For the past two months, I have been taking a tai chi class. Forty years ago, Koncho (an honorary title for my teacher and “head of school”) moved to the United States from Japan. Although he speaks English much better than he thinks, he will sometimes explain a tai chi movement in Japanese. Because there is always at least one student in the class who is fluent in Japanese, Koncho’s instruction is immediately translated into English. As I speak some Japanese (due to spending the first ten years of my life as an ex-pat in Japan), I have been delighted to discover that I understand half of what Koncho says…