I had another post partly drafted for today but, due to the events of last week in Japan, I’ve decided to postpone that idea for another time. Australia (and we are not the only country in this) has a close relationship with Japan – much of it positive, some of it negative (this latter to do with, most recently, whaling, and before that the Second World War). Like most good relationships though we accommodate the good and the bad and strive always to improve it. And here endeth that particular lesson!
Canberra Nara Candle Festival, 2008
I’m not going to detail the full history of our relationship now, but Japanese people have lived and worked in Australia since the nineteenth century – back then, in industries like pearl diving and sugar cane farming. Japan is an important trading partner for Australia – and so, largely for this reason, not only is Japanese a popular language taught in schools, but many cities, towns and schools across the country have sister relationships with their counterparts in Japan. Our city, Australia’s capital, is sister city to Nara, a previous Japanese capital. Our son taught English in Japan for three years. Mr Gums and I have visited Japan twice, and are booked to go again this May.
In other words, Australia’s connections with Japan are political, economic and cultural. Consequently, things Japanese are not hard to spot. Food, cars, computers and other electronic goods are the obvious manifestations, but they are in our culture too. Manga and anime for a start. However, for today’s post I’m choosing just one example. It’s a poem that was written in response to the 2004 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in the Indian Ocean. I’ve chosen it because it’s relevant now, and because it shows how language transcends boundaries. After all, when I grew up, we talked of tidal waves.
Tsunami
such a pretty word
trips off
the tongue
saltily
in pleasing phonemes
(Japanese
– you know –
like sakura and
kimono)
[ … ]Tsunami
a slash
of syllables
– tabloid terrible –
a crackle of images
ravage
our screens.
[ … ]
lives shatter [ … ](from “Tsunami”, by Anita Patel, in Summer conversations, 6(2), 2006)
It’s a beautifully conceived poem, with a very Japanese sense of form and symmetry, but for copyright reasons I don’t believe I can quote it in full.
And now, in respect for those suffering, I’ll finish here and leave further discussion of Japanese culture and Australia for better times.
Note: I have not here, or in previous posts, provided links for donations to relief efforts for the way-too-many disasters that have occurred during the time I’ve been blogging. I’m sure, after all, that you, like us, have your favourite charities to use if you wish to donate.
Whispering Gums 
I also learned Japanese in school in Brisbane, but now only remember how to say “I like chickens”. I do remember learning to write the symbol for the sound ‘su’, which I still remember as it resembles the shape of a tsunami.
As the media plays up fears of nuclear disaster, I can’t help but think of On The Beach. I have been meaning to re-read for a while now.
Ah, the things one remembers from school language classes! I reread On the beach a few years ago, and was a little disappointed. It felt stilted and dated, but give it a go. I was a huge Shute fan in my teens.
I have been waiting with dread for the first “We shouldn’t be helping them, after what they did in the war” comments, but mercifully they haven’t come. My father was a Japanese POW and I could tell you stories that would turn you grey, BUT he was always the first to say that what happened was war and it was over. Had he been alive, he would have been the first to ask what he could do to help. Teaching any form of Japanese is a relatively new venture in UK schools, but I grew up counting in Japanese because that was what Dad had had to do twice a day, every day, for almost four years and while Mom taught me to read, he taught me to count. To this day, I do ‘big sums’ in English, but my first instinct if just counting is necessary is to do it in Japanese.
Good on your father. That is the attitude to have I reckon … I love that you count in Japanese!
Thanks for sharing where Japanese is in terms of English schools – I’m not surprised. You have many other languages much close to you! Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian are probably the most popular languages taught/learnt in schools here. Our son did Indonesian. Our daughter? French and Spanish! Meanwhile my husband is currently going to a short course in Japanese to prepare for our trip – after two trips, he figures he’d like to have some more context for the words he’s picked up.
Thanks for the lovely and sad poem. I have a former coworker who is Japanese and her family and many friends live in Japan. I was relieved to find out from her that he family is safe on the west coast and her friends in Tokyo are all fine.
Thanks Stefanie. I’m glad that her family and friends are safe. It’s all so sad …
Beautiful poem written by a beautiful, beautiful woman. Anita was one of my teachers in college and I can attest to her brilliance with language and poetry! I thought this poem sounded familiar when I started reading 🙂
I’m glad you outed her as your teacher. It is a beautifully constructed poem.
A lovely post, Sue:)
Thanks Lisa … it’s hard to know what to say, really, isn’t it?
This is a lovely & terrible poem, thank you for posting it. You’ve found a wonderful way to discuss what’s going on in Japan and I appreciate it. I was born in Japan and lived again for several years as an adult. It is a country I hold dear to my heart and I’m following the news with a lot of sorrow.
Thankyou Michelle – I really appreciate that. We love the country too …. though our contact is rather less deep than yours. The situation is horrendous but we are still hoping to get there in May.
My husband, daughter and I are supposed to go in the fall. I hope this trip still works out, but we may limit our trip to Kyushu instead of Honshu. We will see. I hope you can still visit in May, as well.
Oh I do too! You have a little more lead time so should be ok (I hope). We had planned on Sendai as part of our trip but will now focus on southern/western Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku, if we go. We’ve only spent a couple of days in Nagasaki (which we loved) so there’s certainly more to explore in Kyushu for us.
How much of Honshu we visit will depend on what’s happening, if we go! So many ifs! We haven’t been to Matsue for example and would love to visit it, etc etc.
I’m guessing your son was working south of the area where the quake hit, but if he has any friends, or ex- students, employers, host families, or anything similar, caught up in it, then I hope they’re OK.
Thanks DKS. He was west and a little south – in, the mountains of Niigata, a prefecture that experienced its own earthquake on Saturday. It’s over the mountains which will hopefully protect it from the nuclear issue though as the crow flies it’s not as far as you’d like to think. They were woken by warnings four times on Friday night. He and we’ve been in contact with people and so far they are fine. My husband’s Japanese teacher is an Australian married to a Japanese woman. She’s from the actual area and has apparently lost 60-80 family members – a scale we can barely imagine.
Oh, gees, that’s closer than I thought. (After you said you’d gone “south” over on Pykk I got “south” jammed mysteriously in my head and started thinking of something more extremely south.) Well, good luck to Niigata. I used to know some Kiwis who went there to teach but who knows where they are now. They were enthusiastic about the place. Better than Ibaraki, I think they said. More scenic. Maybe it was the mountains. Sixty to eighty people, oh hell.
Yes, “gees” and “oh hell” indeed. I can’t help feeling a little sick in the pit of my stomach. Niigata city itself is just a city but the mountains, the Agano River are lovely, as is Sado Island opposite. Nagano, site of Winter Olympics a while ago, in the prefecture just south is supposed to be lovely too (but we haven’t been there yet).