Big Update #2

Today marks one month of being in Japan. It has been the fastest month of my entire life! I’ve realized that through this month I’ve been waiting for something, waiting to settle in, for “normal life” to start, when really, I was living my life. This is my life. This is real. I love it here.

Most of my posts, including this one, are going to jump around a bit because there is so much to say, so forgive the sporadic subjects of my paragraphs.

Our classes are very different from American classes. Except for Japanese (more on that in a bit), we have each class only once a week, so we don’t have very much actual class time, but it makes keeping track of homework and projects tricky. Our classes are Japanese, Japan and the International Community, Japanese Business, Japanese Literature and Performing Arts, Social Development in Japan, Shinto and Buddhism, Life in Japan, and Dave’s Study Abroad Seminar. The professors mostly just lecture—which is difficult to deal with at times. Additionally, while they have good English, the cadence of their voices is different and less engaging. (But don’t worry, Mom and Dad, I’m being a good student!)

Right now I’m working on a project for my International Community class. We have to pick any sort of topic we’ve discussed and do a short presentation and a 2-3 page essay on it. I chose to research the 17 Japanese citizens who were abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 80s. It interests me, which makes writing about it much more enjoyable.

As far as Japanese class goes, it’s both a good and bad thing that we have it every day (except Mondays—no class at all on Mondays). The grammar is very challenging, and I realized one day that, unlike Spanish (the only other language I’ve learned some of), Japanese is not a romance language. Its origins are completely different from English, so you can’t easily say “this word here means this.” But learning it has been very rewarding. Here are some phrases I know!

Kinoo, nani o tabemashita ka? What did you eat yesterday?

America no Minnesota kara kimashita. I am from Minnesota, in America.

Tanjobi wa? Jyuuichigatsu tsuitachi desu. When is your birthday? My birthday is November 1.

Sushi o tabe ni ikimasenka? Why don’t we go out for sushi?

Yoku koohi e nomimasuka? Do you drink coffee often?

Shyumi wa nan desuka? Hon o yomu koto desu. What are your hobbies? Reading.

And the most important phrase, said with a contrite expression: Sumimasen, wakarimasen. I'm sorry, I don't/can't understand. (This has yet to fail me, as long as you don't consider being laughed at a little a failure.)

But wait—it’s not enough to know the romaji (writing Japanese with the English alphabet). You have to write all that in hiragana (the “alphabet” of Japanese characters, each representing a syllable):

But wait—you can’t write foreign words that have been adopted into Japanese (like my name) with the hiragana “alphabet.” You have to use the katakana alphabet:

BUT WAIT—you can’t always use hiragana. Sometimes you need kanji, the complicated-looking characters borrowed from Chinese:

I don’t think we learn kanji, though. There are thousands of kanji and even native Japanese speakers struggle with kanji. Young people especially are not as apt at reading/writing kanji because of computers and cell phones. They can type the hiragana characters and the device will provide the kanji. (Doesn’t that social issue sound familiar?)

Today we went to a Buddhist temple for our Shinto/Buddhism class. The head priest lived in the U.S. for several years, so he was able to speak to us in English about Buddhism. He then performed a short prayer ritual. I thought it was a perfect snapshot of Japanese life—because as he was chanting and ringing a bell, jackhammers and power drills could also be heard from construction across the street. Once in a while you’d hear a siren, too. The juxtaposition of old and new, futuristic and traditional is what sparked my interest in Japan in the first place. On the subway, an elderly woman in a kimono can be sitting next to a fashionably dressed girl typing on her cell phone. There is never a shortage of things to see. Also, at least in our neighborhood, there are lots of trees and plants/gardens, which makes me very happy!

A few weekends ago we went on an organized trip to Karuizawa, which is about four hours outside of Tokyo.

View Larger Map

We stayed in a “seminar house” owned by our university. A bunch of Japanese students came with us, too. It was great to hang out with them, relax, and have free meals! The drive up was beautiful, and I couldn’t believe we drove for almost an hour without getting out of Tokyo itself! It’s so hard to comprehend how big this place is! Plus, even though the air is Tokyo is just fine, I loved the fresh mountain air! We drove through beautiful green mountains, and all of us were ooh-ing and ahh-ing and hopping from window to window to get pictures. It was foggy on the drive up…

 

…but clear on the way back! I've never seen landscapes anything like this before.

We also went to a volcanic park while we were there, which made me miss Hawaii.

And we also went to an ancient castle/park, a little zoo, and some neat waterfalls.

I was totally in love with this wall.

View from a lookout in the park.

Cheesin'.

I’ve experienced two earthquakes so far! The first was during Japanese class and wasn’t very strong. I’m sure the teacher thought we all looked pretty funny, staring up at her, speechless, like “Should we do something?” It only lasted 5-10 seconds, but it was unlike anything I’d felt before. The whole room was shaking. The earth itself was shaking. You take a solid earth for granted! The second earthquake woke me up around 2:30 a.m. Some people slept through it. It was quite frightening to wake up to. For one, it was stronger than the first one and lasted longer. The things on my bedside table and the lights were rattling and my bed was shaking. It took a few terrified seconds of “What? What? What’s happening?” before I realized what was going on.

Our “Life in Japan” class is taught by a woman named Sandra, who was born in America and married a Japanese man. She now lives here and teaches at Bunkyo. She is very loud and bubbly (very “un-Japanese,” you could say). For the final essay in her class, I have to write about whether or not I could live in Japan for the rest of my life. When she told us this prompt, it really intrigued me, and I think about it often. So far my answer is no, because of the food prices, missing my family and friends, city life, small houses, and the language. But I will definitely miss the subway, the food itself, and the general cultural atmosphere (the architecture, the people, the stores)…

Some other quick places I’ve gone:

• A cat café, where you pay ~$12 to play with cats for an hour!
• The Tokyo National Museum, to see tons of art.
• A sushi-go-round restaurant (kaitenzushi) where little plates of sushi go around on a conveyer belt and you grab the plates you want (usually 2 pieces on each plate). Each plate is only 100 yen! I go there a lot.
• 100 yen stores—just like dollar stores in America! They are great for buying things like hangers, Tupperware, storage containers…
• Shinjuku, Roppongi, and Harajuku, the busy/shopping districts that have the classic “Tokyo look,” with skyscrapers and huge, busy intersections.
• A preschool, where we play with the kids and feel awkward when we can’t talk to them. I make sandcastles with them.

In short, I’m having a blast. Don’t worry about me!