Being an illiterate adult

May be this topic is more related to the previous topic. However, I want to talk about how I felt when I had to deal with papers and documents in kanji. In fact, it was very surprising for me that a country like Japan, the second largest economy in the world, is built or designed only for Japanese. I thought, in the globalization era, all developed countries have own way of welcoming foreingers. But I was wrong, especially in Tokyo, you will see not a single title in english on the streets. Japanese people also do not speak english that much.

I my case, my school language is english, so at school I can communicate. But in the society, in malls, supermarkets, ward office, bars, restorans, and on the streets you have to know japanese, and you have to deal with kanji.

First time, when I went to a clinic, to have an eye drop from a doctor, the clinic requires me to fill out certain form of first visitors. I could not do nothing with it, because it was all in kanji. I asked them, if there is an english version of the form. But they said they do not have it and they are sorry for that. However, a very nice young lady, a nurse, came to me to read the form, and she filled the form for me.

If you go to any type of mall, supermarket, drug story, you feel like you are a blind guy. When I did shopping, it was so difficult because the products are so much differentiated, choices were abundunt and all explanations are in kanji. My first choice in supermarket was sugar, but I wanted to buy salt. I needed dressings for salad, but there were many types of it depending on which kind of vegetable are you going to have. Again, that was embarassing.

When I receive my first bill for gas, electricity, telephone etc, the kanji appears again. I could not distinguish which bill was for which one. Even, you know Japan use different calendar. For instance, this year is Heisei 21 year according to Japanese calendar. In that case, it is even very difficult to recognize the date of the bill.

Last funny thing I remember that is when my son enter a elementary school, on the ceremony day the school manager asked me to submit some documents which should be sent from a ward office. I did not have that document probably I just throw it to trash.

I truly felt how hard to be an illiterate person. For those who can not read and write, whole society becomes very closed, mysterious, and risky to deal. The most important thing that I recognize about illiteracy is that I lost my preferences about the society. I can not infer about the society. In other words, it seems illiterate guy easily get lost in "common sense".