A Night in Shanghai

 

 

In the 1990s, before my mother had Alzheimer’s disease, one of my mother’s friends built a factory in Shanghai. My mother was invited to the opening ceremony of the factory. I went with her.

After the ceremony, I was free to do whatever I wanted. In Japan, there are many movies and songs about Shanghai. I thought it was a wonderful place. Roaming around a wonderful city might be great! I thought. I started to walk from the hotel.

As soon as I came out of the hotel, many people looked at me and said in Japanese, “Watch! Watch! DVD! DVD!”

I was surrounded by sellers. I thought they could tell I was a Japanese traveler because I had come from a hotel. If I had mingled with the crowd, no one could have guessed that I was a Japanese traveler.

Then I started to run, but when I stopped at a different block of the town, more sellers screamed at me in Japanese, “Watch! Watch!” or “DVD! DVD!”

I couldn’t escape from the sellers. I couldn’t roam around the city. I returned to the hotel. How can these sellers tell that I am Japanese? I thought.

A few years later, I started to study Chinese. I asked my Chinese teacher about the incident.

She answered, “It’s because of your clothes and motions.”

These days, there are many people from China in Japan, but I can’t tell who’s Japanese and who’s Chinese based on their clothes and motions. If a person starts to speak in Chinese, then I can tell that the person is Chinese. Can people really guess others’ nationalities based on their clothes and motions?

I live in the Aichi prefecture in Japan. I have met a person who insisted that she could tell between people from the west or east side of Aichi. I find it hard to believe that.

I talked with a man who had traveled to India for a few months. His story went like this. In the beginning of his trip, people in India treated him as a Japanese traveler. He ate the local food, wore local clothes, and talked with local people. He really mingled with the people in India. At the end of his trip, people at the hotel or airport didn’t believe that he was Japanese.

If I could, I would want to travel with a long-range plan.

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Preaching

 

My grandfather was from Toyohashi. His grave is there. My mother lost him when she was in the first grade. The grave had a lot of meaning for her. When she was healthy, we often visited the grave.

 

Usually, we also visited the Buddhist temple. The priest served us green tea. And he would engage in Buddhist preaching.

 

But his preaching was very tedious. I am sure he didn’t have a sense of how to preach. I almost started to hate Buddhism.

 

But the green tea that he poured was extremely delicious. I was always surprised by the taste of the tea.

 

Toyohashi is near Shizuoka. Green tea is a well-known product in Shizuoka. The priest could even get good tea leaves at an economical price.

 

He always poured tea in front of us. So, I bought green tea in Shizuoka, and I poured it in the same way as he did. But it didn’t have the same taste. Is that difference because of Buddhist magic?

 

I used to visit the grave and the temple with my mother. My motivation was to drink the tea. At the time, I wished the preaching was more interesting.

 

Now, the priest has passed away. I can’t taste the tea forever. Looking back on it, I miss the tedious preaching, too.

 

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Americanization

 

 

In the 1990s, I studied at a university in the USA. My classmates came from all around the world.

 

One day, we discussed Americanization. I am not sure if the tendency to discuss that is still strong now. At least in the 1990s, most countries were influenced by the USA. American movies and TV dramas were popular all over the world. Japanese people used English words to describe new concepts every day.

 

But some people worried about Americanization. They thought it might destroy their traditional society.

 

The class had discussion time. I listened to many opinions from other students.

 

The teacher asked me my opinion.

 

I told this story.

 

I had Korean and Taiwanese classmates at that time. I confessed to the teacher that we often cheated during classes. We have different languages, but we used common letters: Chinese characters. Our pronunciations are different, but the meanings of the words are almost the same. So, when we had difficulty communicating in English, we often wrote down Chinese characters. It made it easier for us to communicate. But using non-English words in the classroom was cheating because it was an English class.

 

Why could we communicate in Chinese characters? About a thousand years ago, China was a prosperous country. The countries around China sent students to China. They were influenced by China.

 

I said: “I can’t predict what country will be prosperous in a thousand years. I don’t know what country future students will go to when they want to study. But I am sure they will cheat in English.”

 

All of my classmates and even my American teacher laughed.

 

In the 1990s, it might have been a nice joke. I am not sure it would work now.

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The Hare and the Tortoise

 

Once, I worked as an English teacher. One day, I was almost late, so I took a taxi. I told the taxi driver to go to the English school. The elderly taxi driver asked me, “Are you an English teacher?” Then he started to tell me his story.

When he was a student, he wanted to work for a hotel. Many non-Japanese travelers would stay in the hotel. So he studied English very hard. He continued, “I can recite ‘The Hare and the Tortoise,’ which was in my textbook. May I recite it now?”

I listened to his recitation of “The Hare and the Tortoise” as an English teacher. Amazingly, from the beginning to the end, there was no mistake. He was very fluent. Driving a taxi is a great job. But if his dream came true, he would be a great hotel employee.

I was lucky to be able to continue my English education. I became an English teacher. But I can’t remember a single page from the textbook I used when I was a student. I am not sure I can recite “The Hare and the Tortoise” fluently without making a mistake.

Perhaps I need to study the fundamentals again. Maybe every time the driver drives an English teacher, he practices “The Hare and the Tortoise.” Practice makes perfect.

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Picture by Yaiba lime