Yuzuru Hanyu is My Emergency Contact

ありがとう、羽生先生！[Thank you, Professor Hanyu!]

I mentioned that I belong to a Japanese Learning Group. I may have omitted one tiny bit of information about this group. It may actually be called…

The Yuzuru Hanyu Japanese Learning Group. 

This group is a subset of the Yuzuru Hanyu International Fan Group on Facebook–and we’ve already talked about how hardcore THEY are. Consider us the overachievers who decided to teach ourselves a new language during the off season instead of making Yuzu video montages to Maroon 5 songs. (WHAT makes you think of ADAM LEVINE when you see Yuzu?) Some dedicated Fanyu Language Teachers/Japanese Speakers took it upon themselves to create this group. Of the 20,000+ members in the Fan Group, only 161 brave (Brave? Delusional? Just saw the name “Yuzuru Hanyu” and clicked “JOIN”?) souls belong to this group. Of the 161, probably about 20 are actually active, so…”Hey gang!  See if you can spot yourself!” When I quoted these stats to Cactus, he breathed, “Woooooooow.  That’s super niche.”  

We do the usual activities you would expect of any language learning group: vocabulary words (about Yuzu), listening comprehension (Yuzu interviews), worksheets (“Label these features of Yuzu’s face!”). Every single assignment or post has a Yuzu picture as the background. Word find? Yuzu. Crossword puzzle? Yuzu. Particles? Yuzu wa. [The particle wa (は) after a word indicates the subject of a sentence.] Textbooks? Yuzu biographies and magazines. Phrases? If used by Yuzu. If I ever go to Japan and someone wants to talk to me about the ４回転アクセル [quad axel] I’m 金 [gold]!

Obviously we know how to say “gold” in Japanese.

Each week we have a homework assignment and each week we receive a reward in the form of a link for a Yuzu video or pictures of Yuzu’s abs. (Yes, some of our members lean “earthy” and yes, they had to look really hard to find those pictures.)  

I’ve thought this (the group, not the abs pictures) is simply the greatest use of the internet since Fuji TV, and it never once struck me as odd (except for maybe the abs pictures) until our assignment this week. It was a video made by one of our dedicated admins. “Write in Japanese the words that appear on the screen.” Ok. I click on the video and beautiful music from one of Yuzu’s most stunning programs starts to play. Well, this is nice. Then, images of Yuzu start to appear. We sure have upgraded our assignments! Then, the words start to appear. They start normal enough. ASIA. SKATER. SKI (ok, that one’s a bit of a stretch). SOCCER (huh?). WHISKEY (really?). By this point, I’ve started to chuckle. GAS (that’s unfortunate). SAUCE (something about this one SENDS me). You might as well have started texting me Google-translated Korean tweets. The music is crescendoing and I. Can. Not. Stop. Laughing. The grand finale? SAUSAGE.  Printed right across his chest. 

Poor Yuzu. First the abs pictures and now this. Not worrying so much about that shot of your exposed shoulder anymore; are you?  

But deep down I think Yuzu would be honored by this group, especially knowing how hard he has worked on his English.

Which reminds me. I get seriously offended when people put up English subtitles when Yuzu is speaking…IN ENGLISH. Come on. His English is not hard to understand. His English is better than that of many native speakers. Have you ever watched the local news? Are they flashing up subtitles for the slack-jawed yokel talking about “shootin’ snakes down at the crick”? I don’t think so. I want to know how much Japanese can be spoken by these people making fun of Yuzu’s English. Can you say everything that Yuzu just said in English in perfect Japanese? In broken Japanese? Can you say the word “Japanese”? I’m happy to flash a subtitle across your chest…right below “SAUSAGE”.

Better yet. Imagine your worst, most frustrating, most exhausting day. Now imagine that at your peak moment of exhaustion and misery, you have a microphone shoved in your face and are asked to analyze for millions of viewers this worst moment of your most exhausting, miserable day…IN JAPANESE. (For anyone reading this who can actually speak Japanese, replace the word “Japanese” with “Russian” and if you can speak Russian, replace it with “Swahili” and if you can speak Japanese, Russian AND Swahili, you need to go work for Cirque du Soleil because clearly that’s what they’re looking for. But that’s another story.) My point is, this is what it is like to be Yuzuru Hanyu at any figure skating competition. So, you skate to the point of asthmatic exhaustion, possibly wiping out and hitting the ice like a rag doll a couple times and then face hundreds of reporters while sweat is pouring off of you (because for pity’s sake no one will give you an ever-loving towel) and say politely with complete composure, “I’m really disappointed with my performance today, particularly the triple salchow and the quad loop, but I’ll work harder to be at my best the day after tomorrow so…I’m so happy” in Japanese. Then you talk to me about Yuzu’s bad English.

I particularly enjoy one bit of backstage footage from Continues with Wings where you see Yuzu saying (in English!) to another figure skater that he’s nervous about his bad English. He even uses the phrase, “It’s unusual for me.”

I’d say I’m roughly 76.5 Pimsleur discs away from knowing how to say “unusual” in Japanese.

The other skater insists, “You can speak two languages.” To which Yuzu responds, “No. I can’t. Only one. You can speak three. English, Russian and Japanese.” And every time I find myself thinking, ‘Yuzu. You are arguing IN ENGLISH about how you can’t speak English.’ I could never debate with someone in Japanese about my bad Japanese. And especially not in Swahili about my bad Swahili.

Well.  That was a bit of a tangent.

But learning Japanese has added to my life in many ways (and not just the subtitle rage way). I’ve made new friends all around the world. (I like to call them the LearnYus). I can occasionally understand something said by Yuzu in Japanese. (One night I was watching a documentary, and he ran up to the camera and said in Japanese, “It’s raining.” I understood it as if he had said it in English. I took a victory lap around my apartment.) It’s given me a newfound appreciation for not only how difficult Japanese is for an English speaker to learn, but also how hard English must be for a Japanese speaker to learn.

Poor Yuzu. I bet capitalization blows your mind.

But the best part? I’m finally starting to understand what Schweethart and Arima are saying about me.

Author’s Note: This post was written in 2018; therefore, the number of members and timelines are not accurate to the current day.