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Skeena Voices | A simple message

Briana Greer is the only non-native writer to have her poem published in a Japanese poetry book
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Terrace-raised Briana Greer is a third-year Global and International Studies student at the University of British Columbia in Prince George who was selected as one of 145 authors to have their poem published in a Japanese poetry book. (Contributed Photo)

Growing up in Terrace, Briana Greer was curious of the world that buzzed beyond its mountains.

Joining the local scouts group was her ticket out which introduced her to different places and other people. Through those international experiences, she decided to study Global and International Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) and learn Japanese — leading her to become the only non-native speaking author to have her poem published in a poetry book overseas.

“[It’s difficult to] just be able to artistically write something and not necessarily make it into a sentence but have to express that thought and do it in a smooth form,” Greer says. “This was my fifth Japanese class that I was taking too.”

Greer says she started studying Japanese three years ago and found it fairly easy to pick up. As part of a class assignment, her Japanese teacher, Ami Hagiwara, who is originally from Japan, encouraged students to partake in the “Shortest Letter of Japan” contest back in her home country. Run by the Maruoka City Culture Foundations, entrants had to write a letter or poem on the theme of seasons in just 40 Japanese characters.

“This is a contest that mainly native Japanese speakers would enter, but [my instructor] likes to encourage her students to do such competitions to push themselves,” says Greer. “So our whole class did that.”

Not expecting to be selected, Greer still tried her best at the challenge and wrote a poem about lying next to a fire on a cold winter’s day while wishing her sweetheart was near.

Out of more than 32,000 entries submitted, her poem was selected as one of 145 winners to be published in the book The Shortest Letter of Japan: Season.

She was surprised to find out she was the only non-Japanese person to be chosen for the publication but is happy that her writing was acknowledged to be at a level that beat out other native contestants.

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Greer says learning Japanese is different than other languages as it takes rewiring the mind when trying to grasp the syllables and characters that can appear abstract at first. Believed to be one of the hardest languages to study in the world, she was able to reach a point where she now feels comfortable writing.

“It’s very difficult to learn because it has a different structure for almost everything and it mixes u your brain, so you have to totally turn off English,” Greer explains.

Alongside having her poem selected for print, Greer also received an invitation to attend an award ceremony in Maruoka-Cho, Japan in April that will celebrate all the winners.

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But this won’t be the first visit to Japan for Greer.

In 2015, she attended a youth peace camp in Japan of approximately 30,000 people ages 14 to 17 from around the world. She made friends with many attendees from overseas and found things in common with which to bond.

Following the event, her scouts’ program then arranged for her a homestay experience with a family in Japan where she had to learn how to communicate with them using basic phrases.

“I saw a different perspective of life too because when I stayed with my family, they didn’t bring me to the tourist attractions but brought us to places that they would want to go to like local malls, shrines, and other such things rather than a big touristy, congested area,” she recalls. “It was interesting to see how normal it was and how similar we are.”

Since that experience, Greer knew she wanted to form a career path that would bring her around the world which led her to study at UNBC. She actively keeps an open mind when it comes to meeting new faces from faraway places and with graduation around the corner, she hopes to find a way to bring people of all backgrounds closer together.

“It’s all been very eye-opening,” she says. “It made me realize that we’re all global citizens and that we should always do what we can to help each other out.”


 


natalia@terracestandard.com

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