This entry will be fairly short, because I have a paper to write tonight. Apologies:
The past couple days have been filled with trips to different Universities and encountering many different students. On Wednesday we visited Tokyo Arts University--the hardest school to get into in Japan. I don't remember much about the art lectures--there were three of them; some students presented their projects and a professor presented his doctoral dissertation. The most I took away from it, though, was how stressed and processed the student's English was. All of them read it right off of a piece of paper and sounded very robotic. This made me realize that English in Japan is much like Spanish in the United States. People either embrace it or despise it. Students learn English from a very young age--I believe they are required to start learning it in Middle School. Much like we started other languages in middle school. But, much like us, that doesn't mean that you'll be very good at it. Everyone, literally, everyone (and if you know me, you know I don't use the word "literally" lightly), carries around an electronic pocket dictionary to translate English words to Japanese for convenience. Most people know enough English to get by. The really good students know it will be of use and will help them get farther in the world (like Spanish in America), so they study it hard.
Whenever I order an orange juice at the bakery, or go to the grocery store, or ask where the toilets are, I feel exceedingly sorry for the people who have to deal with my gestures and slow syllables, hoping they'll help. I feel like every other American who expects the rest of the world to learn English and doesn't learn any other language, because, when traveling, they KNOW someone, somewhere will speak the same language as them. I WANT to be able to communicate effectively, and I don't want people to think I expect them to learn English for MY sake.
I have to get going and write a paper; that's all for now.
April
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