spring2006

Love... Is there a more common theme on earth? It's hard to watch a movie that doesn't involve some scene about love.

I recently watched a documentary that described love as a chemical reaction. I have my own theories about love.

Love is thought of in different ways. It can be passion for the opposite sex (or, in some cases, same sex); it can be deep appreciation for parents or ancestors; it can be complete devotion to a child.

There's a famous song by Queen that goes, "I just gotta get out of this prison cell, one day I'm gonna be free, lord--" before repeating many times, "Find me somebody to love, Find me somebody to love, Find me somebody to love..." The singer/writer is apparently very lonely. The question I want to ask, and attempt to answer, is, "Does love need an object (a target)?"

Most examples of love are like deals, or contracts. Take romantic love. Of course we want to be kind, and take care of, and make love with our partners, but we expect the same treatment and love in return. If we feel the other is not returning our love, or not taking care of us, or worse--loving someone else!--then we withdraw our love. While that's reasonable, it seems to indicate that this love, romantic love, is more like a contract. We'll give--as long as we receive.

So, what I want to say is, I believe true love doesn't need an object. This kind of love just is, and spreads out like sunshine. Everyone can receive it. This love loves "your" baby as much as "my" baby; this love equally shines on people who physically appeal to us and people who don't; this love touches annoying people as much as kind people. The bible says, "Love your enemies." That's certainly difficult, or even unnatural, but in my view that's the deepest, truest love: a love that asks nothing and gives everything.

I'm trying to teach Vince as much English as possible even though he's surrounded by Japanese. When he was one year old he surprised his mother and father (me) with how much English he was using: "A,B,'C'", "all done," "apple" (even when his mother says "ringo tabetai hito?" etc. Whenever he sees a dog he refers to it in kiddie Japanese: "wan wan." However, I'm trying to give him the English onomatopoeia (this means words that imitate sounds), "woof woof." I've told students in the past that the English is much closer to the actual sound a dog makes--but they disagreed! What do you think? Make a "woof woof" sound, then a "wan wan" sound and judge which is closer. Rika agreed that the English is closer (but it could just be our perception!). Her theory is that with Japanese the words are intended more as easy words for kids to say rather than exact imitations. Japanese certainly has a lot of these: "man man" meaning "eat," "boo" meaning "vehicle" (or "fart!") etc. There are a few in English, most notably "pee" or "pee-pee" for "shikko suru" (or just "shikko") and "poop" for "unchi." Anyway, we started comparing different animal onomatopoeia:

(Eng - Japanese - animal)
woof - wan - dog
meow - neow - cat
caw - ka - crow
moo - mo - cow
oink - ? - pig (bu-bu)
chirp or tweet- chu or chun? - bird
growl - ? - tiger
cluck - ? - chicken (kokeko)
ribbet - ? - frog (gero gero)
who - ? - owl (ho ho) (thanks to Wildriver-c for teaching me the 4 in parenthesis!)

I can't remember many of the Japanese! Actually, the only one that the English seems closer to the actual is "woof." Well, perhaps the crow is a little closer in English too. The others seems equal. What do you think?