I was a little nervous that I’d forgotten a lot of ASL in the six months of dormancy and that she would sign too fast for me. I never really got to the point in my studies where I could easily follow a natural conversation, though if a Deaf person signed a bit slower and clearly for me I could hold a pretty decent conversation. Luckily for me, Emi wasn’t a native ASL signer. She’d studied in a school in Tokyo and she’d been to America a few times so she was good, but not as fast as a native speaker. We had very little trouble understanding each other and it was a lot of fun! It was hard for me to translate for Yuko so she left and said she’d pick me up later. While I was talking with Emi the group of men I’d seen came by and were all excited to see me signing. They went off asking me questions but of course I couldn’t understand anything. She told them I knew ASL and interpreted some of their questions for me. I answered and we had a great time talking (sorry, there’s no better word than talking. Communicating sounds too stilted). Again, it was amazing to me how much we could communicate with gestures when Emi was out of the room. I couldn’t understand specific questions like “Where are you from?” but they were able to explain the rules of the games they were playing and communicate other things using visual space. Again, a non-signer wouldn’t have been able to understand as well because they wouldn’t be used to using space to communicate. I don’t think the same thing exists with spoken languages because the words are so abstract. The signs in signed languages are mostly abstract as well (though once you know the meaning you can sort of see where it came from sometimes), but the use of space is often similar. For example, if I were to talk about experiences here versus my home country, I would point near to me and express myself then point away or behind me while shifting my body to talk about far away. Anyway, I won’t go on about this, but it was a very neat experience for me. The Deaf in Japan are much like the Deaf in America in terms of friendliness and openness. At one point Emi apologized for their forward questions since she knew the Japanese are more forward than Americans, but I said that the American Deaf are very open and forward so I was used to it. They were only a bit disappointed to hear that I wasn’t deaf . . .
At one point when Emi had to work with someone the men sat me down to play one of their board games. I knew they took it seriously since they had a score chart on the wall, but of course they were nice to me. The board looked much like a chess board without the color differences. There was a middle row in the set up with two pieces, but the front row was all pawns and the back row looked like a regular chess setup, but of course, it was hard to tell because instead of shaped pieces there was only the kanji on the same shaped tile piece. That made it hard to follow the rules for each piece because I couldn’t remember which piece was which! Plus, there was some strange rule where you could put the pieces you’d killed on the board as some other kind of piece, and so the game ended up being the shortest on record with the guy I was playing telling me where to go and him letting me win after a few short moves.
I also got to watch a game of GO, which looked so interesting. The rules are so simple and yet I know there is so much to strategy. That’s my kind of game, though. You can play it easily without wracking your brains, or you could take it very seriously. Hm, it looks like I’ll have to invest . . .
Yuko took a picture of us and I’ll post it as soon as I get around to posting all the pictures since the last time I posted. Wow, that was profound. Emi said that if I come to her place then she has the hookup for the TV that lets you call someone else with the same hookup and see each other via TV so you can talk. She said I could call my Deaf friends back home! How fun would that be! I’ll have to see if I can get my teachers' numbers.
It’s adventures like these that let me know that I can have very cool, unique experiences without it costing a lot of money! I feel pressure to travel around since I’m “so close” but I could spend all my money doing that and miss many more local adventures. If I was working in Orlando I wouldn’t feel the need to get to Miami a few times a year and see the major sights of the US and take a trip to Mexico, but somehow since I’m in the East and I don’t know when I’ll be back I feel that pressure. Oh well, I’ll figure out the balance some day . . .
After that lovely adventure I had some time in my apartment and I used my fish grill for the first time. Something in there made a lot of smoke so I’ll have to figure out how to clean it. The fish was good, though!
Around 4pm Leslie came over because she was looking at buying some of Shalini’s (my downstairs neighbor who is moving) stuff and we thought it’d be nice to hang out. We talked for a bit and I served her her first ever coffee (“not too bad”) and then Kasia came as well because she was also looking at some of Shalini’s stuff. We had a nice, though brief chat and we reminisced about the Fuji climb, which now feels like such a long time ago! They took a look at her stuff and Leslie and I made it to the train for church in time because of the new shortcut I found. It used to take me 13min by bike to get to the station, or 20 minutes min for walking and I often left more time because of lights, but this new way I only have to deal with one light and I go under the really troublesome street. It’s also back roads with fewer cars, which is very good because the main roads are too narrow! I can also walk there in 13min – quite a big difference! I have a lot of fun discovering the roads around here on my runs and bike rides. After church we had rehearsal for the church Christmas drama during which we picked out costumes and read through our lines. I’m a Christ person and I tell about how Joseph and Mary came to Bethlehem to register for the census. It’s a simple play because we have to put it together in short rehearsals after church.
Because we were later with the play dinner went longer and I missed the train before the very late train so Bonnie and Atly took m home. I had a nice cup of hot cocoa because it’s getting very cold out here and went to bed.How cool that maybe you'll be able to talk from Japan with your Deaf friends!
