Outside

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Finding Your Voice In A Foreign Land

My knowledge of the Japanese language is entirely functional. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I’m functionally fluent. If I need to find a bathroom, I can do that. If I need to make special adjustments to a restaurant order, I can do that. If I need to tell my kids to stop chewing on each others’ arms, I can do that, too. I can converse in a rather verbose, if boring and stilted, manner. I cannot, however, write a story. I cannot string together a poem or express complex emotional ideas. I cannot weave a tapestry of words to evoke emotions, to encourage empathy, to fundamentally move a person and leave my mark on them.

And it’s frustrating when I’m in a situation where I have to do exactly that. Perhaps it’s the writer in me, struggling to find a voice in a language I have yet to master, overflowing with emotions to relate but unable to relate them in the right way.

At my sister-in-law’s wedding, they had a slideshow of pictures from the lives of the bride and groom. The first picture of the bride’s life was her as a baby in the smiling arms of my mother-in-law. As related in an earlier post, she died before I ever met her. My first trip to Japan was for her funeral.

All I could think when I saw that picture was how she’d never been able to hold any of her grandchildren like that. How my kids will grow up without their Japanese “ba-san”. How she will never be able to pass on to her daughters that special kind of motherly advice that can only come from one’s own mother.

The next pictures were of my wife and her sister growing up, going through all the various milestones kids go through, with their smiling mother by their side. All these things she’ll never see for her own grandkids, never be able to do with them. I was touched, but at the same time I was standing in the back of the reception hall holding my one-year-old son. I couldn’t break down–it was my job to keep him from breaking down.

But then the last picture came up in the slideshow. The family all stood together, smiling, with a caption whose beauty I can’t exactly translate but is best rendered as: “Her mother watches over her from Heaven.” And that’s when I lost control. I excused myself and walked out of the reception hall and over to the large windows overlooking the city of Nagoya.

It helped that my son chose that moment to go a little nuts, so I had some cover, but that’s not exactly why I left. I’m no stranger to embarrassment–you get used to that marrying into a foreign culture. No, I had to leave because I knew that if anyone asked me what was wrong, why I looked like I’d been chopping onions, I wouldn’t be able to express exactly how I felt. “I’m sad” and “I was moved” are functional phrases. They’re all that came to mind. They’re all I knew how to say in my functional Japanese voice. And they weren’t sufficient. They wouldn’t do the moment justice. So I hid away by the windows, watching the traffic in the streets below for a while to gather my thoughts and let the baby settle down.

As authors, sometimes we struggle to find our own voice. I’m discovering the same is also true when learning a foreign language. It’s my goal to someday be able to tell my Japanese family exactly how I feel in my very own Japanese Ben voice. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me, but it’s for a good cause.

Family at the Wedding

Actually, five good causes.

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Wedding of a Stranger

I went to a wedding on Sunday. I had only known the bride since ten in the morning and didn’t know anyone else in attendance. That alone is a pretty interesting hook for a story, but there’s something about me, personally, that takes it to the next level.

I’m an introvert. This may come as a surprise, given my background as a project manager, pianist, and Juror #10 in a performance of Twelve Angry Men–the juror with the long-winded bigoted monologue where for a few painful minutes all eyes are on me. The truth is I’m a terrible public speaker, and you’ll generally find me hanging out at the back of a party, sipping a glass of water and wondering how much longer I have to stay before it’s no longer considered rude to leave.

This past Sunday we attended a new church. I’m not sure how familiar the Orthodox faith is to most, but I can summarize my stress that morning with one simple phrase: all children attend service. And I’ve got four of them, the oldest one a mere six years of age.

About halfway through the service, my second daughter grew very quiet behind me. This was a notable event because she’s generally a tornado of a child. I looked back to see her sitting on the lap of a complete stranger. I panicked, wondering what terrible thing she’d gotten herself into now and how I was going to explain this, when my wife told me everything was fine. The lady had asked my daughter to sit with her.

During the announcements at the end of the service, the priest mentioned a wedding at the church that evening. The young lady who had been holding my daughter whispered in my ear that we were all invited to the wedding. I found it strange that she was inviting me to somebody else’s wedding, but as fortune would have it she was the bride. She’d given my wife the same invitation.

When it was time to go, the introvert in me declared that we weren’t going to the wedding. We were tired, poorly dressed, and didn’t know anybody. I did not want to impose on a stranger’s special day. My wife and other children really wanted to go, however, and so in an act of immense willpower I told that introvert inside of me to have a seat.

The wedding ceremony was beautiful. My daughters watched in awe as the bride and groom stood in the middle of the church before the priest. My four year old later claimed to have seen a princess. After the ceremony the bride and groom invited us to the reception.

We sat in the parking lot of the reception hall considering our options. We did not know anybody here. There would be food–food that somebody had paid for without us in the equation. We decided to just run inside, take a few pictures, and leave. As we were getting out of the car, though, the bride and groom arrived and parked beside us. She grabbed up my four year old and carried her off into the reception hall after snapping a few photographs.

We ate, at their insistence, and stayed for all of the events–the toasts, the dance, the cutting of the cake. My children met other children and played until they collapsed from exhaustion, then got up and played some more. I met so many wonderful people and learned quite a bit about the bride and groom–and about myself.

When it was time to go, the bride pulled us aside. She spoke in her Romanian accent, and told us how when she arrived in the States she knew nobody except her fiancé. She felt so alone, and the members of that church took her in just like family. She knew we were new to the area and was simply paying the hospitality and goodwill forward.

And now it’s my turn. Time for this introvert at heart to watch for an uncertain newcomer–to make someone else feel as welcome and comfortable as this Romanian girl made us feel, after knowing us for barely an hour.

Have you ever gone against your own nature to reach out to someone else?