Letters From My Youth
Have you ever imagined what you’d say if you could write a letter to your younger self?
I would have begged myself not to drop out of Japanese school. As a kid, I hated Japanese school on Saturday mornings. “Why do I need to learn a language I never use when the other kids were at home watching cartoons?” Besides, I’m too young to understand what “whitewashing” means. Twenty years later and I’m staring at a Japanese children’s book, devastated with the realization that I’ve lost the ability to read in my father’s language. Now that I care, it feels too late. But to connect with my father, I’ll need to relearn the Japanese alphabets (yes, there are multiple).
Japanese has three alphabets.
Hiragana - 46 sounds used to spell words that are native to Japan.
Example: しろ (shiro) = white
Katakana - 46 identical sounds but written differently. Used primarily to indicate a word is from outside Japan.
Example: ホワイト (“ho-wai-toh”) = white (as pronounced in English)
Kanji - 50,000 characters that can each be used to represent a sound, a combination of sounds, or entire words.
Example: 白 (shiro) = white
It’s Saturday morning again and I’m in an all-white room. To get back to my childhood level of reading, I need to re-learn the 92 characters from the first two alphabets: Hiragana and Katakana. For one full day, I write these repeatedly, forcing myself to memorize the sounds, stroke order, and sequence of these 92 letters. I say the name of each Japanese character as they claim their place in this whitewashed space. Late into the night, I run out of blank space. I’ve finally memorized each character and sound. My knees are sore and my arms are exhausted, but I’m smiling as look around the room. I’m surrounded by the letters from my youth.
