Comprehensible

What an absolute thrill it is to speak to someone in their own language, and actually be understood! Today I spoke some Nihongo to a real Japanese for the first time, and he understood me! Immediately! My mother's good friend from college and her Japanese husband are here on vacation, and when we came to meet them at the Manila Pavilion, I shook his hand and said "Hisashiburi desu". He gave me such a happy smile that I might as well have given an acceptance speech for a Pulitzer.

He said we should come and visit them in Japan soon, and I said 'rainen'. Next year. When his wife Tita Linda mistook me for someone still in college, and Tita Rosie ( another friend of my mother's who also came to meet the couple) blurted out that I was much older than I looked, I said my age in Nihongo - 'sanju-hachi sai desu'. That was when Tito Yoshi spoke a whole sentence to me that I was so happy to quickly comprehend - 'Watashi no musume wa onaji desu' - his daughter is the same age as me. After that he said his son was 34 - also in Japanese, and though I got confused at first and thought he said twenty-four, I gathered my wits quickly enough to correct myself.

In no way was it a stellar display of linguistic ability, but I'm completely ecstatic just to have exchanged a dozen comprehensible foreign words with a real person. In no way did I deliver a UN-worthy performance, but to me it was worth all these months of talking to the plants, Nakatsu the stray cat, the dashboard of my car, and myself in the mirror.

Honto ni ureshii da!!!! I'm really happy.