Dreamscape, langugae, rant

[prophet_marcus]

It's very rare that I recall having any dreams let alone remember any details. But here it is.

I dreamed I was working in Japan, in an office. (Wherevertown, Japan looked a lot like downtown Dover, New Hampshire. I find this unlikely. So is my working in any sort of office.) Anyway, lunchtime came around and I decided to go visit a nearby catholic church. I remember being concerned because I didn't speak Japanese. Mass was just ending when I got to the church. That's about where it ended - me looking for a place to sit and worrying about my language lack.

Not speaking the local language is a bit of a sore point with me. Immigrants are fine, immigrants are great, I've worked for and with many immigrants, foreign students and I think it's cool. Until they've been here for several years and still can't carry on a conversation in English. I start losing my tolerance when someone can't communicate even simple things after years in country. I know picking up a new language is harder for some than others. God knows I've seen it in the French-Canadian community I grew up at the edges of. But if you're going to live here, become American and learn the language.

Comments

[archangelbeth]

I have sympathy for monoglots! Being one myself and all. (I would probably learn "excuse me," "thank you," "bathroom?", and "I am a monoglot" while waving a translation dictionary around... >_> ) But... I don't think I'd make a virtue of it. I hope.

Japanese Dover... There's an... odd thought!

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, as with the French community, it's a conscious choice to stay apart. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned how my Mennonite ancestors came over here about 1700 and were still speaking German exclusively a couple of centuries later . . .

[prophet-marcus.livejournal.com]

Yeah. La Survivance they called it, hoping to hold onto their ties to their home culture which had little care for them, even as the French Canadians tried to maintain ties to France, which didn't care about them! While my mother's parents were never very fluent in English, their children were all quite assimilated, while maintaining ties to the local Franco community.