Minae Mizumura - The Fall of Language in the Age of English

“You are a very important person,” I said to him on some occasion.

“Everybody is important,” he amended instantly. He was the kind of person who immediately came up with a response like that despite his rudimentary English. Apparently, one’s true worth shows through regardless of how well or how poorly one speaks a language; everyone trusted Dashnyam as a man of character.

Gintaris was the name of Dashnyam’s young Lithuanian poet friend. He liked to fish, and he often went to fish in the Iowa River. Like bonsai, fishing happens to be another hobby often associated in Japan with stoop-shouldered retirees. I don’t know how it sounds in the Lithuanian language for a young man with spiky hair and pierced ear to count bonsai and fishing among his hobbies. I do know that connotations differ according to the language, so it must not sound as funny as it does in Japanese. One day he caught a big fish and, not knowing what to do with it, let it swim in his bathtub all week. Dashnyam finally stepped in and cooked the fish. Once you caught something, you ate it — that was the philosophy embraced by Dashnyam, the hunter’s son. “But it didn’t look very good, so I didn’t eat it myself,” he added, laughing.

Historically Mongolia had a much longer relationship with China than with the Soviets, but I never saw Dashnyam talk with either of the two male Chinese novelists, to whom I took the liberty of mentally attaching nicknames. The one who wore jeans and sat with his legs wide apart was “the country dude,” and the one who looked smart in a white suit, almost as smart as the fabulous male impersonators in the all-female Takarazuka Revue, was “the city dude.” The country dude’s real name was Yu Hua. On the alphabetical list of IWP participants, his name came last, and I had not gone far enough down the list to find out who he was. He himself did not understand a word of English, and when we saw each other in the hallway, he would rush into his room with a smile as if he wanted to vanish into thin air. Initially I didn’t give him much thought, but soon I began to hear his name associated with a film. When I became curious enough to actually go through the list, I learned that the acclaimed director Zhang Yimou had made a film based on Yu’s novel To Live that won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994. We had a celebrity among us! (He later became a frequent New York Times contributor.)

From South Korea, there were three male writers. In descending order of fluency in English, the first was a poet who had earned his doctorate in English literature at the University of Iowa. He owned a car, so he would invite me on rides, saying, “C’mon, Minae!” and motioning his head toward his car like an American. He would take me and the other Koreans to a Korean or Japanese restaurant. As the four of us busily moved our chopsticks, I sensed as I always did the tender ways in which East Asians living in the United States relate to one another, creating a momentary safe haven, as it were.

The second Korean was a young novelist who had an easy laugh and kept taking photographs. Unsurprisingly, the two men were both surnamed Kim. The one who had lived longer in the United States put his surname last and called himself Ethan Kim. The other one, a direct import from Korea, called himself Kim Young-ha. I kept getting their names confused. Kim Young-ha liked to visit hot springs in Japan. I’m not sure if his fondness for hot springs had anything to do with it, but he later kindly played a role in getting my inordinately long novel translated into Korean. Only when I visited Seoul did I learn that he is a prominent novelist in Korea.

The third Korean, Jeong Han Yong, who had the least command of English, was a poet with a singularly serious expression, like many Japanese of a past generation. Once when he appeared before an audience, he stroked his short hair, smiled bashfully, and said, “I got a haircut,” acknowledging what he had done for that day’s presentation. That one sentence made the audience howl with laughter, delighted to find out that this man who had until then barely opened his mouth had a charmingly self-mocking sense of humor.

A novelist from Argentina named Leopoldo also volunteered to help get my long novel translated into Spanish. He and I were not particularly close during my residency. In fact, we hardly spoke. His kindness was unexpected — puzzling, even. But life is nothing but a series of inexplicable events anyway, so I decided to simply feel grateful for his generosity. When I ran into him at night in the hotel hallway, he would swiftly edge his compact body against the wall and walk past me with a smile. He had a sharp face and always walked barefoot, his feet full of life, the nerves reaching to the very tips of his energetic toes. As I watched his agile body glide by, I could not help thinking of a wild leopard. After the program, I didn’t hear from him for several years, but by the time the Spanish translation — my first in a Western language — was due to come out in Buenos Aires we had begun to exchange frequent e-mails, and I even learned to close mine with an affectionate Abrazo!

Whereas Leopoldo the Latin American exuded a touch of animal wildness, Matthias from Germany predictably, almost comically, reeked of civilization. It may be because his tall body was topped by a perfectly shaped cranium that looked for all the world like a specimen of the Homo sapiens brain that had reached its evolutionary goal. It stood out even more because he completely shaved his head. As days went by, I took to calling him by a nickname, too. “Hi, Perfect Cranium!” I would greet him. At first, Matthias laughed off my greeting with an “Oh, no!” I’m sure he was aware I was teasing about the Nazis’ eugenicist claim to be the most advanced race. Later he half-admitted that he shaved his head to showcase its superb shape. Men with fine appearance seem too resplendent. The more I lose my youth, the more resplendent they seem.

Shimon from Israel was a vegetarian. Marcin from Poland, who spoke no English, seemed to spend all his time drinking hard liquor in a philosophical silence. Barolong from Botswana was as enormous as a sumo wrestler. Young Gregory from England had rosy cheeks that would have nicely matched one of those curly silver wigs you see in eighteenth-century portraits. Paddy the Irishman spoke with a wonderful Irish lilt.

Writers are writing in every corner of the globe.

WRITERS ARE WRITING, MOREOVER, IN RICH COUNTRIES AND poor countries alike.

Traveling in a foreign country for even a week makes you painfully aware of the economic status of your own country. Living in a foreign country for an entire month with people from a wide spectrum of rich countries to poor sharpens your awareness even more. The dollar had heartbreakingly different meanings for writers from different countries. Thanks to Iowa’s low cost of living and the accommodation provided by the IWP, I found the modest daily stipend more than enough to cover my everyday expenses. With it, I not only splurged on ready-made food at the student union but also dined out and occasionally even satisfied my morning craving for French toast and sausages by walking into the center of town, braving the still-chilly air. I bought amenities like toothpaste and shampoo at the co-op without looking at the price. I went to the movies. I went to coffee shops. Being from Japan, I wasn’t tempted to save the daily stipend to take back home. I also felt comfortable in knowing that if I ever ran out of money, I could exchange some of the Japanese currency I had brought along. Despite Japan’s recession, the yen provided me with as great a sense of security as if I had bullion gold bars to fall back on.

Things were different for writers from poor countries. If they economized on their daily stipend and took the extra dollars home, they could live on that amount for a while. They could help their aging parents or their children in college. Since cutting down on accommodations was not an option, they cut down mostly on food. The common room that served as both kitchen and dining room had only a microwave, but this did not deter some writers from cooking nearly every meal on their own. When we went on excursions on the minibus and stopped for a meal en route, writers from poor countries stood around munching on the snacks sold at the counter while the rest of us sat at a table in a diner. And whenever there was an event with a free meal, even those who were always holed up in their rooms would somehow get wind of it and appear. Free alcohol was consumed with stupefying fervor. If one carelessly left a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the common room, it would be empty by morning with absurd certainty.