The New Flu Touches Me: a timeline

MONDAY, 11 May
I ask students in conversation classes at Kandai University what news item to discuss next.

“The flu.”
“The flu in Japan?” I ask.
“Yes,” they reply.
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WEDNESDAY, May 13
I find English language flu information on the Ritsumeikan University website. I plan to ask students if our university has such information on its website.
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SATURDAY, May 16
By chance, I meet an administrative assistant from Ritsumeikan University at a Kansai-Stanford annual event in Kyoto. I mention the flu page.

“We have a lot of short-term international travel among students,” she explains.

Someone else at the gathering mentions the news that a Kobe high school student had been diagnosed with the new flu.
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SUNDAY, May 17
1340 hours. A phone call from Kandai informs me—in English-- that a meeting in progress will decide whether to cancel classes because of the flu. I am instructed to check the Kandai website in Japanese after 1500 hours to learn the decision.

“Will I get another phone call?”
“No.”
“Where on the website will the information be?”
“On the first page, on the upper right.”

I imagine that discussions about whether to close universities must be taking place all over western Japan this Sunday afternoon; I wonder whether the universities coordinate their discussions and decision making, and whether health agencies are involved.

1500 hours
I check the Kandai website. I see a posting about the flu, but it was uploaded in the morning.

1700 hours
I check the Kandai website again. There has still been no update since the morning. I send email to my boss at Kandai asking whether classes are canceled.
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MONDAY, May 18, 2009
0520 hours
I check the Kandai website and find the new information in Japanese. I read enough words on “Translate Google” to convince me classes are canceled. The other information matches that from the Ritsumeikan University website regarding dangers, symptoms, referral websites.

I read my email, including a message sent Sunday night about 2300 hours from a head of English department that classes at Osaka University are cancelled all week. Osaka University is the other university at which I teach:

“Dear Colleague,
I am writing to you to let you know that Osaka University has just decided to close all classes from 17th to 24th because of the recent cases of influenza. Please keep watching the University homepage for further information.”

0800 hours
A Japanese friend who also teaches at Osaka University sends email:

“Here is a announcement about cancellation of all lectures at Osaka University. According to newspapers Kandai University also canceled all classes. (Please make sure by yourself).”

I teach Tuesdays at Osaka University.

0930 hours
My boss at Kandai confirms class cancellation. I teach classes Monday and Wednesday at Kandai.

Noon
I get a phone call from Osaka University, in Japanese. I confirm in English: classes are canceled this week. I am to consult the university website frequently to find out whether classes will be cancelled next week.

1500 hours
I twitter about university closures: “Shrill Sunday phone call. Epidemic start or end. Colleges are closed.”

1600 hours
I read New York Times article headlined “W.H.O. May Raise Alert Level as Swine Flu Cases Leap in Japan”

1700 hours
I get the Japanese newspapers. Frontpage stories illustrate the "new flu" fear as people wearing masks: 5000 parents buy masks. A masked mother and daughter shop for disinfectant. Numbers of infected people range to 96.

ONE is the most difficult number

“ONE” IS THE MOST DIFFICULT KANJI

I go to teach at the university by train at 7 in the morning. I scan the advertisements and news and inspirational messages that adorn the inside walls of the commuter train. Here is something I might be able to read. Hmm, I understand the individual words. I conclude it is the Japanese version of the aphorism, “He who travels alone sees the most.”

In class, my students read a newspaper article about the historical difficulty of learning to write. The newspaper commentary says that from time to time, Japan considers abolishing the hard-to-write characters. Not surprisingly, the Japanese sophomores do not want to trade their language’s Chinese characters--called Kanji-- for Roman characters.

Next, I ask the young men and women to discuss favorite and least favorite kanji.

One student claims to hate to write “one” – a horizontal line segment.

I am astonished. “Why? What is challenging about a straight line?”

“One” is hard to align properly, the student says. It tends to crumble into an underscore or a dash. “What is your favorite kanji?” she asks back.

I think of the aphorism in the train. The poem repeated the kanji for “one person”. I ask for the correct pronunciation; the two are pronounced the same. Thus enabled, I garble enough of the poem to achieve recognition.


The poem means, “’Everyone can do one thing uniquely well,’” the students agree. And by implication, they add, the poem suggests, ‘” Find that thing for yourself.’”

I had been wrong about the meaning. But I am very glad for the effective classroom communication. It is a conversational English class.

Way Out

IT TAKES TWO TO READ A MENU

Kyoto--Ah! The reading lesson for the day appears in the form of an exit sign. The square is a mouth, useful for entrance and exit. The top specifies direction. “Way out.”

I am sight seeing in Kyoto during Spring with friends from California. We are at a shrine.

At a restaurant, my Chinese-American friend can read all the Chinese letters on the menu. I can recognize only “bird.” She can read the modifier that specifies chicken.

However, she cannot read the phonetic Japanese script at all. I can. “Curry.”