●The joys and pitfalls of being raised bilingual
“There’s no such thing as a perfect bilingual,” says my mom, who raised two biracial children in Japan, and who also taught for 20-odd years at an international school in Tokyo. By “perfect,” she means a bilingual who can not only speak, read, and write both English and Japanese, but someone who also understands the nuances and subtle characteristics of both languages ? such as puns, idioms, buzz terms, and everyday vernacular. In other words, a true bilingual is also bicultural. And in order to attain that status, it seems one has to live in both Japan and an Anglophone country for a substantial length of time. Probably a pretty lofty goal for most. |
「英語恐怖症･日本語喋りすぎ」だったインター幼稚園時代 |
Personally, I think my brother and I were afforded the best shot at becoming bilingual, having been raised (mostly) in Japan during our formative years. We attended international school, which meant we were taught entirely in English during the day, but still could immerse ourselves in everything Japanese (lifestyle, media, food, friends) once school was out. We took public transportation (which meant we were familiar with signs and sounds), we played with neighborhood friends, read tons of manga (as mentioned in a previous column), and watched endless amounts of Japanese TV. So basically, we grew up in, what seemed to be, the ideal environment.
But that’s not to say that we didn’t have our hurdles. My brother, for instance, was in fact born in Hawaii, and was raised here until age three. Although my mom spoke to him in Japanese, he naturally picked up more English. That said, (and I see this with my own daughter, too) his ability to communicate in either language was always a bit “behind” by normal standards. When the family moved to Japan, he began attending a Japanese preschool. The stress of speaking only in Japanese apparently got to him, because the poor three-year-old started to get little bald spots on his head. |
近所のお友達、真理子ちゃんとふざけた毎日を送っていた |
In due time his Japanese caught up, but then his English lagged behind, which brewed communication problems with our dad (who at the time didn’t speak much Japanese). That exacerbated my brother’s speech development, and he began to stutter in English. After a shaky start he grew out of these problems, and seemed to find some sense of “belonging” when he started attending Nishimachi International School, a famed Tokyo institution that offers a progressive bilingual curriculum. My brother would eventually become as close to a “perfect bilingual” as one could get, writing papers in expert Japanese on “Sennorikyu” at Cornell University, but my mom to this day believes she traumatized him by changing his environment so often. |
| As for me, I didn’t have to switch living conditions, so no trauma to report. If anything, my kindergarten report card warned that I was speaking too much Japanese at school. But apart from that, living in Japan and going to international school was as effortless as it could get for me to learn both languages.
But as we grew into our teens, it became obvious that there was something “incomplete” about our linguistic upbringing. Among family and friends, we spoke in a mixed tongue of both languages — inappropriately called “Japlish” at the time ? only to realize it hard to keep a conversation in either English or Japanese, without switching back and forth to whichever language felt comfortable. My writing style ? in either language ? was confused, with mixed metaphors and inaccurate figures of speech, as if I was constantly and subconsciously translating my thoughts in the other language.
Meanwhile, classmates with Japanese parents grew increasingly frustrated that they couldn’t carry on a decent argument at home because they couldn’t adequately express themselves in Japanese. Friends whose parents spoke only English had similar issues. Many of us, in essence, had fallen into a trap of bilingual mediocrity ? a deceptive shroud of lingual prowess (deceiving because we have no accent), but with a command of either language that was only average at best. |
中学時代。インターには世界60カ国からの生徒が通っていて国連みたいだった。電車の中でも堂々と写真を撮ったり、(後ろのおじさんみたいに)周囲の人にもよく迷惑をかけた |
From that point, most international school kids took one of two paths: they either went to a U.S. college, eventually mastering the English language, or a select few advanced to a Japanese university and immersed themselves in Japanese. As I see it, though, most of them saw a gradual ebb in one of their language skills. Without living, studying, and cranking out everyday issues in both languages, the decline was probably inevitable.
That’s not to say, however, that we don’t speak or sound bilingual today. Our accents are still in tact for the most part (although I’m told there is a distinct “international school drawl”), and most of us still think, speak, and even dream in “Japlish.” But those of us who left Japan after high school would have a hard time reading a newspaper by now, and our penmanship is probably deplorable.
Looking back, living in Japan provided the most crucial foundation for growing up bilingual. Moving to the U.S. for college was probably the next big step. And attending international school was what bridged those pivotal phases of my life. But there were several, critical junctures that I think shaped my English-Japanese biliteracy ? for better or for worse ? which I’ll discuss in the next, and final installment, of Hapa Mom Diary. See you then！ Amakare nigakare… |
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| 日本語要約 |
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●楽あれば苦もある、バイリンガル･キッズ
今回は日本で育ち、ハワイでハパママをしている私自身のバイリンガル･ライフをちょっと振り返ってみようと思います。
インターナショナル･スクールで22年間教師を務めた私の日本人母は、「完璧なバイリンガルなんてそうはいないわよ」と言います。なぜなら、日英両語で話し、読み書きはもちろん、言い回しなど細かいニュアンス的な言葉の要素を完全にマスターしている人は極マレだからです。バイリンガルということは「バイカルチュアル」(両方のカルチャーを把握していること)であって、少々シビアな考え方かもしれませんが、要は日本と英語圏両方で生活をして身につくものだからだそうです。
そんなバイリンガルを目指す自分にとって、同じ日本とアメリカのハーフの子供を育てる身になってからは、過去を顧みると「私はバイリンガルにはもってこいの環境に育ったのかな」と最近考える様になりました。私と兄は発育期というか、「形成期」を日本でほとんど過ごしたのですが、日中はインターで英語を学び、放課後や週末は日本語を使う近所の友達と遊び、まんがを読み、テレビを観賞)という、比較的バランスのとれた、ある程度理想的なバイリンガルな環境だったのかもしれません。
しかし完璧なシナリオだったわけではなくて、苦い経験もありました。3歳までハワイに住んでいた兄は特に苦労したと聞いています。母は兄に日本語で接していましたが(うちの娘も似た立場です、)日本語も英語も発達が遅れ気味だったとか。のち日本に引っ越し地元の保育園に入園、「じょりっパゲ」ができるほどストレスをためてしまったそうです。 日本語にやっと慣れたと思ったら、今度は英語を忘れ始め、当時は日本語が話せなかった父と通じ合わなくなり、英語でどもってしまったり。ですが大学に進んだ頃にはほぼ完璧に近いバイリンガルになっていて、千利休について(もちろん日本語で)論文なんかも書いてました。結果としてはよかったんですが、幼い兄にはかなり激しいトラウマを与えてしまったと今でも母は悔いています。その反面私は通信簿に「スザンヌは日本語の話し過ぎ」と書かれる他にはトラブルはなかったそうです。
自分の語学力に対して不満を覚えたのは十代に入ってからの頃でした。バイリンガルキッズの間では、日本語と英語を都合よく切り換えて使う「ちゃんぽん(Japlishとも呼ばれる)」が共通語だったのですが、気づくと一つの言葉だけで会話をしたり、何かを書く事が困難になっていたのです。両語でも文体が曖昧で表現力が乏しく、英語でよく使う暗喩や比喩がなかなか使いこなせない自分に腹が立った事をよく覚えています。ちゃんぽん仲間では日本人の両親を持つ子達が「親とろくに喧嘩もできない」ケースも多く、逆に英語しか話さない両親のバイリンガルも同じコミュニケーション不足にいら立つ光景が目立ちました。
「英語も日本語も中途半端」、これがバイリンガルに育つことに於いて一番高いハードルなのかもしれません。インターの生徒のほとんどはアメリカ(がほとんど)か日本の大学へ進み、どちらかの言葉をマスターします。いずれは英語か日本語のどちらかの語学力は自然に衰えて行き、日常で話すことに苦労はなくても、例えば私みたいにアメリカの生活が長くなると日本の新聞が読みきれなくなったり、字も乱れてくるのです。
でも今のところは、とにかく日本で育ったのがバイリンガルになるための不可欠な「土台」になったと思います(日本語は難しいですからね〜)。アメリカの大学へ進んだ事も大事、そしてわたしの場合はインターでの時代が重要な「架け橋」となったわけです。もちろん途中で幾つもの経験･究極の選択があったのですが、それは次回の(最終回！)ハパママ日記までお楽しみに…
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娘：エリン･霧江(きりえ)、愛称キーちゃん。外見は恥かしがり屋、家では結構「キレちゃう」典型的内弁慶。ハロー･キティとパパをこよなく愛す保育園児。ちなみに、ハワイの人達のひとついいところは名前に「ちゃん」付けをしても分かってくれること。サンフランに住んでた頃、「キーちゃん、キーちゃん」と呼んでる私は廻りの人に「なんだそりゃ？ 中国語かい？」と聞くかの様に変な顔をされました。こっちでは白人でも平気に「キーちゃん」と呼んでくれます。 
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