![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
8/23
The next day I was invited to go with the musicians and Chica to do a jazz workshop with a Middle School brass band. Again it was difficult, since I didn’t know anything about music, let alone translating musical terms to Japanese. I took the two of us plus the woman from the international center to do as much as we did. I also helped in another radio interview, but this time I could understand everyone and everything.
We had free lunch at the Middle School and it was delicious. They loaded up the plates of the musicians and that included plate after plate of fruit, which ended up having to be thrown away. The musicians didn’t know how much money they were wasting, since fruit is such an expensive delicacy in Japan, but I figured it wasn’t my place to say anything, since they’d eaten all they could and it was the fault of the lunch ladies for loading them up so thoroughly to begin with. I was surprised that fruit was even there to begin with, they must have really wanted to impress the musicians.
I also translated some impromptu conversations with the kids, which were considerably easier, talking about homes and music and the presents the musicians brought. The kids were tickled, the musicians were tickled, it was a good time. One little boy even asked me for my autograph, but I told him I was just a translator and nobody important. He looked like maybe he wasn’t convinced, but I would have felt a little phony had I even humored him.
And suddenly Chica was saying she had to leave, but they wanted to take me with them sight-seeing to translate and they wanted me to come to the goodbye party that night! Well sure, if you want me to spend more time practicing Japanese and hanging out with my new friends, then by all means, yes!
And oddly enough, I had no problem translating for the rest of the night. I’m sure my Japanese wasn’t great and I missed a context here or there, but when you have no one to rely on but yourself, things somehow get done. That was the best lesson I’d learned in Japan so far and this weekend was the most valuable to my fluency. Seriously, going back to school on Monday I was like a new speaker.
They took me with them up to the cape and cliffs and I saw beautiful fabulous things I’d been wanting to see for almost a month. Here I was, being chauffeured around by the president of the jazz concert organization and I was the only one who spoke his language. This got me a quick in with the other president, a local celebrity in town, the eccentric guy I’d mentioned earlier when I talked about the first meeting. Two very valuable friends to have. When dinner came around, he laid out about $100 for my admittance to the party in a swanky hotel downtown.
At first I was shocked. I wasn’t here as a translator, I was here as a guest! The musicians were at another table entirely and here I was sitting between the presidents of the jazz festival, the mayor, and various other local organization presidents and the like. This made me very nervous initially, but they fed me delicious food and Nippon Shuu sake. This was my first sake, but I guarantee it won’t be my last because it was DELICIOUS.
The fluency was building and I was talking to the Japanese people and helping them talk to the musicians when I invited them over one by one to discuss the weekend. Everyone was happy, which just goes to show how wonderful it is when a balance is struck. That’s the reason foreign people like each other so much isn’t it? It’s so interesting to talk to someone different, and you both get a lot of cool points for having a relationship with someone different from you. It got more difficult to translate as everybody got drunker, but I was sure to stay on this side of shit-faced so that my Japanese didn’t suffer as much as the Japanese people’s Japanese lol
Upon departing, the musicians and I had become very endeared to each other, so they gave me all sorts of little presents like University pins and stuff (which I plan to give to my students), t-shirts, one of their CDs, and a handmade sake cup from one of them who happened to also be a potter. I’d walked away with a free $50 admission to the festival to see world class musicians, I’d gotten free lunches and dinners, all-you-can-drink-sake, a whole fist full of business cards and networking contacts, pictures of myself translating (lol), and unmatchable Japanese practice. On the car-ride home, I told the president of the festival that I’d invite him and his wife to my conversation club for adults and he told me about “his daughter,” a Chihuahua named “Love” in Japanese lol There’s a boundary that leaves forever once you drink with people in Japan :)
I can’t describe how lucky I was this weekend, nor how at home I now feel as a result.
The next day I was invited to go with the musicians and Chica to do a jazz workshop with a Middle School brass band. Again it was difficult, since I didn’t know anything about music, let alone translating musical terms to Japanese. I took the two of us plus the woman from the international center to do as much as we did. I also helped in another radio interview, but this time I could understand everyone and everything.
We had free lunch at the Middle School and it was delicious. They loaded up the plates of the musicians and that included plate after plate of fruit, which ended up having to be thrown away. The musicians didn’t know how much money they were wasting, since fruit is such an expensive delicacy in Japan, but I figured it wasn’t my place to say anything, since they’d eaten all they could and it was the fault of the lunch ladies for loading them up so thoroughly to begin with. I was surprised that fruit was even there to begin with, they must have really wanted to impress the musicians.
I also translated some impromptu conversations with the kids, which were considerably easier, talking about homes and music and the presents the musicians brought. The kids were tickled, the musicians were tickled, it was a good time. One little boy even asked me for my autograph, but I told him I was just a translator and nobody important. He looked like maybe he wasn’t convinced, but I would have felt a little phony had I even humored him.
And suddenly Chica was saying she had to leave, but they wanted to take me with them sight-seeing to translate and they wanted me to come to the goodbye party that night! Well sure, if you want me to spend more time practicing Japanese and hanging out with my new friends, then by all means, yes!
And oddly enough, I had no problem translating for the rest of the night. I’m sure my Japanese wasn’t great and I missed a context here or there, but when you have no one to rely on but yourself, things somehow get done. That was the best lesson I’d learned in Japan so far and this weekend was the most valuable to my fluency. Seriously, going back to school on Monday I was like a new speaker.
They took me with them up to the cape and cliffs and I saw beautiful fabulous things I’d been wanting to see for almost a month. Here I was, being chauffeured around by the president of the jazz concert organization and I was the only one who spoke his language. This got me a quick in with the other president, a local celebrity in town, the eccentric guy I’d mentioned earlier when I talked about the first meeting. Two very valuable friends to have. When dinner came around, he laid out about $100 for my admittance to the party in a swanky hotel downtown.
At first I was shocked. I wasn’t here as a translator, I was here as a guest! The musicians were at another table entirely and here I was sitting between the presidents of the jazz festival, the mayor, and various other local organization presidents and the like. This made me very nervous initially, but they fed me delicious food and Nippon Shuu sake. This was my first sake, but I guarantee it won’t be my last because it was DELICIOUS.
The fluency was building and I was talking to the Japanese people and helping them talk to the musicians when I invited them over one by one to discuss the weekend. Everyone was happy, which just goes to show how wonderful it is when a balance is struck. That’s the reason foreign people like each other so much isn’t it? It’s so interesting to talk to someone different, and you both get a lot of cool points for having a relationship with someone different from you. It got more difficult to translate as everybody got drunker, but I was sure to stay on this side of shit-faced so that my Japanese didn’t suffer as much as the Japanese people’s Japanese lol
Upon departing, the musicians and I had become very endeared to each other, so they gave me all sorts of little presents like University pins and stuff (which I plan to give to my students), t-shirts, one of their CDs, and a handmade sake cup from one of them who happened to also be a potter. I’d walked away with a free $50 admission to the festival to see world class musicians, I’d gotten free lunches and dinners, all-you-can-drink-sake, a whole fist full of business cards and networking contacts, pictures of myself translating (lol), and unmatchable Japanese practice. On the car-ride home, I told the president of the festival that I’d invite him and his wife to my conversation club for adults and he told me about “his daughter,” a Chihuahua named “Love” in Japanese lol There’s a boundary that leaves forever once you drink with people in Japan :)
I can’t describe how lucky I was this weekend, nor how at home I now feel as a result.