The rain was coming down hard on Monday, hitting the windows of the classroom and creating a waterfall down to the sidewalk.  I was sitting at a long table, watching my teacher write hiragana (Japanese characters) on the chalk board. Since it was my first class at this Japanese language school, I wasn’t sure what to expect and felt both excited and a little nervous.

When we started going over basic vocabulary words, I had the oddest sensation of slipping back in time. Ana, my sensei (teacher), said a word and then I would repeat it. Tenki (weather), Samui (cold), Atsui (hot), Kumori (cloudy). She commented that my pronunciation was good which didn’t surprise me because these were basic words I recognized a little. When she said the word rain (ame), I repeated it to her, ame. “Ame, Ame.”

All of a sudden, a song from my long ago childhood in Japan was unlocked in my brain and I blurted out, “Ame, ame, fure, fure, kaasanga…” I was so shocked! Where did that come from? How did I know those lyrics? We both started laughing and she said, “That’s a Japanese kid’s song!”

The lyrics had been buried in my brain for 54 years, suddenly unlocked by a combination of the rain outside and the reiteration of the word Ame (Rain), the first two words of the song. Luckily for me I was the only student in class that day so blurting out random song lyrics was not too disturbing.

When I got home, I Googled the lyrics and had such a sweet memory of walking home from school with my mom in Kanazawa, Japan. (Rain, rain, fall fall, Mom will meet me with an umbrella, it will be fun.)

With our Japan Retreat coming up in April 2024, I wanted to practice some basic Japanese conversation but didn’t know how I could accomplish that here. With so few Japanese people in this part of Spain, I never expected to find a Japanese language school nearby.

When a friend of mine referred me to a baking goods store, I coincidentally landed in the neighborhood where the school is located. That was my lucky day! Not only did I find a variety of cute cupcake papers, I found an in-person Beginner Japanese class.

According to Ana, the current fascination with Anime and Manga has created a surprisingly strong demand for Japanese language classes, especially for the under-thirty crowd. Ana, who is Spanish, lived and worked in Japan for ten years and is thrilled to share her passion for Japanese language, history and culture. I have very little experience with anime and manga but am grateful that these Japanese comics have created a heightened interest in Beginner Japanese classes.

I also realized during my first class that if I had not reached my current level of fluency in Spanish, I would have struggled to learn Japanese here.  Ana is laying the foundation for learning Japanese by explaining things in Spanish. My brain will get quite the work out with this class!

My homework includes learning to write hiragana, just like I did in elementary school so many decades ago. Imagine trying to learn how to write the alphabet again at age 64. I have to admit, my handwriting is worse now than it was the first time around.

The following day, when I showed up for my Advanced Spanish class at Versa, the Spanish Language School I attend, the receptionist handed me a form she needed me to sign. For a moment I stared at it and could not make out the words in Spanish. I worried for a moment that my Japanese studies were already affecting my Spanish. Then I blinked a couple of times and realized with a laugh that the form was written in English! My brain was trying to read it in Spanish.

If I start speaking jibberish to you, don’t panic! I may just be trying to sort the many different words floating around in my head. Turning my salad bowl of words in Jap-span-glish into coherent sentences will take some time! Similar to learning a new physical practice like yoga, learning a new language takes patience, persistence and a good sense of humor. I keep reminding myself, if I allow myself to make mistakes, I will learn faster.

Learning Spanish while using a non-native language like English as the base is nothing new to my friends from Finland, Belgium, China and Slovakia who I’ve met in Spanish classes. Now I have an even greater apprecation for what they go through learning Spanish which is often their third or fourth language.

I’m also in awe of our brain’s capacity to store information we learned as children or young adults. This situation reminded me of a time when my mom was living in a memory care facility in her final year with Alzheimer’s. She had become increasingly non-verbal and rarely engaged with anyone without lots of coaxing.

When I stopped in for a visit one day, she blurted out “Bikkuri Shita.”  Her caregiver looked up at me and explained that Mom had been speaking jibberish lately. “Actually,” I said, “she’s speaking Japanese!” Mom had blurted out a phrase that I actually remembered as well: “Bikkuri Shita!” (meaning “I  was surprised”). My mom had not spoken Japanese for decades but somehow my walking into the room had unearthed a long ago memory.

My brother tried for years to find the right music to unlock Mom’s Alzheimer’s scrambled brain. He’d read the studies that said playing music from her era would help her reconnect but she didn’t seem to respond to popular tunes from any decade of her life. Not The Doors, Barbara Streisand, The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof or even the Beatles, all music we thought she had enjoyed.

During her first Christmas at Olympic Alzheimer’s Residence though, she surprised us by singing all the words to Silent Night during a group caroling session. Turned out that Christmas carols and Sunday School songs like “Jesus Loves Me” were the keys for unlocking her brain, at least temporarily.

Returning to Japan for the first time after 54 years will reveal more buried memories, I’m sure. Maybe eating all my favorite Japanese kid’s snacks will also work. Don’t be surprised if I start singing random children’s songs as we stroll through a park. For now, I’ll continue laying the foundation for some easy Japanese conversation, one word, one phrase at a time, grateful that it’s never too late to learn something new or re-learn something I knew long ago.

At some point if I end up losing access to my memories, as my mom did, don’t bother with Christmas Carols or Sunday School songs. Instead, try singing “Ame, Ame, Fure, Fure” or another song “Donguri Korokoro Donburiko” about a little acorn guy who rolls into a pond and is met by some carp who want to play. For some reason, that one has never left me and starts playing in my head every time I see an acorn on the ground wearing its little hat.

As funny as it sounds, Japanese kid’s songs might just be the key to unlocking my memories in the future. What do you think are the keys that would work for you? Maybe we should store these keys in a memory protection program like we do with all of our constantly forgotten passwords!

Notes from the author:

Thanks to my mom, I understand more about what our brains retain even when our memories fade.  Read my blog, “what remains is what we loved.”

Curious about how our brains are wired? I’ve been reading Whole Brain Living by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. You may remember she was the neuroscientist who suffered a stroke at age 37. Because of her training as a brain scientist, she was able to observe the process of losing her own abilities and cognition. It took her brain 8 years to come back “online” as she describes it. She has a very interesting Ted Talk and her first book called My Stroke of Insight based on her experieince which I highlty recommend, as well. Read more about Dr. jill Bolte Taylor

Curious about our Japan Retreat? This one is full already but if we love it, hopefully there will be another one! Read more