Jeepney Press March-April 2023

YOMU editorial by Dennis Sun

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."

~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

I've spent more than half of my life in Japan. In fact, I've been in Japan longer than I've been in the Philippines.

Sakura Blossoms

by Dennis Sun

The Japanese language has been the most challenging hurdle for us as foreign residents in Japan. For the rest, we may just ignore them, let them pass, and accept them.

The majority of the Filipinos I know can get by with everyday conversational Japanese. They are married to a Japanese person and have Japanese children, thus they must communicate with them in Japanese even if they did not attend proper Japanese language school.

And when it comes to business Japanese, though, they all fail to communicate.

For several years now, I've been collaborating with the Japanese government to deliver business Japanese courses, core Japanese language training, and job preparation skills to foreign nationals residing in Japan in order to help them find secure and permanent jobs.

Even though I work for a Japanese corporation, I feel compelled to continue learning the language. The Japanese I use at work is confined to the scope of my job.

The Japanese I previously learned but never used is mainly gone or progressively going away.

I signed up for weekly sessions with an instructor to help me recall what I studied before and improve my Japanese. It is, in fact, a class taught by volunteer Japanese teachers. It's not expensive; in fact, it's virtually free.

My teacher is a retired Japanese man in his late 70s or early 80s. He is rigorous with his students and teaches like a father. He dislikes people who arrive late, especially those who have not notified him.

Being late is not something the Japanese do often, and if one is late, one must provide advance warning and apologize profusely like how the Japanese people do.

My teacher encouraged me to take part in the city's annual Japanese speech convention a month ago, so I did. He requested that I make the Philippines, my home nation, the focus of my address. He said that given how few Japanese people are familiar with the Philippines, this is the ideal occasion and setting to spread the word about my home nation.

Though it is written in Japanese, I am sharing my speech with everyone here. You may use Google Translate to read it in English or your local language. Kindly click on this link.

https://sites.google.com/.../dennis-sun-speech-japanese...

Sakura Blossoms

Photo by Dennis Sun

And I am also sharing with you a couple of beautiful pictures I took of the special sakura tree growing around my neighborhood. Although it's not one of the biggest, it's sure one of the prettiest. I particularly look forward to seeing it bloom annually every spring.

The cherry blossom is a symbol of beauty and hope and I'm excited to see it every year as a sign that spring is on its way.

Dennis Sun

Editor-In-Chief/ Art Director