Ogulnick, Karen. (1998). Onna Rashiku (Like A Woman): The Diary of a Language Learner in Japan. Reviewed by Ryuko Kubota, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Ogulnick, Karen. (1998). Onna Rashiku (Like A Woman): The Diary of a Language Learner in Japan. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. 154 pp. $13 (Paper)   ISBN: 0791438945 Reviewed by Ryuko Kubota The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill February 21, 2005 Second language acquisition is intertwined with issues of culture, race, and gender. Recent scholarship in applied linguistics has critically analyzed these issues in relation to colonial politics that have shaped and perpetuated an East/West dichotomy and the superiority of the West over the Other (e.g., Canagarajah, 1999; Kubota, 1999; Pennycook, 1998). Cultural essentialism and the Othering of ESL learners have been unraveled through postmodern and postcolonial critiques. Viewed from this perspective, Karen Ogulnick’s book, Onna Rashiku (Like a Woman): The Diary of a Language Learner in Japan reveals such a complicity in SLA research with colonial biases. Onna Rashiku, written by a Jewish American woman, presents an analysis of her own diary on her process of learning Japanese as L2. The author, a 32-year-old single woman, lived in Japan in 1993 as an English teacher at a Japanese campus of an American college. The book begins with a description of the author as a young independent woman who was raised in New York City and has traveled alone around the world. The author also expresses her resentment against the violence of her father. The main part of the book describes and analyzes her experience of learning Japanese through interacting with several Japanese people (none is a teacher): Keio, “a rigid, formal Japanese businessman” whom she interacted with as a language partner; Akemi, a cheerful female college student with a previous experience studying in the U.S., whom the author hired as a tutor for less than $5 per hour; Satoko, a friend and a student of the author’s age; Mr. and Mrs. Hirokawa, benefactors of the college; Mayumi, a married woman with an interest in Western cultures; Shuma, a wife of a Buddhist priest in her 30s; and Noriko, a wife of an American man also in her 30s. What first strikes me about Onna Rashiku is the number of inaccuracies in factual information and examples in Japanese. For instance, the book presents the Tokugawa (Edo) Period as dating from 1600 to 1912 (p. 123) (the ending date should be 1868); a well-known woman writer, Fumiko Hayashi is referred to as Fumiko Kobayashi (p. 98); burakumin are presented as “native Japanese who are believed to be ‘dirty’ and ‘crazy’ due to intermarriage genes” (p. 12) (they existed as outcastes during the medieval and feudal periods and engaged in such occupations as handling the dead) ; and one chapter recounts the story of a female sumo wrestler banned from national competitions (p. 117) when, in fact, there are no professional female sumo wrestlers and no such incident ever occurred. Moreover, approximately one third of romanized Japanese words, phrases, and sentences contain some errors. These errors may appear frivolous, due to carelessness. Or they may manifest the author’s resistance to the linguistic norm, or her authentic voice as an interlanguage speaker. However, it seems to me that the errors symbolize a different type of resistance that goes beyond mere carelessness. In relation to the deeper issues I raise below, they display a a resistance to the perceived exotic of the Other, which, in turn, legitimates the racial privilege and superiority of the Self and draws a rigid boundary between Us and Them by emphasizing the exoticism of the Other. Such a peculiar kind of resistance parallels the Anglicist/Orientalist positions that complement each other (i.e., debasement and idealization of the Other) in colonial discourses (Pennycook, 1998). Locating this text in colonialist discourses enables us to understand many of its specific perspectives and paradoxes. Under colonialism, Orientalism and Anglicism are two sides of the same coin. The underlying goal is to bring progress to the colonized under a civilizing mission based on liberal humanism and universalism (Pennycook, 1998). Indeed, “colonized people were seen as lacking history, culture, religion and intelligence and thus it became clear that it was a European duty to fill this void” (Pennycook, 1998, p. 56). The mission for filling the void in Onna Rashiku is to bring light into the dark oppression that Japanese women experience, with the assumption that “we are all sisters in struggle” (Mohanty, 1988, p. 65). This mission may also be labeled as a kind of “redemption discourse” that posits the ideal of “racially unequal subjects merging or becoming one, communicating lovingly in spite (or because) of the great chasms of inequality” (Roman, 1997, p. 273). Onna Rashiku indeed states, “The two societies [i.e., the U.S. and Japan] and languages may have been different, but the message that I received...was basically the same: that women’s bodies, language, and thoughts are controlled by men” (p. 33). The redemption discourse is manifested in the author’s feelings of frustration with traditional Japanese customs and pity toward the values imposed on Japanese women. To cite one instance, the author argues that Japanese women’s habit of sitting on their knees can “cause permanent physical defects” (p. 114). For another, she asks Shuma why she did not join her husband on his trip, assuming that Shuma’s decision not to go could only mean subordination to the traditional role of a submissive wife. The Japanese language is also viewed as an obstacle for liberating Japanese women. The author recalls her experience of gaining weight because she did not know when or how to say “yes” and “no” to her Japanese hosts/hostesses. She claims that Japanese women are expected to be compliant so as not to offend others, and that in Japanese, “in which ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are often ambiguous, this cultural conditioning might pose as great a threat to women as it does in languages, such as English where ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are taken more literally” (p. 81). These views expressed in Onna Rashiku take us back to the early 20th century, when American missionaries visiting Japan attempted to save Japanese women who were seen as “oppressed by a male-dominated, chauvinistic feudal tradition, and needed to be liberated by progressive Western, Christian ethics” (Kuzume, 1991, p. 22). Although such discourse is well-intended, the act of promoting sameness and Western civilization as the universal destination renders white privilege and superiority invisible and thus further justified. A lack of awareness of privilege is evident in the author’s experience of learning Japanese. There is a parallel between the perceptions of the author and those of expatriates in postcolonial India who regard themselves as not privileged but vulnerable; that is, when they get sick, they are quick to blame their cooks, but when their guests enjoyed the food, they give credit to themselves as a good host (Kidder, 1997). In Onna Rashiku, when the privilege or power of the Self is threatened by the Other, the Self tends to blame the Other or its exotic customs. For instance, the author’s frustrated learning experience with Keio owes entirely to his rigidity and his didactic teaching style that relied on memorization and repetition. Also, when the author did not feel comfortable speaking in Japanese, it was either because she felt uncomfortable sitting on her knees, because she was in a very formal kaiseki restaurant where people were dressed up in traditional clothes, or because she had to use a polite register, “overcompensating for stereotypes that Japanese have of Americans as informal and rude” (p. 99). Also, as mentioned, the author explains that she gained weight because of the social expectation for women and the ambiguity of Japanese language. This tendency to blame the Other while dismissing racial privileges of the Self also appears in the following incident described in her diary. One day, when the author, Noriko, and Shuma had a conversation at Shuma’s temple, the author felt she was left out of their conversation. On the way back from the temple, Noriko shared with the author her troubling experience during her study at a community college in Oregon—she sometimes felt ignored by her classmates and mistreated by her professors. Rather than acknowledging the potential discrimination that Noriko experienced in the U.S., the author commented that she too sometimes felt ignored by Japanese people. The author reflects on this diary entry and speculates that Noriko had faced much more discrimination in Japan than in the U.S. because of her marriage to an American man, and Japanese aversion to Noriko’s not behaving ‘like a Japanese woman.’ Here, an American white woman’s feeling of being victimized (being ignored by the Other) overwrites unequal relations of race, ending up transferring the resentment expressed toward Americans to the exotic Other. Here, again, discursive constructs of universalism, Anglicism, and Orientalism merge together—in claiming that “we are all sisters of struggle,” the author sympathizes with Noriko who has been enlightened by American culture but is now a victim of the exotic attitudes of the Other. Turning to Orientalism, Onna Rashiku reinforces an exoticism and essentialism of the Other and further draws a rigid boundary between Us and Them. For example, the exoticism of Japanese language and culture is overemphasized by the frequent reference to social protocols (e.g., shitsurei shimasu, irasshai, etc.). Japanese formality versus American casualness are also exaggerated and polarized, when the author claims that neither a Japanese host or guest is expected to feel at home because Japanese language does not have the equivalent to the expression, “feeling at home” (whereas there is one). Orientalism, in conjunction with universalism and Anglicism, prompts the author’s resistance to the exotic, as seen in her discomfort towards learning kanji and belittling the language, culture, and history of the Other. In the final section that offers pedagogical implications, Onna Rashikuprovides overgeneralized recommendations for teaching ESL in formal classroom settings, based entirely on one American woman’s experience of learning Japanese informally from Japanese acquaintances and friends. Though such pedagogical reflections based on personal experience are commendable, in this book many of the suggestions lack foundation and serve only to perpetuate stereotypes. A prime example is her recommendation that teachers and students share personal experiences and learn where there is a resistance. The author states, “a person from a culture that emphasizes group harmony and interdependent communication practices who appears inarticulate or silent in a classroom may in fact be resisting an individualistic, competitive, and/or defensive way of speaking” (p. 143). This suggestion, which is not grounded in the findings of this study, merely feeds into the stereotypical dichotomy of individualism/competitiveness versus collectivism/harmony. Onna Rashiku employs a unique approach known as diary study, an acclaimed method for academic inquiry into second language acquisition. The book demonstrates a detailed documentation and an intriguing analysis of the author’s experiences from a feminist perspective. Unfortunately, this text perpetuates fixed images of the Self and Other, confirming that discourses of colonialism are still alive and well. Second language teachers and researchers need to read this text critically and decolonize the knowledge behind it. Becoming aware that a white woman’s experience of living and learning Japanese in Japan is not exactly the same as Japanese woman’s experience of living and learning English in the U.S. would be the first step for decolonization. Critically examining the pervasiveness of cultural essentialism and dichotomies would be another step. Onna Rashiku can indeed be used as a tool to interrogate many colonial assumptions prevalent in applied linguistics. In fact, the book would have worked better if it had been presented as such a self-reflexive interrogation of one’s attitudes and feelings in learning another language. Note This review is reprinted from the Journal of Language, Identity, and Education with kind permission of the Editors, Thomas Ricento and Terrence G. Wiley, and the review author, Ryuko Kubato. References Canagarajah, A. S. (1999). Resisting linguistic imperialism in English teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kidder, L. H. (1997). Colonial Remnants: Assumptions of privilege. In M. Fine, L. Weis, L. C. Powell & M. Wong (Eds.), Off white: Readings on race, power, and society (pp. 158-166). New York/London: Routledge. Kubota, R. (1999). Japanese culture constructed by discourses: Implications for applied linguistic research and ELT. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 9-35. Kuzume, Y. (1991). Images of Japanese women in U.S. writing and scholarly works, 1860-1990. U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, 8, 6-50. Mohanty, C. (1988). Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourse. Feminist Review, 30, 61-88. Pennycook, A. (1998). English and the Discourses of Colonialism. New York/London: Routledge, 1998. Roman, L. G. (1997). Denying (white) racial privilege: Redemption discourses and the uses of fantasy. In M. Fine, L. Weis, L. C. Powell & M. Wong (Eds.), Off white: Readings on race, power, and society (pp. 270-282). New York/London: Routledge. About the Reviewer Ryuko Kubato Associate Professor School of Education Department of Asian Studies The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill