2 March 2001 (7 Adar 5761)
There are two types of linguistic knowledge - grammatical and lexical knowledge on the one hand, and communicative knowledge on the other - which do not always go hand in hand. Utterances which are grammatically and/or lexically correct are not always correct communicatively. It may not be so difficult to acquire grammatical and lexical knowledge in Japanese even as a foreign language, but it is no mean feat to become communicatively competent in it even as a native speaker since it is a highly context-dependent language, thus requires its speakers to censor themselves constantly.
To be communicatively competent in Japanese means to be able to gauge your social status relative to that of your interlocutor, fundamentally change your language use - often even your linguistic forms as well - accordingly, and avoid expressions that may lead to confrontation. This is why people who meet for the first time in formal social settings in Japan feel uneasy until they exchange business cards where their companies and positions are printed, and even after this ceremonial exchange they are still awkward as they are preoccupied with the avoidance of any confrontation.
As I find people who change their fundamental behavior according to their interlocutors hypocritical, so do I find a language whose use must be fundamentally adjusted and even strictly self-censored according to social contexts hypocritical and undemocratic. Such use of language may help prevent linguistic conflicts, sometimes even unnecessarily, but it makes many verbal interactions in Japanese quite predictable, hence boring, and even reinforces the inflexibility of people and society as they are not allowed to express frankly what they want to in the majority of the contexts, and choose topics of conversation which are "pareve", hence noncontroversial.
As language is a social system, those who do not comply with its rules, whether written or unwritten, are punished by its members in some way or other. As many of the social rules of using Japanese collide with my fundamental philosophy of life, I often violate them consciously in order to be consistent within myself with the full awareness of the possible consequences. There is a rather clear bipartite division in reactions between those who are considered "superior" to me and those who are not according to the mixture of complicated factors contributing to the differences in the social hierarchy in Japan. Naturally, the former feel rather offended in quite a few cases, while the latter feel relaxed and even relieved as they see after a while that with me they do not have to be bothered by such undemocratic linguistic means. Even if I myself neglect these rules of language use, people who see me for the first time as a teacher and do not know nothing more about me do use honorific expressions to me. Although I appreciate their artificial effort, this makes me feel uncomfortable, and I often wonder what is hidden behind their "beautiful" words as a person who uses artificial honorific expressions has an artificial facial expression as well.
All this hypocritical, undemocratic and ritualized use of language really suffocates and bores me, and makes a periodic escape from Japanese language and society an absolute necessity and not a luxury for me to maintain the mental health. I fear that as long as this persists, Japan will unfortunately remain an undemocratic society full of hypocritical rituals, and sadly enough, vice versa - a vicious circle.
9 March 2001 (14 Adar 5761)
I feel more and more strongly that after all I like people, especially interacting verbally with them. So I seem to have made a right decision in choosing linguistics as my specialization. Of course, it is interesting to investigate theoretically the structural and social mechanism of specific languages, but it fascinates me much more to actually interact with people verbally. If I observe linguists from this perspective, I inevitably encounter the following three enigmas about some of them.
The first enigma is that there seem to be linguists who hate to interact with people even in their native tongue, or in extreme cases, hate people themselves. It is true that you neither have to love the object of your research nor identify yourself with it, but the detachment of theory from practice seems to me lack of personal integrity not only in linguistics but also in all the other areas. Those linguists who do not like to interact with living people may find integrity by studying languages which have no speakers and are attested only in written forms. For this very reason, I for one can never ever occupy myself with "dead" languages.
The second enigma is that there seem to be linguists who major in the languages in which they major solely because of their grammatical structure with no connection with their speakers and their cultures. Of course, this is totally legitimate, but I myself cannot find but vanity here. I, for example, am continuing to specialize in Hebrew, not because it has an interesting structure, especially in morphology, but mainly because I like its speakers and their culture, and feel close to them.
The third enigma is that there seem to be a nonnegligible number of linguists who do not have enough proficiency in the modern languages in which they claim to specialize, especially in speaking - let's say, high enough to be able to conduct nonsimultaneous interpretation about nontechnical subjects. A good command of a language does not automatically make its user a good investigator, but I believe that it must be the necessary condition - if not the sufficient condition - for linguists. As far as Japan is concerned, the whole system called university is largely to blame for the existence of such linguists as virtually no one is examined his or her proficiency in the language in which her or she claims to specialize, not only in applying for tenure but also later as a faculty member in his or her respective university. Not only have I heard a sufficient number of incredible stories about linguists with a poor command of the modern languages they study, but also did I witness them with my own eyes and ears several times. Although I do not like the job of interpretation because of the enormous mental and physical pressures it exerts upon me, it is a good warning and impetus to remind myself that I should not be satisfied with my present level of proficiency and should strive for the higher one.
16 March 2001 (21 Adar 5761)
I had a couple of occasions to witness anew the sharp contrast in behavior and the underlying mindset between many of the university students in Japan and their counterparts probably in a number of other countries. Unfortunately, this has only reinforced my awareness of the two characteristic traits I had already known about the former through personal encounters and teachings of Japanese and non-Japanese students, and which - I must confess - I myself had to unlearn as a doctoral student in Israel.
One Japanese philosopher whom I admire for his Quixotic fights in words and deeds against some of the most fundamental problems in Japanese society characterized Japan as a society without dialogs in one of his books. I cannot agree with him more as I suffer from this on a daily basis. Unfortunately, this symptom applies not only to the general public but also to many of the university students irrespective of the universities where they are studying.
A true dialog sometimes entails facing a disagreeable, though mostly constructive, criticism directed against you. You must be ready to hear true things which may shock you. Even university students who are supposed to strive for truth through dialogs with themselves and others are not free from the mentality of the society where they live. The general tacit consensus in Japan is never to stir up confrontational situations verbally. They have never been trained to hear a direct criticism against themselves, so they are afraid of it, and do not know how to cope with it except by reacting emotionally as if it were an attack ad hominem. As a result, even university students behave according to the following "gentleman's agreement": I promise not to criticize you, so please don't criticize me, either. They exchange among themselves mostly words which are just agreeable to their ears, thus only helping nurture each other's narcissism.
For me this is nothing but a most prominent manifestation of childishness, which is the second trait of many of the university students in Japan and probably of the society at large, compared to many other societies and their members. Here again it does not make much difference whether they are from "prestigious" universities or not. Childish students are distributed universally all over the country. In a sense, those in "prestigious" schools may be even more childish because many of them have been pampered to concentrate on their "study" since childhood, but have not had enough experiences to learn from life by struggling with and conquering personal hardships. So generally speaking, they may be more vulnerable in crisis situations including criticisms.
Unfortunately, their childishness is not restricted to their immaturity to have a true dialog with themselves and others. Another manifestation is that quite a few of them, especially male students, behave in groups of several wherever they go and whatever they do. But they do not engage themselves in dialogs, and just exchange "sterilized" words at best; I have even seen many groups of mostly male students who come to a restaurant together, but instead of enjoying each other's company by shmoozing with each other, each one of them started reading his comic book or newspaper. Many of them do not look like really close friends, at least in my terms, though they may be "close friends" in their illusion. They do not seem to understand that to be alone does not necessarily mean to be lonely. On the other hand, they are lonely though they are not physically alone.
As a person who is also teaching Japanese as a foreign language, I often feel quite sorry for students who come from other countries to study Japanese and about Japan. They are highly motivated, intelligent and interested in deepening their understanding about Japan through dialogs with Japanese students. But because of the two traits mentioned above, among others, those Japanese students who can meet the demand of their counterparts from other countries are few and far between even in their mother tongue Japanese. The unhappy corollary of this is that many foreigners, including students, in Japan are forced to flock among themselves in their desperate search for partners for mature dialogs. Japan has succeeded in manufacturing sophisticated machines, but its numerous universities have been rather unsuccessful in making mature citizens after the Second World War. The consolation is that we can always learn lessons of life not only from good examples but also from bad ones.
23 March 2001 (28 Adar 5761)
Every week I receive a couple of email messages from people I do not know through this Web site. They are mostly inquiries about Hebrew, but sometimes also inquiries about Jewish life in Japan, and less frequently feedback about this very page. I enjoy this communication as many of these messages give me material for new thought from different viewpoints I have never thought of, and in principle I answer every message of this kind to the best of my knowledge. Naturally, this short communication ends with my answer in most of the cases, but in some cases the dialog continues even after the initial issue of the inquiry has been answered, and in a very few cases I have a chance to actually meet a person who emailed me.
Such a rare encounter happened this week. I received an email message from a high school student living in a neighboring city of Kobe, where I live now. He wrote about his fascination with Hebrew language and Jewish culture, and asked me to teach him Hebrew privately. The message was quite touching for its purity. I immediately replied him that I would be happy to help him learn Hebrew, and arranged a meeting to discuss further the details of our private course.
He came to visit my place, and we ended up speaking for more than three hours nonstop, forgetting how the time passed. I seldom have a chance to be able to enjoy a conversation in Japanese, but this was one of these rare occasions. We started with general and specific topics about Hebrew, then our conversation developed into languages and linguistics in general. I was quite moved to hear that he had learned how to write not only Hebrew alphabet but also Arabic, Cyrillic, Indic and Korean scripts by reading introductory books about respective scripts little by little at his favorite bookstore on his way home from school without buying them as the monthly allowance he receives from his parents is very limited.
I wondered how his freedom of thought and intellectual curiosity have not been contaminated and have remained virtually intact through years of formal education in Japanese schools, which have a very efficient institutionalized mechanism of discouraging students from asking questions and, as a result, helping them stop thinking independently. As a person who have experienced both Japanese and Israeli universities both as a student and as a teacher, I am painfully aware of the grave limitations of Japanese universities in general in developing individuality. Although I have no blind faith in Israeli universities, I could not help recommending him to think seriously of studying in one of them or in the US, skipping the stage of studying in a Japanese university, which may destroy his freedom of thought and intellectual curiosity instead of developing them to the fullest potential.
30 March 2001 (6 Nisan 5761)
When I introduce myself as a teacher-cum-researcher of Hebrew to Jewish friends of my Jewish friends abroad, I am often asked why students come to my courses in Modern Hebrew. They seem to assume that only Jewish students are interested in learning Hebrew. I would like to answer this FAQ on the occasion of the new academic year that starts next week. The following typology is based solely on my personal observation of the students in my university courses for the past seven years, hence it has no pretensions to being a scientific study.
The first type of students who come to my courses in Modern Hebrew are those who are interested in the Middle East including Israel, already know Arabic and want to study another Semitic language. Although Arabic and Hebrew have quite different cultures behind them, this difference surfaces as a pedagogic issue only in the advanced stage of learning, and the prior knowledge of Arabic can only facilitate the initial stage of learning Hebrew as they have many grammatical and lexical characteristics as well as the principle of writing system in common. Naturally, therefore, their survival rate in class is very high. The only problem with some of them is the prejudice they may have against Israel and in extension against Hebrew.
The second type of students are those who are interested in reading the Hebrew Bible in its original language for religious or some other reasons and see the study of Modern Hebrew as the first step to that purpose. They are highly motivated as they have a fixed goal. Their survival rate in class is also high. It is only a pity, however, that they are often too preoccupied with the Bible to broaden their perspective and recognize that in addition to the Bible, which is of course the very foundation of Judaism, there are also a number of important classical Jewish sources in the later periods such as the Mishna, the Talmud, etc.
The third type of students are those who are interested in the Jewish cultures in the Diaspora and connect this interest with the study of Modern Hebrew. As their main interest is not the language itself, and Hebrew is not such an easy language, almost all of them stop coming to class sooner or later, especially after succeeding in convincing themselves that they do not have to know Hebrew to satisfy their interest.
The fourth type of students are those who are interested in learning more and more languages for their own sake and see Hebrew as an exotic language worth tasting. They show a kind of ephemeral enthusiasm in the very beginning, but as they pass the initial stage of the first few lessons, their enthusiasm suddenly fades away, then there is nothing that motivates them to keep on coming to class any longer. Very few of them persevere until the end of the year.
The fifth type of students are those who happen to have no course other than mine and come to the class to see how the teacher is. Although I used to try hard to show them the joy of Hebrew, I have stopped this "missionary" activity for them since they have no motivation in learning Hebrew, and all of them eventually leave the course after one or two lessons.
The first lesson in the beginning of the year is always a great pleasure for me. I enjoy meeting new people who have decided to spend at least one hour in the first lesson for the study of Hebrew and hearing what they have to tell about what motivates them to do so.