*to Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
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Sunday 29 December 2013

Is your 'half' child going to keep English in Japan?

Having two of my own, I prefer the term 'mixed', as in 'mixed-parentage' not 'mixed race': we all have 'mixed parentage after all, when not inbred.  I use 'hybrid' often too, as it hasn't taken on a pejorative yet.  'Half' is too close to 'half-breed'.  As a smart eight year old I taught once told me: "My father says I am not 'half'.  I am both."  I told him his father was smart.  And let's keep in mind that those of us without DNA from Sub-Saharan Africa only account for a fraction of human genetic diversity.  Put another way, two dudes across a river in Africa are more divergent than my Celtic forbearers from a Papua New Guinean.  'Race' is a bullshit concept.


We're all smart enough to know that, and to know that 'race', language, culture and religion are not coordinated, because we were not taught by the Japanese 'Ministry of Truth'.  I should get back to language, because many of my readers have a Japanese spouse, are Anglos themselves, and live in Japan and have children, like me.  Many of you are 'lifers', whether you know that yet or not.  I am not.  Gone in summer.  This topic would worry me far more if I were.  I may not teach you anything you don't know, but I can confirm it.

I've studied ESL/EFL, taught it, known families of linguistically mixed-parentage in Japan and in Canada of various combinations, both as close friends and as families of students I have taught.  Here are the generalities I am sure of, not that I haven't seen exceptions (exceptions are exceptional):
- it's called 'mother tongue' for a reason
- the primary caregiver in early years, who is more often the mother, gives the child their first language
- the second strongest influences are their school's language and the location's primary language, but which of those two is more important depends on many factors
- any two of those matching up of 'mother-tongue', location and school will overwhelm the third
- if all three line up and the other parent is trying to teach a second language it is a fruitless effort for all but the most motivated and consistent
- you do your kid no favours if you do not speak to them in at least one of the parents' languages, as immigrants used to do to Canada and the US thinking they'd learn English faster

Generalities that apply to Japan are:
- if the primary caregiver's tongue is Japanese, they live in Japan and go to a Japanese school, even if the other parent tries hard to teach them another language, they will lag far behind in the second language
- spending summers abroad helps some in this case, but not as much as you'd hope
- if the primary caregiver's tongue is Japanese, they live in Japan and go to an English school, if the other parent tries hard to teach them another language, they will lag far behind in the Japanese but less so in English
- spending summers abroad helps much in this case
- if the primary caregiver's tongue is English, they live in Japan and go to an English language school, even if the other parent tries hard to teach them another language, they will lag far behind in the second language, but they will do fine in English
- if the both parents' tongue is Japanese, they live in Japan and go to an English language school, they will lag far behind in both English and in Japanese
- if the primary caregiver's tongue is neither Japanese nor English, they live in Japan and go to an English language school, they will lag far behind in their 'first language', in English (even if the other parent is an Anglophone), but most of all in Japanese

So what are you going to do as an Anglophone father, not the primary caregiver, married to a Japanese woman?  Pay for international school at the cost to perfecting their Japanese if you have the coin; or send them to Japanese school at the cost of perfecting their English if you don't.  You may be the exceptional parent, but that doesn't happen often: that's why they're called 'exceptions'.

So what are you going to do as an Anglophone mother, the primary caregiver, married to a Japanese man?  Pay for international school at the cost to perfecting their Japanese if you have the coin; or send them to Japanese school at the cost of perfecting their English if you don't.  Your kids will do better at English than the Anglophone fathers' kids will.

Or you could fucking bail on the place, like me, because the natives will never look at your beautiful 'hybrid' child as one of them, quite apart from the kid's challenges with language, academics and identity.  I'm well aware that a living so the family can eat comes before all of these considerations, and there are work-arounds if stuck here, but don't ever forget that work-arounds is what they are, even if the kid manages to not be traumatized.

7 comments:

  1. I willl miss your colorful commentary on life in Japan as a fellow expat who sees through the bullshit here. Life is great if you are able to ignore the thinly veiled anti foreigner behavior and general contempt for any kind of forward thinking, usually from the outside. Unfortunately, or fortunately for me, I'm in the same boat as you and can't ignore the stuff around me. Even my fortress bubble home can't hide the fact I'm in Japan still.

    This blog entry and others before it goes further to explain the ass backwards import situation, shit English is just a chatty hobby attitude, and why Japan is stuck in a late 80s time warp with current tech clumsily shoehorned in.

    As a fellow Anglo non permanent resident here, I am in full agreement about how much of a burden it is to have hybrid children here. I'm working to get out as well. Lucky for me I have resisted setting down roots here and my wife is fully aware of it. The hardest part is making that leap back home with new family in row. I think that'so many who marry and start families here get "stuck" for lack of a better term. The end of tunnel is in sight for me as well. I can't wait to be where you're at though. The sooner the better.

    I look forward to any future entries on how you are getting back home, if it's not too private as well as any more general entries about the artificially created difficultly barriers that make life less than comfortable here for modern, non Japanese.

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  2. Thank you. I'll still write about Japan, because I'm stuck connected to the place.

    Living here's taught me a few things. Half of what Western Gajin call racism is just people being assholes, which Japanese often are to each other: the other half is bigotry indeed. I've got a lot more informed sympathy for minorities and immigrants to Canada now, though their experience is different in many ways. I also find them more interesting than my own demographic, because they've lived more. There've been more than a few occasions at a party when pasty me is sitting down with the more brown people in the group, all of us laughing at the naivety of how multiculturalism is understood by white Canadian Anglos. Funny the looks askance I get are from the crackers.

    I've adjusted to going back after three years here in my twenties, albeit single, but at least this time I go back to a career and a stable income. I have a fair idea what to expect, but am sure I'll need to comment on it still.

    People can and do make a good life in Japan, but it is never going to be 'home', is it? It'll be home for the kids, and your home country may always be a bit alien to them; however, no way are they going to be as culturally stunted as the average Japanese, or ex-urban Anglo.

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  3. Blogger keeps eating my comments here, for some reason, so I'll keep this one short.

    Interesting post, as always. I'm fortunate in that my wife's English is pretty much fluent and, despite a couple of crises of confidence, she's fine with using it with the kids at home. The real test will come when she goes back to work and they start nursery school. Updates as and when.

    Have I said good luck with the move back yet? If not, good luck with the move. Keeping it on topic, have you had any discussions about your kids' Japanese in Canada?

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    1. Interesting. My wife's is also. I have known I am leaving, so I have been happy not to push the English, to which the boy has always been resistant anyway (boy he's going to get a kick in the pants in Canada!). Were I here longer, in your shoes, I would have taken a different approach from the beginning.

      My Japanese is low-functional for speaking, and pretty functional for listening, apart from academic language, of course. I don't want to talk about my reading level. Is yours similar? The Gaijin who do not speak it, and are married to a Japanese person, have kids that speak their language better... or they cannot communicate with. I have seen both cases.

      I'm surmising a lot about your case. Long term, if long term is here, you take the kid(s?) back to England without mother every summer, if you can. They need to be removed from relying on the comfort of Japanese, or translation. You know that, of course. To a large extent though, you have to think like a realistic immigrant to your country or mine: your kids will be more the other culture than your own. I am asking my wife to accept that, though she's not excited about it. Have to admit I would not accept the shoe on the other foot. I like to think it is because my culture offers the kids a better chance at happiness, which I do think, but the bias is more selfish than that.

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    2. Yes, the kids will do Japanese Saturday school. Wife will (attempt to) keep speaking with them at home in Japanese. I will encourage these, because after all, I resent never perfecting a second language. I've already told her not to get excited when they lose interest around puberty, because odds are they return to an interest in late teens. The boy, for J-girls, more probably. The girl... what can I encourage about femininity in Japanese culture that I don't think is puerile to fetishistic? And the 'men'?

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  4. I think people need to be less forthcoming with the "keeping the Japanese heritage alive, abroad" thing.
    Why would you want to bring in this culture of lies and deceit and blood-based hierarchies, of organised crime as an accepted form of government, of deep-set xenophobia and a dangerous mixture of superiority and inferiority complexes back to the western world?
    There is absolutely nothing we can learn from East Asian cultures that isn't in some way horrible or backwards, from an enlightened point of view.
    My "half" kid will not be raised "half Japanese", because I will not allow it to make the mistake to try to go back there and beg for being accepted.
    Japan is a huge waste of time. Making to many concessions to Japanese, even if its our wives, only sends the signal of "there's nothing wrong with Japan".

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    1. Dude, good luck with that in your marriage.

      And my Anglo culture has not a lot to be smug about at the moment. Even N.Europe has its own hypocrisy and vicarious blood on its hands. Cultures suck because people suck. Comparing them is a bit of a mug's game when we are all enculturated: yes, I say anthropology is bunkum.

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