this collection of creepy, stingy, multi-legged grotesquerie is out and about and always in my way, being generally unpleasant, creepy and/or smelly. I never would have thought that, coming from Australia, I would say that I was not expecting an insect assault, but the truth is - insects in urban Australia are scarce and pathetic in comparison to the wide range of nasties on display here, and their sheer abundance.

Gross.

Rain, rain, go away...

Currently we are enjoying the pleasures of the rainy season here on the san-in coast. The rainy season, or tsuyu as it is called locally, is about a month long and is supposed to come as regular as clockwork near the end of June. Last year it just didn't come at all, so I am glad to experience it properly this year. It certainly did arrive on time in the last week of June, and since then it has rained pretty much every day except for a block of 3 days early on. The temperature has dropped, so you can't even really believe it is summer, but the humidity has gone crazy. Also, some days it buckets down for half the day and then turns stinking hot for the other half of the day. Today, however, it is just cold, and the rain is coming down in periodic squalls with high wind.

Washing clothes, going out, and even getting too and from work become a rather complicated task in this weather. In fact, washing clothes is almost impossible since they won't dry even inside, although I suppose they would if I turned on the heaters. The weather is completely untrustworthy too, so if you do anything on the assumption it will remain sunny or rainy for more than an hour you are surely going to come undone.

Overall though, tsuyu is nice. It's only a month long, which is handy, and coming from Sydney it really is hard to be anything but happy at the sight of teeming rain, flowing rivers and constant cloud. Also, the clouds are low and wispy, and they shroud the hills around my house in a very romantic fashion. Sleeping in of a Sunday morning while the wind and rain batters the windows is always a nice experience, if you don't have anywhere to go... which, mostly, we don't.

Today is going to turn less pleasant, however, because we have a typhoon incoming. The wind is picking up, and the rain is squalling, and apparently from 9pm tonight things are going to get thoroughly nasty. For me though the nastiest thing about the typhoon is what it forebodes - the end of tsuyu, and the imminent arrival of the furnace that is Japanese summer. No season here has its ending that is not a mixed blessing...