Let’s Get Real

I’m back in Japan for what will be a three-and-a-half-month semester.  I’m…excited about the opportunities I have here.  I am also excited about getting back to my life in Georgia.

Yeah: excited about Georgia.  I know.

My time at home was beautiful.  I got to see my friends, family, and girlfriend.  I got to watch a 100,000 channels and understand every word spoken on every station.  I got to eat Italian food and Mexican food.  I got to play video games in that had been queuing for, oh, 6 months.  I got to drive.  Most importantly, I got to have good conversation.

Honestly, I am far too hard-pressed to have a good conversation here in Japan.  I mean, it should not be as hard as it is.  Even though there are smart people and kind people here, in both English and Japanese, the conversation is unsatisfying.  Some contributing factors to this lack of satisfaction are: I play word games in English because it’s fun for me to almost randomly manipulate the less-important words of a sentence and see what happens (it’s funny to me 99% of the time).  Here, I get made fun of for putting “dotcom” at the end of sentences, or the listener is just too surprised to chuckle and move on.  Also, the only people here who talk about video games and anime are assholes, and I can’t be wasting my time with gangs of assholes.

Finally, I have trouble really enjoying conversation with anyone here because people at home know me and, just like players on all-star football teams play better at home, and jazz players sound better when playing with close comrades, I give and receive so much better at home.  Sucks for the in-Japan Chris I guess, ay.

However, I’m not down about spending more time in Japan.  Honestly, I needed to go home when I did.  Reports from someone here show that I was visibly sad all the time before March happened.  And coming back with fresh breath in my lungs helped.  Getting off the plane and onto the shuttle, and onto my home carrying too much luggage–I wasn’t drunk with excitement.  This is good.  My head is on my shoulders, not the nimbus 2000s.  Landing here a few days ago and walking through downtown Kobe was like visiting relatives: it’s not like you’ve ever lived there, but you know the place damn well.

These feelings and this awareness have made me want more out of Japan.  See, when I went home I was asked a surprising amount of questions to which I really didn’t know the answer.  How?  They were general questions that one might learn about a culture by living in it.  Well, it’s simply that I settled into my life as a student–my regular restaurants, my regular travel sites, my regular clothing stores, my regular train stops–and had little interest in anything beyond getting food and, and practicing Japanese a little.  That was all.

But having a clear head (I’m telling you, I feel so different) has got me thinking that I need to do things during my time in Japan that I can only do in Japan, right?  I feel like I should watch more TV here and try out more restaurants and travel to more places and make more friends and buy more clothes and so on.  Right?

Anyways, that’s what I’m gonna try to do–with an exception.

You see, long before arriving here in September, I knew that just being here would shove fluency into my brainzzz.  That isn’t true.  I’ve excelled in ways I never would have in Georgia, but I won’t ever improve my language skills without lots of work.  That’s what I realized after being here a while.  And after that, I realized that…well, I may not ever become totally fluent in Japanese.  I’m okay with that, but it almost entirely changes the reason I’m here.

I plan to befriend Japanese exchange students at UGA next year to keep my skills up.  Then, when I end up in Douglasville after that (or wherever in Georgia), I’ll be forced to hang around the Japanese restaurants like a skeevy dork to grasp any opportunities to practice Japanese.  Even though I used to be excited about getting a job helping Japanese tourists in Atlanta or something, I realized that with my 100% English/30% Japanese skills, there are plenty of perfectly bilingual Japanese/English speakers available leaving my choice of jobs to those where I can speak Amurican.

So I have had to think about what I’ll use my skills for.  Honestly.  And what I come up with has nothing to do with speaking or writing–rather, it’s entirely passive Japanese usage.

I believe I will use my powers to read Japanese texts, watch Japanese TV, and play Japanese games.  That’s all.  I would love to use the language for more than that, but it doesn’t seem reasonable unless I leave my normal American life for something totally consumed by Japanese.  And I’m not prepared to do that.

So to these terms I arrive!  And I will pursue Japan in unique ways, taking what only it has to offer, no longer with the idea that I’m failing at Japan when I don’t learn the language.

One more thing: I feel like almost everyone here is very excited about learning the language and honestly everyone is progressing at an impressive rate.  It’s exciting to penetrate a culture through its language.  But I’d like you to guess how many people will remember the Japanese they learn during this year after another year has passed; and after 3 years; 5 years.  Once again I think realism is hardly indistinguishable from cynicism, but this way of thinking has cleared my head.  So BAM!