Yolande Villemaire

Reading a new blogpost from an enthusiastic teacher of Hebrew in Australia who connects her kids with the world on Skype: http://whatedsaid.wordpress.com/  I’m reminded of the Japanese pen-pal with whom I exchanged long letters when I was 13 years old. We were both learning English in school, but writing letters to an actual teenager on the other side of the world was such a thrill, we both improved our language skills! 

In the span of 5 years, once every 3 weeks or so, he would be teaching me such things as all there was to know about the cherry blossoms festival, sending me beautiful postcards, writing on delicate rice paper I could’nt find in Montreal. For his sake, I gathered as much information as I could about such things as the Native Indian tradition of cutting a slash into a maple tree to collect the sap to be boiled into a syrup and sent him pictures of my cat. Then, when I got 18, and he 19, he changed schools and started writing letters in exquisite French. I was  delighted at first, then my interest kind of waned: something was lost in translation. Reverting to my mother tongue, I didn’t feel as free-spirited.

When I got my first Internet home connection back in 1998, I wanted to connect with the world and didn’t know how. So I looked up his unusual japanese name and found out he was teaching architecture in Tokyo, after studies at the Fine Arts in Paris. I was still too awkward on Internet to try to get in touch and I forgot him for another 12 years. 

Then, this morning, after watching a bit of the video exchange between an Indian student and a class of Australian kids, I decided to google him again. This time, I found out much more. He is now teaching architecture in Paris and he too wrote books. Maybe this time, I will try to reconnect: I’m wondering what common interests we still have, besides cherry blossoms and maple syrup. But hey, I talk daily on Twitter with people I never shared more than 140 characters at a time!

I owe this lost friend from Japan to a sensible native language teacher who suggested we took pen-pals in the sixties—a time where French-Canadians were not yet called Quebecers and were slowly making their Quiet Revolution and opening themselves to the world after what we called «the great darkness», a time of resistance and making lots of babies to maintain our language and religion. I remember exchanging a few letters with youngsters from France, Germany and Switzerland as well. But with this cool boy from Tokyo, it just clicked.