Tag Questions

　　　　　　　　

By William M Balsamo　　　　

Kumiko was an average person in every way. She was average built, average height, average weight and earned an average income. She lived in a middle-class neighborhood and had friends whose political views were centric and rather mainstream. In short, she was locked into a pattern of mediocrity from which there was little escape.

But, whatever Kumiko did she tried to do well. She was not the adventurous type. (Average people never are). Yet, she approached everything with such a serious mind that people often mistook here for someone of far greater intelligence than she was, but because she was so average she never noticed it.

I first met Kumiko when she was a college student. I was much impressed with her enthusiasm and willingness to succeed in all she did. She took on extra work, handed in extra assignments and tried to recall where others had failed. . She was never late for class and arrived before all the other students. ant teacher would have loved to have had a classroom filled with Kumikos, if only for the enthusiasm she exuded with an impromptu sure of true love for whatever she did.

It is hard to say from what source or fountain came such energy. It could not have been from her parents who wanted to tie her up in　a kimono and burden her with an obi. They were traditionalists, who believed that Japanese culture must be preserved at all costs,

At an early age they sent her to special schools to learn how to play the koto and practice shodo and play the samisen.

She was their only daughter, (although they had two older sons) and they had made a pledge in the early years of their marriage that, if ever they should have a daughter, she would be raised to love all the traditional culture of Japan. One cannot say that she didn't try, for she did her best to be an obedient and ideal child. But she acted out of obedience rather than love.

Instead of the koto she wanted to play the guitar, and instead of calligraphy she preferred scribbling images of Disney characters in a notebook and when it came to the haiku she preferred the meter of of a Shakespearean sonnet.

Indeed, she was hopeless. In blood she was Japanese but in heart she was all things Western.

She brought all of this baggage to her first English lesson. She came into class with a broad smile and a joy rarely seen on the faces of other students. Where most others saw the class as an obligation, Kumiko saw it as the high point of the day. Here was her chance to speak English and to enter a world of magic an mystery born of her dreams.

"Good morning, Mr. Jim!" she cried in a voice much large than needed considering the distance between us.

"Good morning, Kumiko."

"You can call me Kumi-chan" and with that the familiarity of our friendship began. What soon followed were meetings at Mr. Donuts.

"I just love the songs they play here. I feel like I am living in Boston" She said this in a half-swoon with her eyes moving towards the roof of her head as though she were in ecstasy.

"What kind of donuts would you like?" I asked.

"I'll take oldoh fashion,” she said with a smile.

For all the love she had for the English language she found it cute to add extra vowels on the final consonants. She knew it was wrong and she knew how to correct the error but at times she thought it was cute to give the words the Japanese accent as a charming way to make her seem pure and innocent.

After she finished studying the course with me we continued to see each other on a regular basis. At first it was once a week and our tastes in coffee matured from Mr. Donuts to Starbucks. We sat for hours over refills and her English gradually improved. She dropped the annoying habit of the affected vowels after final consonants and hot coffee became just that without the hot"oh" that used to be so much of her speech pattern.

She attended night conversation classes and made it a habit to practice grammatical points she had learned by deliberately including them into conversation whether or not there was really a need for their usage in whatever conversation she was having at the moment. It was an annoying habit.

On a cold rainy day in late November she had just learned the expression” Which do you prefer ? A or B"? After the class she was determined to put it into practice and I met her at Starbucks and she asked me. "Which do you prefer, coffee or Tea?" I thought for a while and then said," I think I'll have chocolate?"

she waited a while and then asked, "Which do you prefer, Starbucks or Mister Donuts.?"

I thought a bit longer and said I preferred Doturs. She looked puzzled but not defeated. The she asked once again, "Which do you prefer, summer or spring?

I acknowledged my love for autumn with its changing foliage and cool nights.

Finally I was getting annoyed because conversations were turning into interrogations and I felt more like being the subject of an interview than a companion or friend, and her prodding for my preferences began to unnerve me.

"Kumiko,"I finally asserted, “Let’s talk about something else."

"Fine. " she agreed. Which do you prefer to talk about politics or sports?"

It was useless. She never could grasp the point being so wrapped up in her own language studies she was not aware that people had other interests.

She attended the language school faithfully but I did not notice much improvement in her fluency. I did notice a change in our relationship and I felt that her acquisition of English was more important to her than her actually interest in people. I had gradually become a sounding board for her latest acquisition of a grammatical structure and conversation became monologs and encounters became free lessons. While others had to pay to attend for conversation classes, Kumiko now had her own free lesson of 'free-talking' built into her social schedule. For her the situation was ideal.

Topics for discussion never went beyond the banal and weather and food, movies and little known facts about celebs and stars.

It was around this time that Kuimiko discovered tag questions. She obviously had had an inspired lesson and when she met me afterwards she was eager to put the tags into practice.

As soon as we met at our appointed place she exclaimed, "It's a bit chilly today, isn't it?

We went to Starbucks which had become our favorite rendezvous and venue. The staff there was very young and their service was crisp. Our frequent visits merited VIP service. The staff all knew us and presumed we were an item even though we were really just more than friends,

"The coffee here is wonderful, isn't it?" she commented.

I never really liked the taste of Starbuck's and felt that she preferred the ambiance over the flavor. We had our favorite table near the window where we could people-watch the pedestrians walking along the sidewalk whenever there was a lull in our conversation.

On this one day, Kumiko looked out the window. The day was grey and misty and people were carrying closed umbrellas as if anticipating rain.

"It looks like it's going to rain today, doesn't it?"

"Kumiko," I asked, "Why can't you just say, 'I think it is going to rain? Can’t you?"

She put a pout on as to suggest I was being critical of her English and looked up at the ceiling as if to imply I was being testy.

"Jim." she said with assertion,” Tag questions are good for conversation. They invite the other person to respond. It's something like tennis or ping pong. The problem is that are not a good player when it comes to conversation."

This sudden outburst issued in a new phase of our relationship. Se was developing a sense of superiority having found security in her ability to speak English. For the past year I had given her ample opportunity to practice.

All the hours spent in coffee shops, restaurants and desolate Sunday afternoons gave her the perfect tennis court upon which to practice her strokes. In the name of love and friendship I never charged her for the hours spent but began to realize I had been used for her satisfaction.

Suddenly, I was told by this pampered nymph that I was not a good player at conversation.

This coffee has little taste, " I replied with noticeable annoyance. "I'll pay the check. Let's go."

From then on our relationship was on a downward spiral like a passenger plane caught in turbulence. We continued to meet more out of habit than convenience and a wanting to see one another. I may have been the poor conversationalist, but her end of the tennis court was filled with life's banalities. I had long suspected that most people are poor at conversation because they had nothing to say. Their tag questions were invitations to enter the swing of verbal trivia. I mean, who really cares if tomorrow's a holiday or the cherry blossoms will come out early this year. I could have learned as much from reading the newspaper.

I found myself withholding conversation. Why should I feed words into this eigo-kaiwa machine? Why should I play tennis with someone who was obviously using me for a free English lesson? No, I decided that I would not play tennis...I would play golf. I'd take my hot iron and slam my balls far into the forest near the green and have her go look for them.

"You're late today, aren't you?" she asked when I showed up thirty minutes late past the appointed hour. Her tag questions and my lateness were both deliberate. She received untold pleasure in her tag questions because she knew that they annoyed me and what sort of relationship could ever be built upon mutual annoyance.

Like conditioned robotic dogs we went to Starbucks...again. We no longer had to place an order. We sat down at our usual table near the window and the staff brought us our usual order which hadn't changed since our first visit.

Kumiko took out a pack of cigarettes and opened them. It was the first time I saw her smoking. Was this something she had learned in Conversation Class or was it food for conversation to play another round of tennis?

Kumiko looked out the window and saw an old woman walking with a French poodle. The woman wore rags but her dog was immaculately dressed in a hand-knitted sweater and matching shoes with earrings dangling from flappy ears and a scarf wrapped around its neck. All that was missing were false eyelashes.

Kumiko smiled and wanted to say, "That dog is so cute, isn't she?" Instead she put out the cigarette she had barely smoked, looked at me and said, "It's all over between us, isn't it?"