Wednesday, March 3, 2010

lost in translation~ solc day 3

I have a bit of a vicarious relationship with my Japanese ethnicity. I love almost all things Japanese- food, dress, business, culture, music, art, geography, language, anime, judo, paper. I wanted Myoshi Umeki to be my mother! I haven't spoken Japanese for about 45 years, but I still feel connected to this language when I hear it or see it.

Before Two Writing Teachers started this month's Slice of Life Challenge it had been months since my last post. I decided to reacquaint myself with my own writing. Today I read one of my last posts. It was about transitioning to a new position in my school. I noticed there was a comment which must have been left months ago. It was in Japanese. My heart skipped. What did it say? Who was it from? How did they find my blog? It was probably some teacher in Japan wanting to know more about how we teach literacy in the United States. I suddenly felt like an ambassador of all things reading and writing. I felt responsible. I mustered my fledgling knowledge. I wanted to reply to his/her comment with thoughtfulness and just the right words.

So I entered the characters into the google translator and waited for the English version.

I read down the list of terms trying to make connections. Wait. What did those words have to do with literacy? Ohhh... My commenter, Otemoyan who doesn't represent the comical Japanese song very well, is as they say, "furyō shōjo" (bad girl).

The right words would not be necessary. The delete button would be necessary. I immediately deleted the comment but not before I mourned my lost Japanese teacher friend. I offer my apologies to all who may have read and understood that comment prior to my knowledge.

I've got to read my comments more often.

2 comments:

Stacey said...

We get comments in Russian, that land up in our SPAM Comments section, all of the time. I've never thought about translating them into English. I'm almost afraid to after reading this. Perhaps I'll keep deleting them.

Josie said...

Too funny, C!!!