My Back Yard

Dear Reader,
After you read the text below, do you understand what an “aizuchi” is? Do you have questions you’d like me to address?
This is my attempt to draft a Toastmasters speech.
Thanks for your help!
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Today I’ll describe a key difference between a good Japanese-language conversation and a good English-language conversation.

I’ll cover three topics. I’ll:
1) define the Japanese term aizuchi
2) give some examples of aizuchi
3) wrap up with a warning about your cross-cultural communications with native speakers of Japanese

Let’s start with a case study. Please listen carefully because I’m going to ask you a question at the end of this case study.

If you were talking non-stop to me and I didn’t interrupt you, what would you do? How long would you keep talking in the face of my silence? Five sentences? 15 sentences? 50 sentences? More?

There’s a big difference between the U.S. and Japan on this issue. As the speaker in Japan, I might stop after just one or two sentences.

Why? Because I want you to participate in the conversation. I want you to confirm that you’re listening by offering an aizuchi , which is a verbal or non-verbal signal. According to a popular author on the Japanese language, aizuchi are agreeable responses that make a conversation go smoothly.

In a literal sense, aizuchi refers to “alternate hammering by two blacksmiths.” That’s a metaphor for how a conversation — or even a speech — should be a two-way interaction in Japan. The alternation between one blacksmith’s hammer blow and the other translates into an ongoing verbal and nonverbal exchange between the two parties to a conversation.

Let’s consider some examples of aizuchi:
1) Nodding your head
2) Saying “ne” or “soo desu ne,” which mean “that’s so, isn’t it?”
3) Saying “haa,” “hai,” “ee,” or “un,” which are typically translated as “yes”
4) Finishing the other speaker’s sentence for her

I’ll bet that number four shocks you. In the United States, butting in to finish the other speaker’s sentence is considered rude. The perception in Japan is very different. Finishing the other person’s sentence CORRECTLY is considered complimentary. It’s a sign of how well attuned you are to the other person.

Number four gets me in trouble with my husband. I’m always trying to finish his sentences. No matter how many times he yells at me, I keep doing it. On some subliminal level I’ve decided that I should be so well aligned with my husband that I can finish his sentences for him.

Let me backtrack for a moment to aizuchi numbers one through three. Would you say that they’re all expressions of agreement with the speaker?

In an American context, that’s correct. They are forms of agreement.

But that’s not the case in Japan. In Japan they simply mean, “Yes, I hear you.” This is my warning to you about cross-cultural communication with the Japanese.

Do you know anyone else who buys pumpkins specifically for their squirrels to eat?

“How well do you know your mother and father? How well do you want to know them?”

These are Ty Burr’s first sentences in his review of the movie “51 Birch Street.”

I certainly didn’t know my parents very well while I was a child.

My nemesis is myself.

I’m my own worst enemy.

I tend to lock myself in an isolation cell, where I fantasize wildly about everything that can go wrong. Usually, few of those bad things happen. I come out the other end of my latest challenge with my honor intact — and my mind still cracked.

I am currently engaged in a friend-colleague development program, picking new people to meet for coffee. If I keep throwing myself against reality, maybe I’ll stop torturing myself so much.

To read about other people’s nemeses, visit Sunday Scribblings.

Your mother called you
a weasel on the basketball court.
She said it with love.
You were a small boy.
Faster on your feet than
those big heavy clods.
Darting between them,
you homed in on the basket.

To look at you, no one
would have pegged you
as a star,
yet you shone
when given a chance
with the ball.
A weasel is clever,
with a reputation for guile.
So were you.

Today you’re
still a weasel
in the good sense of the word,
casting a spell over my heart.

Pass me the ball,
said my husband as he
jammed his hands
into the curve of my waist
as I lay in bed,
secure under the
down comforter
wrapped in a
reversible duvet.

Pass me the ball.
You count on me to
pay attention
even when we’re asleep.

Such trust in me
makes me smile
even as I snap
irritably at
this intrusion.

Another morning when it was hard to peel my body out of bed.

Another afternoon when I fell asleep for a couple hours.

No energy tonight.

What’s going on?

I can’t lock the front door
to my parents’ house.
I slam it closed,
but it swings open,
again and again.

I’m sucked inside,
across the immaculately vacuumed,
heavy Oriental rugs,
up the stairwell wallpapered like
a medieval castle of stone blocks, and
into my bedroom where I find waiting
my dolls of many nations, my Ladybug hairdryer
and sunny yellow trellised wallpaper
lush with pink roses.

My dolls stand on wooden bookshelves
stained walnut by my mother
before she screwed their standards into the wall.

Miss Italy and Miss Germany
seem to chat together,
perhaps about their common costume
of white blouse under jumper and apron.
I arrange all my dolls in alphabetical order and
conversational groupings.
At least this part of my life I can control.

Here are some freelancer-oriented blogs that Michael Stelzner’s blog has highlighted:
* Ask Allison
* Practicing Writing
* The Renegade Writer blog

Another squirrel has joinedRingy and Big Mummy in eating out of my hand.

I’ve named her Dotty because she has a light spot atop the base of her tail. At first I thought it was a bare spot. Now I think it’s marked by white hair. Iggy says that overall her coloring is lighter than the other squirrels.

Iggy named Ringy for the ring around her face.

Big Mummy is a big girl and the most skittish of the three. She pulls harder on the nut when she extracts it from my fingers.