The Call of Money

AS THE 1970's drew to a close, the small Japanese population of Edmonton began to grow a little. Many young families moved there, and it was decided to open a community-run Japanese language school for the children. Classes were held once a week on Friday evenings in a school rented from the public school board. Using textbooks from Japan, we followed the standard Japanese kokugo (Language Arts) curriculum from Grade 1 onwards, reading and learning kanji (Chinese characters). For the school's first year I was its oldest student by several years (a significant difference to a 16-year-old).
For the summer vacation that year, I took a job at Woodward's Food Floor, a supermarket. The hourly wage was high, and I accumulated more money than I ever had. I thought this was a great thing. That fall, I stayed on part-time at Woodward's, working evenings and weekends, and stopped going to Japanese language school. I profited a bit then, but looking back now, I lost something more than money can buy. If you can't speak, read or write the language, can you still be Japanese?

When I was back in Japan this past summer, one of my aunts told me, "Japan has become a country where money is the most important thing. Our culture and our values are being lost." When I heard that, I wondered, "Maybe I am Japanese after all."

(--Tadaaki Hiruki, November 1995)

The Edmonton Japanese Community School is still going strong, and celebrated its 20th anniversary in May 1997. Woodward's went bankrupt shortly after I stopped working there in the mid-1980's.

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