秘密の庭 (The Secret Garden)

Reprinted from my Mixi blog, since hey, no one outside my exchange student friends on a Japanese blog site can read it anyway.

Edit: If you want to see the ???s go to view comments. It displays right on that page but not on the others. Stupid website.

「　The Secret Garden　ー秘密の庭ー」

「こうなったら地上へ降りて行って、彼らが違ったことばを話すようにしてしまおう。　そうすれば、互いに何を言っているかわからなくなる。」

"Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."

-- Genesis 11:7

I haven't written anything here in a few weeks, but I notice that people keep looking at this -- probably because my user name is written in Western characters and it is mere curiosity.

I'll assume, for the sake of argument, that at least one person out there can read this. (こんばんわポルコロッサさん ^_^;)

A common thing you will hear in every language is that "this word doesn't translate well". For instance, English slang translates horribly into other languages.

I've always been pretty good with language. I'm a reasonably adept writer despite having put nearly zero effort into the craft. But being around friends for whom English is a second or third language inverts the status quo. All the English wordcraft in the world will not communicate complex concepts like aspiration, betrayal, foreboding, subjugation, etc. to someone who has yet to grasp the finer points of the language.

My lack of ability to communicate complex concepts is an impenetrable wall of understanding. Behind that wall is the secret garden, one which contains all the souls who speak their own language but not mine. I may be able to ask how that person feels today, and what time it is, and what the weather is like, but I will never truly know who that person truly *is*. I won't know their deepest regrets, desires, and beliefs because they can't explain them to me in words I can understand. I'm too stupid.

To those on the other side of this wall, do I exist in a secret garden containing the English-speaking world? I suspect that I might. If I didn't speak English, I would imagine that the English-speaking world seems pretty cool just from the pictures.

How do we reduce the walls between gardens to a manageable size? In doing so, would it then -- again -- exist as one garden?

英語を読める？わかりやすいか？大丈夫。やっぱりだめかな？