This morning I worked early. This morning I couldn't sleep well. I woke up too early so tried to sleep again with Ryuichi Sakamoto or Fennesz's music, but it didn't make me sleep so I listened to a podcast program by Peter Barakan and Kumiko Torikai on Spotify. They talked about English education in Japan, and it let me think about my idleness in learning English. We should do learning with a certain motivation, not thinking lazily like "English is cool!". That pointing out reminds me of Yoshio Kataoka's opinion I read yesterday. Me, I have a certain motivation and curiosity I think and think that I should dive into the vast sea of the English language by myself, and try to learn how to swim. They also talked about the phenomenon that Japan is full of "Katakana" or Japanese English (For example, we pronounce "award" as "AWARDO"). I have to admit that my English is also very Japanese.
Today, at our workplace I talked about my learning English with a senior co-worker as small talk. She got impressed by the skill of my English and also my attitude, and asked me that "what does make difference between you and me?". It's really difficult to answer (so I couldn't answer at that moment). I can remember that once I had been confused by that kind of "difference" between me and neurotypical people (or I might have to say that are "ordinary people"). Yes, it almost became a question about an identity crisis of mine. "Why am I different from other people?" and "Why do the Japanese hate any differences in our society?"... I thought about them deeply. They were like the cross I had to shoulder, so I almost went mad and became neurotic.
Indeed, I am different from others... now I am even proud of that "unique" myself, but at that time I tried a lot of efforts to follow the trend and not to be alone. I tried to read a Japanese music magazine "Rockin' On" and listen to Britpop. I also tried to read "J Bungaku(this means literature)" like Shu Fujisawa, Kazusige Abe, and Hiroki Azuma. But I am really selfish about my taste, or I have to admit that I am really weak, so those kinds of efforts didn't change me. I am basically a maverick or stray cat, so at last, I became an old dude who enjoys Wes Montgomery's music and reads Wittgenstein. And I am satisfied with that situation in my 40s like a famous Japanese cartoon character, Bakabon's father who always says "It's Okay!". Sometimes I enjoy Hideaki Tokunaga or Barbee Boys... but It's Okay!
At lunch break, I wrote an essay on the handout of the English conversation class. The teacher had said that we can write anything freely so I wrote about a past memory of mine. About the event that I decided to start learning English, and even thinking I would like to do learning English as my lifework... Although I had written this in this diary so you have read it once or more, I wrote about a memory that a friend of mine had praised as "your English is crisp and easy to understand!". Until then, I had been bound by the inferiority complex about English and thought strictly like "I can never speak English", and "I envy the people who speak English fluently". But that comment changed me start thinking "My English is Okay?". Now, I say that "My English (or your English)" is really Okay. Remembering this morning's podcast, I thought I would like to record "my" podcast which is full of "My English", following the great The Smiths. I don't care if "The World Won't Listen".
