Take a junior-high
student who studies Romeo and Juliet
and the American War for Independence and surround her with students who study Japanese
calligraphy and haiku in the original language. Then expect the American girl
to communicate with all the Japanese girls. That was my social situation as a
missionary kid living in Japan. My Japanese speaking ability progressed slowly,
and so I approached a barrier every time I tried to communicate with my peers.
I developed
socially and linguistically through acting in musicals. The hardest part of
acting was not getting in front of an audience or memorizing a script or
harmonizing in song. The hardest part was interacting with the other cast
members, even though they were girls my age and younger. I tried my best.
Speaking Japanese,
I said to Yuki, “I went to camp last week.”
She replied
apologetically, “No, I didn’t get to go to camp.”
Because of my
inflection, my statement had become the question, “Did you go to camp last week?”
My uncertainty was reflected in the tone of my voice.
In our dramatic
productions, uncertainty was erased for a time. Those scripts stretched flat vocabulary
into the shape of poetic dialogue. I learned my lines not by rote, but by
meaning, even though it meant punching the buttons of an electronic dictionary
to find out what those sounds conveyed to the audience. From the script of A Little Princess, I memorized the words
“orphan,” “attic,” and “diamond mine” in Japanese. Grammar patterns fell into
place as I sang out loud and clear. I always knew what words would be spoken
next, because we had rehearsed it last time the same way.
The communication
process offstage became simpler. Taking the words of the plays, I blurted them
out in conversation. And that usually worked—except that certain characters’
lines did not represent the quiet young girl I truly was.
At camp one summer, I
smelled the barbecued noodles and whispered to a friend, “I’m hungry.” Problem
was, I said I was hungry the way the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk spoke when he was hunting for Jack to be his
tucker. The words of a mean, ugly giant tend to sound uncouth – but can I be
blamed for making a mistake? After all, “Fee-fi-fo-fum” was not spoken by a
true giant, but by a girl wearing platform shoes and face paint. I did know how
to say, “I’m hungry,” like a girl, but the giant’s lines were simply
stuck in my head.
I learned to share
life with my Japanese friends by reading, hearing, and speaking children’s
stories acted out. After about the tenth production, our play director told us
to arrange our chairs in pairs. All we had to do was talk to a partner for two
minutes and then the outer circle would rotate. I remember how easily the words
flowed out and how happy I felt just to be talking to my friends one-on-one.
The way I made it to that point was by singing and acting.
"THEREFORE IS THE NAME OF [THE CITY] CALLED BABEL; BECAUSE THE LORD DID THERE CONFOUND THE LANGUAGE OF ALL THE EARTH: AND FROM THENCE DID THE LORD SCATTER THEM ABROAD UPON THE FACE OF ALL THE EARTH."
"SING YE TO THE LORD, FOR HE HATH TRIUMPHED GLORIOUSLY."
