Don’t Speak Japanese

One of my favorite books growing up was Lion Dancer: Ernie Wan’s Chinese New Year. I read it so many times the front cover came off. The story follows young Ernie and his family in their preparations for performing the Lion Dance. This included hours of weekend Chinese school.

I asked my dad if I, too, could go to Chinese school. No, he dismissively replied, it logistically didn't make sense. He assured me Cantonese was a dying language. Besides, our dialect was so antiquated that no one spoke it. At least, no one I would ever meet.

Years later, my father said if my Toisanese grandmother knew I was learning Japanese she’d roll over in her grave. Grandma Ong lived in occupied Hong Kong during the Pacific War and was my only living Chinese grandparent.

I don’t think he meant it maliciously, but his point was clear.

My family visited me in Gifu for the holidays when I was living overseas. Since it was their second trip to Japan, I sent them to off-the-beaten-path local haunts, quaint inaka towns, and Ise Jingu. Dad enjoy the non-urban sites away from the bustling materialism of the big cities. He’s a small-town kind of guy.

I did my share of translating but they could mostly get around using English. In Osaka, Dad asked me to reserve shiteseki on the next shinakansen back to Tokyo. After getting trampled during rush hour, he was done with my recommendation to use local trains.

I went to the service desk and spoke to the representative with my awkward mixture of direct requests and irrelevant small talk. A few minutes into the conversation, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye; a bizarre sort of admiring gawk crept across my father’s face. His beaming smile continued to grow as I swiftly translated her requests and his answers. We got our tickets and sat down at the platform.

He said nothing about the conversation for several minutes. After we were settled with our bentos, he turned and asked what we talked about at the service desk. In his Chinese-father way, he simply nodded.

“You really like Japan, huh?”

“Well, yeah. That’s why I’m here.”

He smiled again.

“Good.”