Language: Powerful Tool to Have Better Life

The power of the language is enormous; it can break misunderstanding and even stereotyping. I have learned this lesson through my living experiences in the countries where do not speak my mother tongue.

I was born in New Jersey but when I was 6 months old, my Japanese parents took me to Japan. So I grew up with Japanese language without any inconvenience in communication. I have encountered my first language barrier when I started home staying program in Pennsylvania. I did not study English when I was in Japan, so I was almost unable to communicate with my new American family; I was very frustrated that I cannot express what I wanted to say. I felt like I returned to 3 years old child who cannot take care himself; I was desperate to go back to Japan as soon as possible. But gradually I start learning and talking English, this made my life more interesting by knowing my American family who are very kind and thoughtful people. Eventually, I decided to stay in the U.S. longer than I planned because of fond of the language and communicating with new people. This English learning process guided me to go to the College in country side in Oklahoma, in order to be banned from Japanese language in order to concentrate in learning and talking in English. During college life in Oklahoma, I experienced something I never expected; I had not talked in Japanese for such a long time, I realized that I had hard time talking in Japanese when my friend made international call; he told me that I speak like a foreigner. I realized that if I do not use it, I lose it, even though Japanese was my mother tongue. It is all about practice.

My best friends in the college were mainly Latinos and they were mainly talking in either Spanish or Portuguese. This experience encouraged me accept the kind offer my best friend gave me; which was going to Ecuador to learn Spanish and Latin Culture. It was a quite experience!

May be due to the geographical distance and also cultural distance between Asia and Ecuador, most of people do not know about Asia and they have misunderstanding and stereotyping against Asian people. Some of them just want to make fun of Asians, or some are really aggressive. I heard it used to be not rare to through stones to Asian people. Fortunately, the situation got better than before. However, it was common to be teased or yelled when I was walking in the street, or having dreadful customer service because of my appearance; It was very frustrating experience. I often got mad in being such situation which made situation even worse.

But one day, I realized that I also have stereotyping and biased idea toward Ecuadorian people through meeting many wonderful Ecuadorian people. I became to understand that if I wanted to be treated with respect, I have to have positive attitude to break the stereotyping and misunderstanding. Then I started to communicate with people who already have attitude towards me; for example start conversation about weather today with a smile. Usually, this little tip changes their attitude significantly in a good way, and usually talking to them in their own language make them surprised and loosen; in fact, some of them told me that they did not expect that I speak Spanish and they all sudden became very interested in me, which provided the opportunity to explain about Japan and its culture; this works toward breaking misunderstanding and stereotyping. When I encountered teasers, now I have humor to yell them back with the joke; this make them laugh and also embarrassed by the joke which was made by the person who is not expected to response in their language. Finally I have recognized how the language can be used to improve our life. The language can make life better or worse; it all depends on our decision.