moodsetters:
ラヴ・パレード
こんなに近くで
チョコレートが貰えない

本文. xposted to ｆｂ, mildly edited.

In Praise of Tommorow

Tommorow is Valentine's Day. A holiday that since gradeschool, I've never really understood or cared about. My little sister is preparing the ones for her class right now, and it brings back memories of doing the same thing...

But I am in a good mood because of today's weather, and have decided to make something of a celebration, while at the same time unloading a few meaningless thoughts from my mind. Once written, they're gone, and looking back later I probably won't remember when I wrote these words or exactly what it was that pressed me to write as I am -- learning about memory in Intro to Psych, but somehow I can't think that it applies.

The other day I heard a rumor about a freshman girl who lives in Park and is fluent in Chinese; the international student who told me the story said it was "The strangest thing [he] ever saw!" I could only stifle my laughter and think, that's how so many of us felt! Nevertheless, a random faceless kid became my inspiration for a few short glorious hours of get[tin]'er done.

I probably lost my old one so after a few weeks of being even more distracted than usual by the world around me, I caved in and bought a new mp3 player the other day; too troubled to go through my music and make a new playlist, I chose a few to put in and let itunes choose the rest.

A certain song, by a girl who is much like the random freshman in Park, now pops up every now and then whenever shuffle mode is on. There are actually more songs by her than I expected, but I can't quite remember how that came to be about. Her name is Crystal Kay, and the song is こんな近くで -- those of you who don't speak Japanese, and for that matter have never seen 時をかける少女, are missing out. She is by all means, my totally unwarranted inspiration for both language learning and successful multiculturalism, and I wish so much that Sensasians would do a song by her!

That song -- in truth the one in particular I hope Phoebe and Lisa take note of! -- is the one that struck me today, the one that I unconsciously found myself understanding (I picked up the words a long time ago, in basically the same manner as a few Epik High songs) and stopped to listen harder when I found myself rather moved. I don't warrant to the quality of the translation I've linked to, but I figure it's something people in general can relate to. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PRSzlDRuCc)

Lauren tells me that Chinese people are only starting to celebrate Valentine's as the rest of the world does (this is not without reason: cf. http://shanghaishiok.com/2011/01/14/why-chinese-girlfriends-are-superior/), but in Japan and Korea, at least, I think the general populous has a better grasp of the concepts behind the day than their Western compatriots.

Valentine's Day, White Day, Black Day. Girls give chocolate, guys give chocolate, singles go out and bemoan their sorry lives.

I hope that in the last explication giving me pause, I am (not) alone. Does such a statement normally make one (collectively) appreciative? Or is such a pause one of... sorrow? I've often wondered why is it that, in Japanese, I find it easier to 落ち込む, as you will, over my otherwise generally celebrated singledom. At first I attributed it to the topics that would come up with friends -- 恋話 is probably the easiest thing to share across cultures, and 恋愛アドバイザー is probably the fate of not a few international students regardless of location -- but separated by both time and distance such an environment dependent theory holds no ground, and the seasons are not to blame either: I revel in the loneliness of a blanketed forest park, and meet the arrival of spring with such distaste that I can only think of its eventual recession. Thus, I am forced to concede once again to the "principle of linguistic relativity" in asserting that it is the Japanese language itself, which makes me prone to such distressing thoughts.

For example, why is it that we have two separate words for "homosexual"? Gay, lesbian, aren't they basically the same thing, only pointing to a specific gender identity? A guy liking other guys, a girl liking other girls, but -- and perhaps someone has already gone through this thought experiment, but what happens if someone who is organly a male has a gender identity of female and likes women? Is that person a homosexual/lesbian, or straight? It is likely that the separation of these words and the specificity of their signification has led to the inconsistencies inherent in the average straight man's arguable enjoyment of lesbian imagery. Yet somehow I cannot help but imagine a revolt among gay men along the size of "Egyptian" if the word gay was finally and ultimately declared appropriated to mean stupid or foolish, and the men formerly known as gay were to be labeled lesbian... but alas, I digress from the point, spurred on by the infiltration of my mind from the vulgar topics brought up by the soliloquoy of a certain word "V" that unfortunately does not stand for vendetta, and that I am actually too much of a mix of squeamish and disgusted to have gone to see.

Nonetheless in English, we ask, "Do you have a girlfriend?" and (often prematurely) offer congratulations when someone "gets a boyfriend." In Chinese too, as far as I've learned, you must 找到 yourself a potential hook-up and/or life partner. Japanese however, is different.

When asked if you have a significant other, what people are asking is fundamentally if such a person even exists. If they do, and you are explaining to someone, the expression goes something like "I/girlfriend/was able", or to translate a bit "I was able to [ ] girlfriend". What goes into the brackets there is up for interpretation, but the answer is nothing. In Japanese, you are either able to have a girlfriend, or you aren't. This is in total contrast to the possessive, and proactive nature found in the use of words like "have" and "get" in English, and boils down to a simple question of ability.

This is a thorn in the side for people like myself, who maintain that the non-existence of a girlfriend is mediated only by the lack of effort involved in actually obtaining one. The idea that, it is an honest lack of trying which fuels the singledom one is able to hold pride and find enjoyment in.

For someone who has never honestly uttered the words "I like you", this idea would very well form the foundations of existence and sanity.

Yet the preoccupation with and at times apprehension towards confessions of love appears more frequently in the Japanese context -- where you can buy dvds of girls confessing their love for any time viewing pleasure (the ideal raffle prize) -- in the same context where such an idea is simply shattered to pieces, and the question of confessing or not, of endangering the friendship between two people is a non-entity, because whether you are meant for each other is already decided, a question of ability and not one of perserverance or charm.

Reflecting like this, is the only time that I dread having language ability and experience in a culture that is no longer so foreign. One must beware the dangers inherent in learning Japanese, for I wish I had been informed of the day where I would appreciate a linguistic background that allows one to continue such a purposeful illusion as that of intentional singledom.

It is late and I am alone, going over the preparations made by my younger sister for her class' card and candy exchange, the sights of Ne-yo's mirror audible from the headphones lying alone next to me...

As the hour deepens and a day I've only recently really learned to truly dread approaches, the screen gradually turns itself a strange gradient of pink --

And forsooth, I've found myself once again singing the praises of the English language! Tomorrow I will look back and wonder just what it was that has gotten into me, so I had better go ahead and stop before I write too about affirming gravity for a change.

*This experiment in constructing an authorly persona in the likes of Mori Ogai's 「妄想」 and Natsume Soseki's 「文鳥」 is filled with inside jokes and rather violent half-truths. I wonder, after my death will anyone take the trouble to footnote this text as well, proclaiming to the world such private matters as my misanthropic tendencies to charge the frats on Friday evenings with a resounding "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them"...?