Memos, Red Tape and Illiteracy

In Australia I was a voracious reader.   I would often have 2 or 3 books on the go at any one time, read Saturday's newspaper over several lattes on the St Kilda coffee strip and even excitedly read the brochures that landed in my letterbox.  Since coming to Japan however, I have hardly read at all.  Mostly this is because English language materials are relatively hard to come by AND EVERYTHING ELSE IS IN JAPANESE.

Now, I knew coming here that I would essentially be illiterate.  I cannot read kanji and am still struggling with retaining hiragana and katakana long enough for it to be useful.  This means that I cannot read: street signs, menus, notes that are left on my desk, important documents and paperwork, contracts, newspapers, magazines, food labels, the buttons on my microwave or washing machine, the prompts on my TV or work laptop, remote controls, sales brochures, warning notices, worksheets, books, newsletters, coupons, vouchers, questionnaires or memos.

Every day a daily schedule memo is placed on the desks of all the teachers in the staffroom, mine included.  It has gotten to a point now where I can recognise this as the daily schedule and occasionally get the gist of what's going down that day, but for the most part, memos that land on my desk are a complete mystery to me.  As a result I have missed doctors appointments, not been aware that there was a whole school assembly going on, been surprised at having to work on occasional weekends without notice.  Sometimes it seems that my colleagues forget the fact that I cannot read and write, that I am usually pretty clueless about what is happening on a daily basis and that this is very frustrating!

This also means that I am often forced to bring mail and other documentation into work for my JTEs to translate for me.  You can't imagine how many bills I've received and just looked at thinking, what the hell is this about?  Ditto for communicating via the written word - my JTEs have gotten very good at jotting down notes for me to hand over to people in lieu of verbal communication.

Don't get me wrong, I am studying Japanese - I just find retaining anything I have "learnt" to be a bit of a challenge.  The eventual goal is to be able to carry a conversation and get by without assistance before I depart this strange land.  Will I get there?  Who knows.  Only time will tell.