Sadness

Chika from my 3E class just got a job at my local grocery store. (Technically not allowed until she graduates March 1st). She lived in America for a year, her English is beautiful, I have never said a word to her in Japanese before. I walked up to check out and I got Japanese and no indication that she knows me at all except a faint secret smile when the woman training her wasn't looking. I understand, I really do. She would be ostracized for her English, set apart, a weirdo. But it is a sad sad commentary. It is why no one here will ever really speak. It makes you out-group. It makes you weird. It's why they always insist on having a foreign teacher. They always think it is something only outsiders do. Until Japanese people speak English in front of other Japanese people, no one will ever learn.