The Revival of My Ambitious Resolution

Years ago, I decided to keep a diary in three languages, taking turns: Korean, English, and Japanese. It was around this time - February (still in the beginning of the year). Of course, it didn't work. I was too lazy to write diaries in general, let alone the foreign languages.

But this year, exempt from the school and stress, I finally dug out my moleskin journal (which contains one entry from last January) and wrote. And I wrote in three languages separately and simultaneously, depending on the mood shift and subject matter.

I like to reason in English, probably because I learned academic writing and rhetoric in this States. Simultaneously, I feel less hesitant to write complements and gratitude and affections in English - over expressing gratitude is the American virtue, no? I cannot translate those tickly expressions - 'you're the best!' or 'that's so kind of you' or 'I love you!' alike - to other languages. I would be embarrassed to say so in Korean or Japanese; simple 'Thank you' would suffice.

On the other hand, I get sentimental when I write in Japanese. Or I write in Japanese when I'm sentimental. Or both. Either way, I dive deep into what's inside me, and describe them in a teenage girlish way (I admit that I've read too many Japanese comic books mainly targeted to girls). There's a happy dose of softness and femininity in my Japanese writing.

Korean, being my mother tongue, gives me the greatest freedom of all three. I am best read in Korean - I've read two-three hundred times more books in Korean than that in English and Japanese combined. Having a full command of dialects, idioms, jargons and grammar is a joy. My language lets me write in various styles, voices, and medium in the midst of nostalgia.

Although I rambled good three paragraphs on the distinction among three languages to me, I recently started to hop from one to the other in mid-paragraphs, sometimes in mid-sentences. Unlike my initial resolution, the act of keeping journals became an impulsive one; and that's the fuel that keeps me going.