From a certain point there is no turning back. That is the point that must be reached. -- Franz Kafka

It was no coincidence that the first book my father gave me when I arrived in Japan was The Outsider, by Colin Wilson. Most of the Westerners in Japan at that time were, like myself, what this new-existentialist writer called 'Outsiders,' people who feel alienated from those around them. Or, as they are called in their home countries: misfits. Like the wallflower at a party, the Outsider exists at the edges of society; he is an observer rather than a participant in life. Rejecting the well-worn path, he lives according to his own rules, forever out of sync with his environment. Fittingly, it is in countries like Japan, where he has nothing in common with those around him, that the Outsider feels most at home. After all, alienation is most keenly felt when you are around your own kind.        

Spend any time at all travelling through Asia and you will find Outsiders in all their permutations. He is the Aussie guy running that bar in a small village in northern Thailand, local wife at his side. He is the surfer who has married and settled down in Vietnam, not far from a perfect right point. He is the intellectual living in an old farmhouse in the mountains north of Kyoto with wife and kids, raising organic vegetables and translating classical poetry. He is what many men would be if they had the courage to be themselves. And they are in Asia because the Asian countries (and the Asian women) so warmly welcome this human jetsam of Western society.        

Ironically, it is precisely because Outsiders are alienated from their home culture that they take so readily to their adopted country. Because in order to learn any language well--and this is particularly true of Japanese--one must to no small degree become like the people who speak it. There are no psychological shortcuts you can take. No way in which you can retain your identity and still become fluent. For it is not just words that you are learning, you are also learning how to think and behave like the Japanese. And once you have made that leap of consciousness, once you have discarded your preconceived notions of 'the way things are,' there is no going back. The bridges are burned. Your national identity, like a wind-worn flag, is in tatters. Yet, you can never be fully a part of your adopted country, either. You will forever exist in a twilight zone between cultures, neither fish nor fowl. If you are happy where you are, if you have a loving family and many friends, best to forget about learning Japanese. Safer by far to live in a Walter-Mitty land of idle daydreams that you know will never become reality. That is as it should be, because there is a very high price to be paid for 'going native.' That price is your national identity.        

But, let's say all this scare-talk doesn't frighten you. "If he did it, so can I," you say. And you're right, you can. In fact, there are as many different ways to learn the language as there are people who have done so. This was my way: When I stopped racing in the early seventies, there didn't seem to be much point in continuing to work as a motorcycle mechanic, either. For six solid years I had done nothing but work on bikes and race them. I was burned out, and I had the distinct feeling that it was time to learn something. But what? Having always admired people who spoke other languages, I enrolled in the local junior college and began studying German, then spent the following summer in southern Germany working in a bicycle factory (as a mechanic, of course).        

A year later I accepted my father's standing invitation to visit with him in Japan. Waiting for my luggage to appear at Haneda airport I overheard two people behind me jabbering away in Japanese. Glancing casually in their direction I was flabbergasted to see that one of them was a blue-eyed blond-haired American woman. My chin just about hit the floor. Then and there I made up mind that, come hell or high water, I was going to learn that language.        

Upon returning from that first trip, I started attending night classes at UCLA, and it was at UCLA that I stumbled upon a wonderful way to pay for my education. College students ride motorcycles. When the bikes break down, or the students move on to the bigger and better things in their lives, the bikes go--and they go cheaply. "Cash for non-running motorcycles," my ads in the school paper read.        

Most of the bikes needed little more than a major tune-up and some TLC. When parts were needed, I scrounged them at motorcycle salvage yards, this included even small items such as clutch levers, spark plugs, cables, and light bulbs. After all, every dollar you over-spend on parts comes right out of your profit. After riding the bike for a week or two to make sure that all was in order (free transportation was another benefit) a wad of cash would change hands and the original paperwork would simply be passed on to the new owner.        

A profit of $500.00 per bike was not uncommon--a tidy sum in the seventies for one or two days of "work." This when most students were grateful to earn a few bucks an hour at a service job.        

Money aside, there is something remarkably satisfying about transforming an otherwise useless motorcycle into a well-running machine that, with care, will reward its owner with many years of faithful service--a tangible reward for honest work.        

Before long, I too moved on to "bigger and better things." But even today I look back with fondness on those blissful hours spent replacing burnt-out rectifiers on Honda CL350s, clearing pilot jets on RD350s and straightening bent fork tubes. To paraphrase: The gods do not deduct from a man's allotted time on earth the hours he spends polishing aluminum with Semichrome. Those motorcycles paid for my BA in Japanese.

Back in Japan, I took a job at a translating company where I was tasked with rewriting the English written by Japanese translators. Before long, I was translating short technical articles about home appliances, cars and all the other products of Japan's booming export economy. Returning home after what was essentially eight hours of mind-breaking study, I would spend the evenings reading the Japanese newspaper. After two years of this lifestyle I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but I had a good working knowledge of the language.        

Today, when people ask me how long it takes to learn Japanese, my standard reply is: "I don't know, I've only been studying the language for twenty-five years."

There is a lot of truth in this facetious reply, because the study of any language is the study of a lifetime.