Communication in Color

Posted on June 9, 2007

I feel like I'm trapped inside a video game, early 90's Excite Bike style, but I'm in a car. The car is a K-car, which is more like a box on wheels (hence early 90's). Because I can't read anything written on the buildings, all my navigational skills are based on shapes and colors. I turn left after a happy looking tomato, right after the yellow box, and so on and so on.

But besides getting around town, I've also found that recognizing shape and color is a great way to form meaningful relationships. I first started thinking this during the hanabi (fireworks festival) last weekend. I was sitting on the English-speaking tarp, watching the crazy amount of fireworks the city had cooked up, and realized that it was great for everyone to be able to appreciate the exact same thing at the exact same time. With the language barriers here things are often delayed or lost, but shapes and colors are safe and instantaneous.

Yes, I am a very deep person, with very deep thoughts. But I wouldn't be going on about the shape/color thing if it hadn't come in handy again. I was driving through the rice paddies, getting to my apartment, and there were a bunch of people hanging out in the road shooting off fireworks. After parking my box, I went over to meet them. None of them really spoke English. After our initial greetings and introductions, things could have gotten really awkward, but hey, there were fireworks. We stood around ooing and ahhing. They even broke out some sparklers, which apparently you're not supposed to wave around here like you do in the U.S. That was a major error on my part, but they were forgiving. "Campbell-senseiJapanese title used for teachers, doctors, lawyers and other high level professionals as well as those who have achieved mastery of a particular field. , no shake, no shake Campbell-sensei.” It was cool because I actually got to meet some of my neighbors without having to really talk to them. Plus now I've got a plan for anytime things get confusing; I can just carry around bottle rockets, or sparklers. When everybody starts to get frustrated about a communication breakdown I'll just light one. I'm thinking this could work in the U.S., too. Looking back, there's more than one time I would rather have lighted something on fire than continued a conversation. Ah, hindsight.