Cultural Connections and Stupid Tattoos

We got our physicals today, and made a pretty big dent in the paperwork. I started off the day in a truly horrible mood but now feel a million times better.

I've been writing short answers in my paperwork about maintaining biological connections, and also reading about maintaining cultural connections online. I've been wanting to write a post about how my experience growing up overlaps somewhat with that of a transracial adoptee. But that's going to be such a fragile and difficult point to write about that I'd rather build up to it slowly. With this post I'll start out arguing a point about cultural connections and how not to think of them: like a scorecard.

When people ask me if I speak Japanese, my instinctual reaction is to say "**** off!" but I never actually say this. I usually just smile politely and say "No, I used to speak it when I was a little kid, but I forgot it all." Then they'll say, "Oh, that's terrible, I bet you could get it back again so easily if you tried!" Then I'll say, "Actually, that's false. I tried learning it again as an adult when I was older and it was just as difficult for me as for anyone else. The one exception was that pronunciation came more naturally for me than for the other students, so my brain must have held on to certain sound patterns. Japanese grammar and vocabulary were still extremely difficult and I gave up before I even got to the intermediate stage. The saying that you never forget a language isn't based on any linguistic theory that I'm aware of. The human brain has an incredible capacity to forget things, you know." This is such a long and geeky response, it usually shoots that conversation topic right down.

Sometimes people ask the question out of honest, simple curiosity. Maybe they just want to find someone to practice Japanese with. Still, it's been used as a standard to measure me so many times that the whole question feels tainted. I've had people actually tell me I should start studying Japanese right away, with a pitying expression on their face.

White people aren't expected to get up on stage and show off their cultural scorecard. Someone named O'Brien isn't looked down on if they don't know how to say the toast in Gaelic. But I think they can still get caught up in the game, especially if they're at an emotionally vulnerable stage. Sticking with the Irish -- a good friend of my husband went through a highly unhealthy Irish phase. I don't see him anymore (he moved from Atlanta) but I hope he's gotten out of it by now. Anyway, he decided to get in touch with his Irish roots. A healthy way to do that would have been 1) reading lots of books by Irish nationals written from lots of different points of view 2) joining an Irish-American historical preservation society 3) traveling to Ireland with an open mind, speaking to Irish people there and visiting famous places.

Instead, he went out and got a large IRA tattoo on his arm. My husband, himself partly Irish, used to gave him hell about it. Then they got sick of having a terrorism argument every night so my husband gave up and ignored it. But the first time I met this friend I just couldn't resist messing with him. "So why do you have the Italian flag tattooed on your arm?" I asked.

We have another friend with much closer roots in Ireland. His father was a national and he's traveled there many times. He has no illusions that he feels and understands Irish issues as deeply as real Irish nationals, and thinks people like our IRA-tattoo-friend are incredibly misguided at best and sub-morons at worst.

The reason behind the tattoo must have been the cultural connection scorecard. This guy was in an emotional state where a good score was important, and looked on it as a way to jack up his Irish points. In his defense, I know he is really a good person and a smart person with just a few wires crossed.

Cultural connections shouldn't be thought of as a scorecard. It's great to study another language; you shouldn't be thought of as less of a person for studying a language that doesn't belong to your ethnic heritage. Also, if you do get caught up in the game, there really aren't any shortcuts or killer moves. It's better to stay out entirely, or at least maintain emotional distance, or you'll be horribly hurt. Try to learn for the sake of learning, not to save your soul. Now that I've gotten this piece of advice down to such a condensed form it sounds a bit trite and even Yoda-esque, but it has really saved me a lot of heartache since I started living by it.