In airnotherport
In Haneda airport. Are you ready for another bout of mindless rambling?
But this time the only thing I'm tired of, besides travelling with the very well meaning but otherwise oblivious parents, is the fact that I can't get this bloody keyboard right. I should -- I get enough practice in school. I sit on the arm of a chair in a too-tight dorm room reading over the shoulder of someone who's become my closest friend; from that I've learned that hijacking a Japanese Macbook is difficult because none of the symbols are in the right place, and if you put your thumb too far from where the abbreviated space bar is you'll end up with some awkward katakana.
It's also really difficult to type in contractions. Shift-7 for every single-quote. Plus the hyphen is one key in. And the day I find the ampersand is the day I start abbreviating again.
But that has nothing to do with Haneda, besides the fact that I will not be typing like a native English speaker so as to save time on Shift-7s. Haneda is --
Domestic. English signs on everything, but the first language you hear in a store is still Japanese, and the second language will be Korean. Chinese if you are lucky, and if your race allows for language-bending. Nothing is in English; not my mindset right now, nor my manners. It takes three days to get used to the speed at which I have to mumble my yeses and thank yous, and now that I have hit my stride I find I have to leave. Any more of this and I think I might start hating airports again. Any more of this and I might remember why I love English, and then I might forget why I stopped writing.
Typing without contractions is a challenge and a joy; I remember that this is my language and I will speak it however I want to, however much it may be colonial. I can find a way around an awkward sentence; wrench a clause back into its socket. I can drop pronouns or repeat them at will; I can use verbs, nouns, gerunds, commas. Commas go in the right direction. Everything is at once clearer and more abstruse.
The architecture here suffers and flourishes along that same logic. Where are the different coloured lights? I asked myself when I landed and crawled along the highways. Hidden: underneath the larger buildings, beneath the whiter lights. The skyscrapers and office buildings burn black, bright white. For orange you have Tokyo Tower. The blues signify Christmas, or something like it. Everything else is subsumed into something near the malls, or the colour-coded lines of the JR lines, the Metro lines, the private buses trains planes.
Keikyu, Tokyu, Odakyu, Keio, get on the Yamanote and circle until everything blends together and you find yourself speaking the language instead of observing it. Watching the buildings.
The people are the same way, reflective and reflexive: give them more than their grammar and their levels of politeness and you will find something deeper, darker, older. At some opint they took what was not theirs and made it their own; they fascinate the people they needed to change for and now these people change for them. Are they changing? Are things changing?
Everyone bows when you leave; everyone bows when you arrive. The check in counters are silent with the sound of efficiency. If there are other internationals here, they are not quite English speakers. Not in the way I am; eveyone is from Asia. I am from Asia. Where are you from, Asia?
Now back across the sea. Or some sea.
Maybe over there I'll have apostrophes!
But this time the only thing I'm tired of, besides travelling with the very well meaning but otherwise oblivious parents, is the fact that I can't get this bloody keyboard right. I should -- I get enough practice in school. I sit on the arm of a chair in a too-tight dorm room reading over the shoulder of someone who's become my closest friend; from that I've learned that hijacking a Japanese Macbook is difficult because none of the symbols are in the right place, and if you put your thumb too far from where the abbreviated space bar is you'll end up with some awkward katakana.
It's also really difficult to type in contractions. Shift-7 for every single-quote. Plus the hyphen is one key in. And the day I find the ampersand is the day I start abbreviating again.
But that has nothing to do with Haneda, besides the fact that I will not be typing like a native English speaker so as to save time on Shift-7s. Haneda is --
Domestic. English signs on everything, but the first language you hear in a store is still Japanese, and the second language will be Korean. Chinese if you are lucky, and if your race allows for language-bending. Nothing is in English; not my mindset right now, nor my manners. It takes three days to get used to the speed at which I have to mumble my yeses and thank yous, and now that I have hit my stride I find I have to leave. Any more of this and I think I might start hating airports again. Any more of this and I might remember why I love English, and then I might forget why I stopped writing.
Typing without contractions is a challenge and a joy; I remember that this is my language and I will speak it however I want to, however much it may be colonial. I can find a way around an awkward sentence; wrench a clause back into its socket. I can drop pronouns or repeat them at will; I can use verbs, nouns, gerunds, commas. Commas go in the right direction. Everything is at once clearer and more abstruse.
The architecture here suffers and flourishes along that same logic. Where are the different coloured lights? I asked myself when I landed and crawled along the highways. Hidden: underneath the larger buildings, beneath the whiter lights. The skyscrapers and office buildings burn black, bright white. For orange you have Tokyo Tower. The blues signify Christmas, or something like it. Everything else is subsumed into something near the malls, or the colour-coded lines of the JR lines, the Metro lines, the private buses trains planes.
Keikyu, Tokyu, Odakyu, Keio, get on the Yamanote and circle until everything blends together and you find yourself speaking the language instead of observing it. Watching the buildings.
The people are the same way, reflective and reflexive: give them more than their grammar and their levels of politeness and you will find something deeper, darker, older. At some opint they took what was not theirs and made it their own; they fascinate the people they needed to change for and now these people change for them. Are they changing? Are things changing?
Everyone bows when you leave; everyone bows when you arrive. The check in counters are silent with the sound of efficiency. If there are other internationals here, they are not quite English speakers. Not in the way I am; eveyone is from Asia. I am from Asia. Where are you from, Asia?
Now back across the sea. Or some sea.
Maybe over there I'll have apostrophes!