Perils of little knowledge

More about little knowledge. I am learning a lot about the perils of using little knowledge and the little risks it comes with .Whenever I read a few new Japanese words , I feel like trying it out in the open. Till now , I have inflicted my Japanese on a taxi driver, a shopkeeper and some other less fortunate individuals here in Japan.

The results have been less than spectacular. The taxi driver looked like he pitied my lack of intelligence , the shopkeeper replied about the price by talking in Japanese numbers and after looking at the blank expression, used his calculator to actually show the price in digital form . The other less fortunate individuals had similar reactions . To understand their situation, the 'Lord of the Rings' movie dialogues are instructive:

Pained with his situation, Frodo says to Gandalf ,

"I wish the ring had never come to me...I wish none of this had happened."

on this, Gandalf says :
"So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

So these individuals tried their best to deal with the situation given to them. In other words, they had to use all their resourcefulness to answer my questions.

Firstly and naturally, they would speak in fluent Japanese because I asked the question in Japanese. Then, when they find out that that I had already used all the Japanese I knew, they try to use some very broken English . After this point some gave up with the cross sign using their fingers , meaning they are at their wits end , and left. Some others used sign language to make me understand their point .

I have very few days left here , nevertheless, I intend to keep up the good show.

Japanese and Bihari

Little knowledge is dangerous and the little knowledge I am gaining of Japanese might be no exception to this. I am trying to learn Japanese a little. I read a Japanese learning book everyday though I might never be able to use Japanese much. Its a disappointing thought but I am trying to keep the (non) usefulness of learning away from the joy of learning it.

So, armed with my little knowledge of Japanese,I have been drawing premature parallels with other languages I know : namely Hindi and English. The Japanese learning book I have is in English and I do my thinking in Hindi. So its two levels of translations I have to do to understand something. But then after a day or two I discovered that Japanese is more like Hindi than English:grammar wise. The subject, object and the verbs are arranged in Japanese and Hindi in the same way. But even more interesting is some literal parallels with Bihari, (a Hindi dialect) Example:

Bihari's often add 'wa' after a noun . e.g. if you want to say "That building is here "


Woh building-wa idhar hai.
( Woh= that , idhar=here , hai = is )

Incidentally, Japanese do the same :

Ano Biru -wa sono des.

( Ano = that ,biru= building, sono= here , des= is )

So,in this case, a straight,simple literal translation from Bihari will give you a correct Japanese translation :)

Another example, Bihari's add a 'ka' at the end of a sentence to make a question from a sentence. Example, if you want to say, " Is that building here?"


Woh building-wa yahan hai ka?
(woh= that, yahan = here ,hai= is )


A Japanese would say :

Ano biru-wa doko des ka ?
( Ano= that, biru=building, doko= here, des= is)

With such miniature discovery and enlightenment, I was already feeling like a Japanese expert. But before long, my pride took a beating. The reason is that today I said "Ohayo gozaimus" ( good morning) to a girl in the bank instead of "Arigato gozaimus"( thank you). Thankfully the she understood what I wanted to say because I have learned to bow at every excuse, or the lack of it ( I am a natural at it). She said something in Japanese with an expression which gave away friendly understanding and enjoyment of my situation and also some appreciation of the large effort I was putting on my brain to find the right words on the spur of the moment.

Kimono and me

I went to Asakusa, a Tokyo district which has retained its traditional charm to date, I bought a lot of Japanese items, like good Japanese traditional folding fans, chopsticks , Japanese dolls etc. But one thing that captivated my imagination was a blue silky Japanese Kimono. I loved it so much that despite it being costly, it took me no more than a second to decide buying it. I bought one very good one for my mother. I did some gentle bargaining ( i am not good at that or not inters ted mostly).But it got me the Kimonos at around 10% less. Next we went to Asakusa temple . One interesting speciality is set of boxes in the temple wall where you can get your future. Mine came to be a good fortune. All good predictions should be believed, and I believed this one even more because the very next day and 2 days after , Japanese vending machines returned me more yens than they should.
Back to Kimono, so after buying it , we went to the Imperial palace. The palace is not majestic as I expected, or it might be because no one can actually see it except on 2-3 special occasions in a year. But the environs are kept well preserved. We got to see only the surrounding since the emperor and the family still live there unlike India's maharajas who have long left their palaces in favour of some foreign destinations. Inside the imperial palace gardens, I could not restrain myself and put on the Kimono and started posing.My friends clicked away the photos.But I noticed that there was a Japaese couple, a policeman and some Europeans there, who looked very interested and before i could know, they clicked some photos of me in that Kimono.

I asked my Japanese colleague next day whether people wear such Kimonos, he said drinking his green tea  that its quite unusual. Now I understand why those Japanese people found it necessary to take my photos. After all, you don't find a foreigner wearing a beautiful silky Kimono posing inside the Imperial palace everyday.

Tokyo local train

If you want to know what the phrase "bursting at the seams" means, look at a Mumbai local train. It looks like people are bursting out of every seam available.I used to think that Japan will be different, with its dwindling population.But how wrong could I be?

So I stood at the Kameido station on my second day in Japan, waiting for the next subway train. The subway in Tokyo is a whole city beneath the earth. With a web of lines which can take you almost anywhere in Tokyo.The train came and it did not seem so full. People went out and I got in with my friend. We went in and faced the door , some people came in the first wave. Then there was second. I thought that the train is full. Then came the third wave. The waves kept coming. It was like tsunami: the waves are not fierce, but they do not stop, they gently but persistently keep coming until you are overwhelmed.People made their way gently, but just when you think that the compartment is full, another few would come in. There was slow and gentle nudge that you start getting from all sides until you have no space to move even your hand.At the near end of it, everyone was getting crushed, I saw a guy in front of me wincing in pain-my laptop was apparently hitting his feet and almost crushing it. But he just bore the pain and did not complain. My right hand was stuck at 60 degrees in the air, it was sandwiched in the process of trying to find a holding. For next 10 minutes it was like that.

I used to think that the automatic doors would deter people from packing too much,but it seemed to help people in doing just the same.Sometimes peoples' bags, hair or limbs come in the way. In such cases, the driver and guard who stand in front of gates interfere.They gently push the people in and let the doors close. Its like you push in last of the clothes sticking out of your suitcase and close it.

Once I saw a girl literally sticking to the door with both her palms on it.She was standing there in that posture silently. I thought this posture quite strange, until my friend later told me that her hair got stuck between the closing doors.

So these stuffed suitcase take people to their offices everyday in the busy subway lines. People do not mind being stuffed and they do not resist other peoples' coming in even though the Bogey is full.

This is contrast to Mumbai's trains where people come in not like Japanese tsunami, but like a storm. Japanese people come as tsunami, and in Mumbai - people 'storm in'.

Japanese way of speaking

One little note, Japanese people can't voice some sounds.. the most glaring example is "L" sound. So hearing even known English words from Japanese people is like hearing a new word. English is "Igris", Language is "rangUage", toilet is "toyre". Then there is no independent consonants in Japanese, all consonants have a vowel attached, that means that "Amolak" will be called "A-mo-ra-ka" , "Piyush" becomes "Pi-Yu-Shu".

Listening to Japanese also has some interesting twists. "Hai" means "Yes" and also used as "OK" ,for acknowledging that you are listening to the other person. But the way it is said is the most unusual. It is said with a great puff of air coming from deep down the lung, and with a lot of enthusiasm ( that's how a foreigner would perceive it). Then many of the words seem like they have been cut before the word has ended. When I hear these frequent and peculiar pronunciation of words , it seems like a mouse was passing a hole and before it completely passes through, the shutter of the whole closed , thus cutting its tail :)