In the Silent Land

Have you ever heard of the deaf people? What would you expect or imagine when you hear such words as “deaf, silent, sign language”? Probably some really dark-colored gloomy atmosphere, hopeless, unsatisfied in anything people and impossible to learn language of the chosen, right? But in real situation…

Honestly, I faced with first deaf people in my life just two weeks ago, when being bored after four classes on Wednesday, I decided to participate in our Professor Fedorowicz’s Japanese Sign Language club (here our you can find your friends fellow-students from KGU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGj-M7NAa_0).

The first person I’ve met there in a classroom was always radiant sunny Junko-sensei, who hears and speaks a little, and also knows Japanese, English and even Swedish sign languages. Although I came there having no idea what’s going on in the deaf world nowadays and having not realized even such a simple thing that sign language varies in different countries and cultures (and even in different areas of the same country! We’re studying Kansai-ben [dialect] in our club, for example), I didn’t feel awkward, frustrated or even puzzled. Why? Because you can’t even imagine how relaxed atmosphere in the deaf people society, how clear their logic works in terms of the nature of every sign, how energetic and optimistic they are, the people, who can’t perceive the world the way we don’t even pay attention to.  

On the same weekend with a couple of my new classmates-senpai (seniors) I went to Osaka deaf-people café to enjoy Pr. Fedorowicz’s photo exhibition (here you can find address and information about the exhibition and café itself - (http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2011/02/sign-language-faces-visual-anthropology.html ) and try to meet more new friends among the café’s customers. And we succeeded in both! I don’t really remember how the process of our communication began and how we became friends after only one hour of me learning their mysterious but so easy to understand language, but that night ended in izakaya (Japanese traditional bar) in a funny company of new friends with bunch of plans for the nearest time: Osaka plum-trees’ blossoming, kimono-wearing class together, sakura-hanami (enjoying Japanese cherry blossoms) in Kyoto in kimono… 

My best friend – Emi-san

She was one of the middle-aged ladies in charming kimono at the deaf café, where we came and luckily got to the kimono-wearing class for the deaf people. Emi-san is an ideal personification of a classical Japanese beauty – modest, tolerant, funny and slightly coquettish. We talked just a little bit because of my inability to say anything more complicated than personal introduction (after only one lesson, don’t forget!), but I want to assure you - the conversation with deaf people is a very fascinating thing: they eagerly teach you lots of new words, they will be very patient and helpful and really-really happy to communicate. You’ll feel the same and  won’t be able to hide your smile while hanging out with them.

By now I’ve met Emi-san twice – in the deaf café and next weekend after it when we went for a walk to Osaka castle to enjoy plum-trees. Here you can see two pictures from our second meeting. Emi-san’s a very opened, enthusiastic and beautiful person – in all the meanings. Her hobby’s photography the same as mine, she likes takoyaki (me too), she adores kimono culture and seriously studies all the detail about it. She’s very kind, generous and out-going person – I’m very happy to spend my spare time with her and I’m very thankful that she became my friend though I’m not that good company in terms of communicating her language yet. でも、頑張ります！(But I’ll work hard!)

 Listening with a heart, not ears

Just imagine one sunny wonderful March day you’re walking in a garden full of plum-trees blossoming various colors and shapes of flowers and invading its aroma all around. There are different people – little children, hugging couples, coughing but still cheerful elderly with giant cameras, relaxed office plankton under the trees with o-bento (launch box) – everybody’s here. And my friends also came there to share the happiness of a new spring coming - together with the rest.

Suddenly the prettiest sounds of harp music next to the very entrance of the garden are coming to our ears, so that my Emi-san notices it too and begins taking pictures of a musician and the whole unusual procession. And everybody seems to be happy, but I know - she could never hear how marvelous the music was.

The essential thing in the deaf communication is to notice tiny changes of feelings and emotions of your partners – in facial expressions, movements, speed of gestures, so on and so forth. Every time since I became friends with my Emi-san, I make myself imagine how it feels like – not to listen to the music all the way to school, not to pay attention to the birds in a spring garden, not to hear steps of a friend behind my back, not to be able to join to the noisy bacchanalia in izakaya, not to turn to the children cry or laugh…

Only silence here and everywhere.

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 Links for Mr and Ms Curiousity:

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1)      http://www.jfd.or.jp/en/  - Japanese Federation of the Deaf site, where you can find information about official deaf world events in Japan, the history of the organization itself and some tips for learning Japanese sign language.

2)    http://www.kyoto-be.ne.jp/ed-center/gakko/jsl/  - Wanna learn Japanese Sign Language? Do it right now with the help of this easy to work with and quite well-structured material

3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BszkSIlrJaA – pretty nice video for willing to study simple phrases in JSL (with English translation)

4)    http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4538 – “DEAF IN JAPAN
Signing and the Politics of Identity” by Karen Nakamura

となりの枚方たち (Hirakata & Co)

Late February. In my cold and snowy Russia it would mean still -20C (-4,00F) and snowy obstacles on the roads. In Japan it smells spring… Daffodils, tulips and plum trees are blossoming, light April wind plays with my hair, Kansai Gaidai inhabitants bathe in the sunlight and Japanese girls start forgetting about winter  boots and warmers…

This week I happened to get my bicycle broken and therefore spent the whole week moving around our Hirakata neighbourhood walking. And to say the truth – I enjoyed it, because slow-pace life lets you notice little pleasant things you would never pay attention to zooming by bike and being busy with some insignificant routine.

The first thing I’ve noticed was the fact that on our way to school from Seminar House 2 (Kansai Gaidai dormitory) we are used to pass by two Buddhist temples next to each other looking almost the same as usual private houses and one Shinto shrine attached to the Elementary school. Every day I passed them by, tempted to destroy the silence inside and only by Friday I got enough guts to come in one of the temples.

The temple is called Myoukyouji (妙教寺) and is looked after by cheerful Nishimoto-san’s family, who lives there. I was met by his wife who was really pleased by a gaijin’s interest in Buddhism, and she let me come and take pictures not only of a carefully landscaped tiny Japanese-styled garden but also inside of the temple itself.  Being busy with taking pictures of a shining golden altar full of flowers and statues, I didn’t hear heavy shuffling footsteps of the host. A little bit sleepy aged man began talking to me in Japanese (!), telling me lots of fascinating things such as the history of Buddhism and the temple itself, about Japanese people beliefs and connection of Shinto and Buddhism… Interestingly, he told me that nowadays the belief that Shinto deities (神様) were actually born from Bodhisattva, and although in Meiji period temples were completely destroyed, for Shindo (he pronounced it like this) was the only central religion and the reflection of unique Japanese national ideas, there are more and more people believing in Buddhism as a primary religion now. So, being enlightened with a real knowledge of religions’ origin and invited to the nest service, I left the temple.

Of course everybody here, in Hirakata, knows what New-Deli is, right? When we hear this magic name of the Indian restaurant, we imagine hot chicken carry, soft and warm, melting in our mouth naan (Indian huge pie), fabulous aroma of free (!) mango lassi (milk shake) and ice-cream with mango jam for a desert when you can’t eat anymore… And no doubts everyone does remember 33-teeth “元気な” (cheerful) smiles of Indian waiters, don’t you? This time we met there the greatest waiter ever – Yumin Go, a Chinese-Japanese Kansai Gaidai student,　speaking flawlessly English and Japanese and always ready to raise her customers’ mood. We noticed her laughing with other hungry for Indian hospitality people there, and when she came to our table, she began joking, mimicking Japanese eternal “すみません” (“I’m very sorry”) regretting grimace so skilfully that we couldn’t stop laughing till unbearable laugh cramps in belliesJ. After having eaten everything (and even three more free naans), my friends continued talking but I left them and came in a tiny sacred place – kitchen, where found friendly team of tree real Indian cooks ready to talk to me. They came from Calcutta – 8 months, a year and 3 years ago. They really enjoy life in Japan for a unique opportunity not only leading their own business but promoting Indian culture in their neighbourhood, where the sun rises first. We left the place of full stomachs Nirvana late at night, having learnt how to thank in Indian – “shukria”, seen enough Indian beauties on a screen and full of memories for the whole week – not only in our hearts and stomachs, but on our clothes as well, smelling one of the best substitute for Paradise on the Earth…

  

Shocking Therapy in Japan

Japan appeared under our airplane with its special charm, as if hiding in the curly clouds… Leaving the plane - the only connection with my last life in the other world of frosty Russian winters and cool white-nights St-Petersburg’s summers, I found myself in a yet sleepy and slowly but always systematically working Japan. The country of my dreams opens its warm embrace to me and…

Shock № 1: 内と外の人々

…and the crumpled and Japanese travelers have been separated into two groups – the gaijins (外国人 – strangers, foreigners, people coming outside) and the Japanese: different lines, entrances, windows, places in the society. That moment one bitter thought sneaked into my head – I would always be here an odd man out… And the wave of the first cultural shock rose and swamped me.

For quite a long time Kansai Airport was chewing its new guests in its halls and it took me some time to prove that I came to a customer’s motherland with extremely positive intentions.

Shock №2：the Japanese masterpiece

My first acquaintance with it happened during my first minutes on the ground of Japan. The doors of the place were reasonably coloured pink and blue according to the gender of the guests and inside… - oh, inside the pink one it smelled (don’t ask me why^^) kids’ bubble gum and the seat was soooo warm, that you would forget about all your troubles and stresses on it. Moreover there are lots of various buttons with the most unexpected purposes sometimes – wow!:) And if you’re too shy to demonstrate what you’re doing there to everybody outside your little private space, be sure to touch a special button to turn the sound of the pouring water on, so that to feel peacefully while doing your dark business. By the way – just to know for you, guys, remember that many doors are opened inside not to take extra space in this tiny paradise.

Shock № 3, or the 1^st Red Flag: “They’re strange!”

Soon after my coming to Hirakata, Osaka, I with all new international students had to make a Japanese banking card – just to be able to get the scholarship on it. So we prepared it and in some days we should have got the very cards – but of course I forgot my password and had to get to the bank by myself. Having just entered the bank I was met by a pretty old gentleman, who was bowing(!) to me. I asked my self – where should he hide his pride to bow every random man coming in? And I tried to explain it to myself – it’s so called “TEAM WORK”, when one doesn’t have any individuality while helping out one’s team to achieve its goal. That old guy plays a role of a “carpet road” inside the company, the representatives of which are the young ladies just out of their colleges’ desks. And it struck me how an old man can work just “a bower” for years in the country where the age is respected most of all… However as it turned out – the age doesn’t ha anything in common with a social structure over here – it’s his “giri” (duty) to present his team, he’s a little wheel in a big, powerful and astonishing mechanism called “Japanese society”. So, I got my number in the line (thank you for a system in everything, my Japan!) and when it was my turn – a young woman, neglecting my broken Japanese, hasn’t changed it to English – what made me really proud of being able to support a conversation by myself. And then asking me to show her my passport and a card, she gave me a plastic plate, which purpose even my Japanese friends can’t explain exactly, but maybe it’s about privacy and respect towards a guest’s things – so that not to touch it with your indecent palms… So, having heard as much keigo (super polite speech) as it could be possibly used for 15 minutes, and sweating while trying to find that forgotten word I needed most of all, I left.

Shock № 4: Exotic nature shows itself

And then a real fall began. No-no, not according to our European or Western Russian measures – it’s more like the second half of our hottest summer, that what they have in October -.-. Humidity, warm rains, of course sun (of which we used to dream for 8 month in a year:), and the leaves, as far as I got it, are not going to change their colour or place. And sometimes, you know, you’ll look out of the window in the time of a shining sunset and you could possibly see some strange “birds” almost the same size as a Calibri but with incredibly big wings and weird sounds coming from their fluffy tiny bodies, which sometimes hang on the trees upside-down, making a pioneer-gaijin tremble by their twittering. It took me some time to get used to their daffy flies just a little over the top of my head in those nice summer’s nights…

Shock № 5: Is the grass on the other side really greener?

No doubts, the concept of beauty differs with every culture, what could be observed in native arts and traditions of any country. And isn’t it wonderful that in different corners of the world we are attracted the way we used to consider according to the historically and culturally formed ideas of what is pretty and what’s ugly? I guess – yeah, it’s cool. But Japanese guys and girls don’t think that their ancestors were fair enough chanting geisha’s raven black wonderful hair and willow like body… More often I can hear Japanese girls almost crying because of jealousy about my friend’s blue eyes or my blonde hair, or guys on the streets staring at us as if we’re goddesses. I know it might sound cocky, but I don’t really like the way they praise our Western appearance – it’s silly not to notice how charming their own girls, who’d better not to dye their hair blonde – it looks really odd and even frightful sometimes. And being in the shoes of the trade companies in Japan I would promote their own ideals, while the whole cosmetics market is occupied by long artificially made eye-lashes, blonde wigs, blue and green eye lenses and white powder - which is actually sad for me who values natural beauty best of all. Especially in Japan.

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I've been studying here in Japan for almost half a year already, but every day I still have a little cultural shock of various kind. And you kno what? I enjoy it with all my heart, as it means that I'm still curious and interested enough to be surprised every other day. Love you, Japan!