U.S. diplomat: Language key
Yoko Mizui Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
For Joyce Wong, principal officer and consul of the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka, listening comprehension practice was the most difficult part of her studies at a Japanese-language school run by the U.S. State Department in Yokohama.
U.S. diplomats who need Japanese language proficiency to carry out their professional duties are usually required to study Japanese full-time for two years to reach professional fluency--the first year at a State Department school in Washington and the second year at the school in Yokohama.
As Wong had already studied Japanese for two years at the University of California at Davis and one year at a graduate school of Columbia University, she was permitted to skip the school in Washington. Wong studied Japanese intensively at the school in Yokohama from September 1995 to May 1996.
The Yokohama school's curriculum is tough, as it aims to get the students' Japanese-language proficiency to the level where they will be able to use it for work.
"It's very strict. We study every day for five hours and we have homework," Wong said, taking time out to speak to The Daily Yomiuri during a business trip to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.
According to Wong, the school usually has 14 to 20 students in an entire class, but they study in smaller groups--each Japanese instructor teaches two students.
"The Japanese teachers will not speak English at all. Because when you get to Yokohama, supposedly you're at the level where you don't need English," Wong said.
Students were expected to speak Japanese.
"'If you don't practice, you won't improve'--teachers were very strict in saying that," she said.
"We learned how to speak, how to read and then how to write, especially the kanji. Because [writing is] one way that people can memorize the kanji," Wong said. "As a part of our learning how to understand Japanese, we had to listen to NHK news broadcasts. Those were very hard."
She said she could catch only the subject and verb of each sentence in the NHK announcers' newscasts at the beginning of her studies in Yokohama. Gradually, she was able to understand more of each sentence, such as adjectives, adverbs and predicate clauses. She thought listening practice using NHK news was appropriate as "NHK broadcast are very precise and deal with the topics that are similar to issues we'll be working on," Wong said.
In studying Japanese, Wong has an advantage in learning kanji, as her grandparents were originally from China.
"My father was born in China and my mother is also of Chinese origin but born in Mozambique. So I don't have a fear of kanji, unlike many people," she said.
Wong herself was born and raised in San Francisco, but her parents sent her to a Chinese-language school after regular school when she was a child.
"But the kanji that I learned was nowhere near the level of the kanji that I learned from Japanese," she said. "Because the kanji I learned as a child was just at the grade school, junior high school level."
But even so, she acknowledged that she faced no mental barrier in studying kanji.
Wong can get an immediate sense of a newspaper article without looking at everything in it by just picking up kanji as she scans the article.
"Whereas if it's all in hiragana, then I have to actually read through the whole thing to be able to figure out what it might be talking about," she said.
Katakana is sometimes even harder because it is often used to spell out gairaigo foreign loan words.
"But it's not perfect gairaigo," she said. on top of that, sometimes they're Japanese words [written in katakana] to make things stand out."
When Wong encounters an unfamiliar katakana word, she tries to figure out from which language the word comes, as the various languages she speaks include Spanish and Dutch.
Sometimes it turns out the word is Japanese.
"It just wants to stick out, though I've been struggling for the last two or three minutes trying to figure out what foreign word it might be," she said.
As it is difficult for many non-Japanese to memorize kanji, they are apt to give up studying it. Wong encourages them to study kanji as it makes it much easier to understand Japanese.
"If you look at kanji as a regular challenge [rather than something impossible], then you can. I would encourage foreign students of Japanese to look at kanji as being their friend versus an enemy," she said.
===
Kyushu sightseeing exam
This is Wong's second assignment in Japan. After she worked at the U.S. Consulate General in Osaka-Kobe from 1996 until 1999, she served as country desk officer for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, and was the economic/commercial officer at the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo before she became the principal officer at the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka in September 2004.
As Wong likes to travel for pleasure as well as business, she has seen a lot of Kyushu. She did the same thing while stationed in Osaka.
"Generally speaking, wherever I was assigned in an overseas country, I try to do as much traveling in that country as I can instead of going back to the U.S. for all of my vacations," she said. "Because that way I really have the ability to get to know the area more and it also helps when I'm meeting local people."
In March, she even took on the challenge of the Kyushu sightseeing master exam, sponsored by the Fukuoka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a certificate exam for people who want to specialize in Kyushu in their jobs in travel-related industries. She passed the third level exam and failed the second level by a few points.
She said when she heard about the exam in January, she thought it would be easy because of her own frequent travels in Kyushu, but it was much more difficult than she had expected.
"When I first heard of the exam, I thought this will be one way to determine how well I have come to know Kyushu," she said.
She said that only 25 to 30 of the exam's 100 questions were directly related to tourism, such as "What places is Nagasaki known for?"
"There were a lot of other things with regard to the marketing of tourism," she said.
Wong meets many senior political and business leaders through her job. She knows these local authorities are trying to promote tourism in Kyushu. "I did if for myself, for the challenge, but if it has a benefit of helping them with their efforts I'm really happy, too," she said.
Wong said her favorite prefecture in Kyushu was Oita for its natural scenery and its historical aspects, and her favorite city was Nagasaki.
Of course she did not forget to mention the shrine town of Dazaifu as her favorite spot in Fukuoka Prefecture.
Although she stressed that her priority in her job was to encourage people to be receptive of U.S. policies and appreciate U.S. culture and society, she also does what she can to promote the area where she is assigned.
Finishing a three-year assignment in Fukuoka, Wong is scheduled to return to the United States in July. She will be a student at the National War College in Washington, part of her training for more senior responsibility in the future.
As a diplomat and also as a person, she believes the best way to learn about the culture in a foreign country is to learn the language and use it in the country.
"The relationships you have with people become stronger as well," she said.
(Jun. 28, 2007)
Yoko Mizui Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
For Joyce Wong, principal officer and consul of the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka, listening comprehension practice was the most difficult part of her studies at a Japanese-language school run by the U.S. State Department in Yokohama.
U.S. diplomats who need Japanese language proficiency to carry out their professional duties are usually required to study Japanese full-time for two years to reach professional fluency--the first year at a State Department school in Washington and the second year at the school in Yokohama.
As Wong had already studied Japanese for two years at the University of California at Davis and one year at a graduate school of Columbia University, she was permitted to skip the school in Washington. Wong studied Japanese intensively at the school in Yokohama from September 1995 to May 1996.
The Yokohama school's curriculum is tough, as it aims to get the students' Japanese-language proficiency to the level where they will be able to use it for work.
"It's very strict. We study every day for five hours and we have homework," Wong said, taking time out to speak to The Daily Yomiuri during a business trip to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.
According to Wong, the school usually has 14 to 20 students in an entire class, but they study in smaller groups--each Japanese instructor teaches two students.
"The Japanese teachers will not speak English at all. Because when you get to Yokohama, supposedly you're at the level where you don't need English," Wong said.
Students were expected to speak Japanese.
"'If you don't practice, you won't improve'--teachers were very strict in saying that," she said.
"We learned how to speak, how to read and then how to write, especially the kanji. Because [writing is] one way that people can memorize the kanji," Wong said. "As a part of our learning how to understand Japanese, we had to listen to NHK news broadcasts. Those were very hard."
She said she could catch only the subject and verb of each sentence in the NHK announcers' newscasts at the beginning of her studies in Yokohama. Gradually, she was able to understand more of each sentence, such as adjectives, adverbs and predicate clauses. She thought listening practice using NHK news was appropriate as "NHK broadcast are very precise and deal with the topics that are similar to issues we'll be working on," Wong said.
In studying Japanese, Wong has an advantage in learning kanji, as her grandparents were originally from China.
"My father was born in China and my mother is also of Chinese origin but born in Mozambique. So I don't have a fear of kanji, unlike many people," she said.
Wong herself was born and raised in San Francisco, but her parents sent her to a Chinese-language school after regular school when she was a child.
"But the kanji that I learned was nowhere near the level of the kanji that I learned from Japanese," she said. "Because the kanji I learned as a child was just at the grade school, junior high school level."
But even so, she acknowledged that she faced no mental barrier in studying kanji.
Wong can get an immediate sense of a newspaper article without looking at everything in it by just picking up kanji as she scans the article.
"Whereas if it's all in hiragana, then I have to actually read through the whole thing to be able to figure out what it might be talking about," she said.
Katakana is sometimes even harder because it is often used to spell out gairaigo foreign loan words.
"But it's not perfect gairaigo," she said. on top of that, sometimes they're Japanese words [written in katakana] to make things stand out."
When Wong encounters an unfamiliar katakana word, she tries to figure out from which language the word comes, as the various languages she speaks include Spanish and Dutch.
Sometimes it turns out the word is Japanese.
"It just wants to stick out, though I've been struggling for the last two or three minutes trying to figure out what foreign word it might be," she said.
As it is difficult for many non-Japanese to memorize kanji, they are apt to give up studying it. Wong encourages them to study kanji as it makes it much easier to understand Japanese.
"If you look at kanji as a regular challenge [rather than something impossible], then you can. I would encourage foreign students of Japanese to look at kanji as being their friend versus an enemy," she said.
===
Kyushu sightseeing exam
This is Wong's second assignment in Japan. After she worked at the U.S. Consulate General in Osaka-Kobe from 1996 until 1999, she served as country desk officer for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, and was the economic/commercial officer at the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo before she became the principal officer at the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka in September 2004.
As Wong likes to travel for pleasure as well as business, she has seen a lot of Kyushu. She did the same thing while stationed in Osaka.
"Generally speaking, wherever I was assigned in an overseas country, I try to do as much traveling in that country as I can instead of going back to the U.S. for all of my vacations," she said. "Because that way I really have the ability to get to know the area more and it also helps when I'm meeting local people."
In March, she even took on the challenge of the Kyushu sightseeing master exam, sponsored by the Fukuoka Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a certificate exam for people who want to specialize in Kyushu in their jobs in travel-related industries. She passed the third level exam and failed the second level by a few points.
She said when she heard about the exam in January, she thought it would be easy because of her own frequent travels in Kyushu, but it was much more difficult than she had expected.
"When I first heard of the exam, I thought this will be one way to determine how well I have come to know Kyushu," she said.
She said that only 25 to 30 of the exam's 100 questions were directly related to tourism, such as "What places is Nagasaki known for?"
"There were a lot of other things with regard to the marketing of tourism," she said.
Wong meets many senior political and business leaders through her job. She knows these local authorities are trying to promote tourism in Kyushu. "I did if for myself, for the challenge, but if it has a benefit of helping them with their efforts I'm really happy, too," she said.
Wong said her favorite prefecture in Kyushu was Oita for its natural scenery and its historical aspects, and her favorite city was Nagasaki.
Of course she did not forget to mention the shrine town of Dazaifu as her favorite spot in Fukuoka Prefecture.
Although she stressed that her priority in her job was to encourage people to be receptive of U.S. policies and appreciate U.S. culture and society, she also does what she can to promote the area where she is assigned.
Finishing a three-year assignment in Fukuoka, Wong is scheduled to return to the United States in July. She will be a student at the National War College in Washington, part of her training for more senior responsibility in the future.
As a diplomat and also as a person, she believes the best way to learn about the culture in a foreign country is to learn the language and use it in the country.
"The relationships you have with people become stronger as well," she said.
(Jun. 28, 2007)