We Should 繰り返します This
In a recording room in a Junior high school in Tokyo...
It was test time again, so the Japanese-English teacher handed me the script we were to record in preparation for the listening portion.
Geezus. It never fails.
In every script I’ve checked, it’s not the grammar errors and strange English that are the most troubling. It’s the propaganda in the scripted conversations that is invariably problematic. But, I dare not do anything beyond correct the grammar because the propaganda in the script matches the propaganda the students learned from the textbooks.
“We should use the English they’re familiar with on the test, deshou?”
“Sho’ you right.”
If I’ve been told this once, by way of excuse, I’ve been told a hundred times at least. So nowadays, I generally just sign off on it and silence my sensibilities for the duration of the recording, knowing that tomorrow my voice will boom this nonsense from the loudspeakers all over the school. In a court of law, this could be used as evidence of collusion, couldn’t it? Proof that I at least tacitly endorsed the proliferation of ideas counter to what my writing testifies to.
That I’m a hypocrite.
This time around, it was a popular go-to theme in textbooks and scripts: Let’s teach ignorant foreign visitors about Japanese culture.
Co-Worker: You ready? I will press record.
Me: Ready as I’ll ever be.
She pressed record.
Co-Worker: “Oh!! Mr. Baye, you must take off your shoes!”
Me (In my most innocently surprised voice): “Really? Why?”
CW: “That is our Japanese culture. Sorry. I know it must be strange for you.”
Me: “Yes, it is.”
CW: 繰り返します (Kurikae shimasu - repeat)
CW: “Oh!! Mr. Baye, you must take off your shoes!”
Me: Really? Why?”
CW: That is our Japanese culture. Sorry. I know it must be strange for you.”
That’s about when I decided to go rogue and unscripted.
Me: Not half as strange as filling these kid’s minds with the idea that gaijin are different from them, and that we are ignorant of everything Japanese.
CW: Sorry? (Staring at the script, flipping it over to check the backside just in case) Do we have the same script?
Me: I seriously doubt it.
CW: —
Me: You know, back in the U.S., when I was a kid, my mother made everyone, even guests, who entered our apartment remove their shoes right at the door.
CW: Really?
Me: Yeah, really. I used to hate it because my feet smelled like something died in my sneakers. And some of my friends were even worse.
She laughed, probably imagining a bunch of black people trying to be like the Japanese. Then she looked at the recorder.
CW: Eeeee! We’re still recording, you know!
Me: yeah, I know. We should 繰り返します this!
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