The Days of a Man 



Misfits in along this line. At the Aoyama School a distinguished 

 interpret- American professor of Psychology began: "I am to 

 speak to you about truth. Truth may be either ob- 

 jective or subjective the truth as it is outside us 

 or the truth as it appears to us from within." These 

 remarks were rendered as follows: "I am delighted 

 to see you looking so bright and fresh this morning." 

 An American Sunday School worker once gave an 

 address on "the pronoun I," his first sentence being, 

 "I is the shortest word in the language; it has but 

 one letter, and yet how great its significance!" This 

 simple statement staggered the interpreter, for "I" 

 in Japanese is zvatakushi, certainly not very short; 

 the Japanese language, moreover, has no letters at all, 

 but uses the Chinese ideographs, a system derived 

 from the simplification of condensed and convention- 

 alized pictures. 



"Chosen is the hermit country of Asia," began a 

 lecturer in Korea; "Korea stands alone by herself," 

 said the translator. But the experience of speaking 

 through an interpreter is perhaps wholesome, as it 

 leads one to use the simplest language, to avoid 

 rhetorical flourishes, and to make no play upon words. 

 At the Unitarian Mission in Tokyo I ventured to 

 quote from Emerson, but my interpreter, Professor 

 Gunzo from Keio, warned me against the use of 

 Quick to jewels of speech of that type. Real humor, on the 

 catch a contrary, is much appreciated, for the Japanese 

 people are extremely quick to catch a joke, and their 

 sense of humorous incongruity runs parallel with 

 our own. 



In my experience I had but two misadventures, 

 both of slight importance, and both at Kobe. In the 

 one case the interpreter asked me to go through the 



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