この作品は、遠藤が住まうソーシャルアパートメント「ネイバーズ東十条」において開催した文章展示企画である「シークレット・ライター」の第３回に寄稿した作品です。
Over twenty-five articles from sixteen writers living in this social apartment reflect how diverse our share mates see their lives and communication here. However, the language itself is still homogeneous, Japanese.
Japanese, which is one of the most difficult languages to acquire, is very beautiful to express the writers’ inner feelings and thoughts because of its diversity of vocabulary, ambiguity by absence of the subject, and variability of sentence structure. And because of these, the articles under this exhibition called “Secret Writer” are striking readers’ hearts. But, the experience of being moved by each article is limited only for fluent Japanese readers.
Here, I feel unconscious-exclusiveness. Yes, even I, both the writer of this article and the organizer of the exhibition, excluded other languages users unconsciously.
There are several reasons why I organize the exhibition. One is that there are many residents here who like to write essays or even work as professional writers, and I wanted to read their essays which reflect their feelings and thoughts through the social apartment lives. Each writer has to hide their name from each article under the regulation of the exhibition, and this makes readers think who to write, and therefore communication among the residents occurs.
On the other, and moreover, I wanted to express myself through essays, not by verbal communication. This is because I, who some residents recognize as talkative, feel lonely or being a minority in the community here, and this kind of my negative perspective for being a part of this community wouldn’t be appeared through the daily communication even I don’t hesitate hiding. Because I can hide the name as a writer, I can express what I want to express more freely.
Surprisingly to me, not only me but also other writers put their inner feelings into the essays with their own way of the expressions. Readers, and they are our residents in other words, encountered different aspects of writers which couldn’t be appeared in the daily conversation on the 2nd floor. This is what both writers and readers enjoyed the exhibition the most. But, we cannot share this delighted “re-discovery” of the residents here with non-native readers of Japanese.
I was so lucky that myself in childhood was both talkative and interested in acquiring English, now I can enjoy talking with residents from other countries even they cannot speak Japanese fluently. One thing to add here, residents from other countries put so much hard work into learning Japanese and their fluency get tremendously better day by day. I even appreciate, as one person fostered in Japan, their relentless effort for acquiring Japanese language and basic interests for the culture and habit in Japan.
Because of that, I feel a disappointment to myself that I couldn’t put the consideration for non Japanese users even though I hope to create a world where all people share the ideas of inclusion. I always state that knowing and giving respect to each other are the basic keys to create a better future of inclusion beyond each difference. The life in this social apartment is the right place for the actual practice, I suppose.
I cannot truly understand, and should not predict what the non Japanese users here feel or think. But I imagine that living in a different country where one’s native language is limited to use makes one’s heart feel alone or being a minority. But I strongly believe that we, as residents here, can melt such feelings by sharing a precious time in the same community. Language itself is a one of the tools, but sometimes verbal communication doesn’t need the fluency of the language. The interest and desire for knowing each other can go beyond language. But on the other hand, we need to understand that languages themselves become the barrier for the desire to understand others.
The old proverb says “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”, but this couldn’t be a reason that native Japanese users here don’t put consideration to the non Japanese users here. Or, even the distinction between Japanese users and non Japanese users is not appropriate for the mutual understanding as people under the shared community here. I want to make the opportunity for participation into this community open for everyone. And to enable this, I don’t want to make the opportunity closed into the Japanese language.
This is why I wrote this essay, with my regrets for less consideration for international members here.
I want to see each of you as individuals who have different interesting life-stories, many aspects of the life, and shared interests among the life in the social apartment. We can be life-long “share mates” even though we spend a short time together. At that time. our friendship can be beyond language, I believe.
So I promise you. I won’t make the language itself a barrier to our communication. I won’t let you alone.