I started teaching at Fujiawa High School again on Tuesday and I noticed that my third year class was missing some students. I asked their teacher what was up with that. He told me that one of the girls had “retired” from school. At first I was taken aback. I asked him if it wasn’t a little early in her life to retire from anything, let alone school. He said it meant that she had quit the school. I suppose we would say “drop out” in English. I seem to remember a teacher “retiring” from school a few years back at well. She was only a year older than me and I thought it as very odd for her to be retiring so young. Teaching is not the cash cow in Japan that people think it is. One certainly cannot retire early on that income alone.
I think the problem originates from the Japanese word 辞める(yameru) This word means that ones retire from work. I think they must get it mixed up with 止める(yameru) which means “to resign or stop.” What this now means is that in Japan the English word “retire” has now taken on the connotation of resigning or dropping out. When in most English speaking countries, it would indicate that you have reached the age where you can no longer legally work(or are getting close to it and receive an early retirement package.) This always leads me to think that the person in question has aged 30 years in a matter of days. And therefore, I always get these strange images in my head. Ah, language is a bitch sometimes, isn’t?
Update: It appears I need to correct my previous statement. When people leave a position like school or work they always say 辞める。So, 学校を辞める would mean you’ve dropped out of school. However, this should mean to quit or to leave and not to retire. The best Japanese word for “retire” would be 退職(taishoku). Therefore when you are 65 you retire. When you quit or leave a position you 辞職(jishoku) or 辞める. So I hope that clears thing up a bit. I’d like to thank Shiho and a random person from the Internet for providing that information. 止める really had nothing to do with quitting a job or school.
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