Recollection, Japan, language: fragments

[larryhammer]

I have very few memories from before Japan. My memories of Japan are fragmentary, but frequent. One of the earliest clear sequences is my fourth birthday -- celebrated while staying at a traditional inn in Kyoto. I had to ask what a birthday is, and how old I was, and what a birthday suit is. The dark room, lit only by the small cake, was scary; the hot bath was fun to swim in; and I fell in love with the koi at the Imperial Gardens, with the pure obsessive love of a four-year-old.

That was on a sightseeing trip -- we lived in Sendai, where my father was a visiting professor. I attended a Japanese preschool as the only gaijin, traveling to it on a school bus by myself. I had to get off early then cross a bridge -- I missed my stop once, and while I must have been returned somehow, the last thing I remember is breaking out in tears when we reached the elementary school. My memories of school are otherwise spotty,** though I do remember a festival/holiday with flying koi banners.* A few years ago, I still had the farewell book my classmates put together, but I've lost track of it.

I had other loves, in addition to koi. The piping hot sweet potatoes sold by street vendors. Hot chestnuts, also from streetcarts. Dried squid -- chewing on one could occupy me for an hour. I watched a lot sumo wrestling on TV. And giant robot/monster movies. I remember just one anime, a single scene that made its way into my nightmares for years; in retrospect, I think the scary giant holding the dog-or-fox-or-monkey boy in his hand was supposed to be a statue of Buddha.*** I remember my first rainbow, while walking in our neighborhood with my mother, and it just baffled me.

I went a lot of places with my mother, which caused its own problems. At the end of our year, I was as fluent in Japanese as English. I was also blond. Outgoing tow-haired moppets who spoke Japanese attracted crowds. Mom claims she learned to budget extra time for running errands when I was along. I only dimly recall this, however.

Nor do I remember what now is most striking about my language skills: I couldn't translate. If you talked with me in one language, then switched, I didn't "remember" what we'd just talked about -- but switch back, and I could. The information was accessible in only one tongue. This says something interesting about language acquisition, and how memories are encoded.

Back in the States, I quickly lost my Japanese -- two years later, I could count to four, but that was it. I also lost my taste for sumo wrestling -- though not robot/monster movies. Once as I watched one, when I was eight or so, I started getting agitated. The movie was wrong -- I couldn't tell what made it so, just that it was very wrong. It disturbed me enough to freak me, until I finally figured out the wrongness: it was in English. I'd seen it before, in Japanese. Once I knew what the problem was, I was calm and dealt just fine -- even enjoyed it. Again. This also says something about language and memory, but I'm less certain what.

* Does anyone know what this might have been?

** ETA: My preschool memories are actually more jumbled than spotty -- a large pile of unsortable and uninterpretable fragments. Only just now I realized why: most of them would have been in Japanese. Without translation.

*** ETA2: Since writing this, I've read Journey to the West and realized this must have been Monkey being caught in the hand of Buddha himself, not a statue.

---L.

Comments

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

Thank you -- that's fascinating.

[larryhammer]

It's fascinating from the inside, too.

---L.