Wednesday
By Wednesday, I was feeling pretty discouraged. I'm not quite sure why – I think the increasing awareness of my inability to communicate, especially in talking, as well as the knowledge that even the more basic level class I was in was not "easy." There's also something oppressive about the difficulty of the learning of this language, because it just takes so much time. It's not a quick fix, it's not a short burst of hard work, but a long haul of diligent work over several years to achieve anything resembling fluency, and I've only taken the first few steps. I suppose the things in life most worth doing require this kind of effort, and it definitely applies to whatever I'll want to go into with music and theater.
Each day, we've been going through about 2 chapters of the textbook in review, which means our quiz each day features several grammar points and about 30-40 new Kanji characters. Lots to remember. Even though there's lots of material, class itself goes somewhat slowly, somehow. I'm not sure what it is, I think I'm just used to the Yale style, which was pretty much consistently engaging and always moving. (Plug for the Yale Japanese program – excellent professors and methodology, I definitely took it for granted!).
For lunch, a group of us decided to go to the nearby sushi place, Kaitenzushi. It's a chain of restaurants that have the conveyor belt of sushi that goes around, and you pick out what you want. The color of the plate indicates the price. While I was there, I sample the Hakodate melon, which is so very juicy and sweet, and also infamously expensive (they go for $20-$30 a melon… !)
Now, I decided to join under the impression that this sushi was somehow affordable. This was a very, very false impression. Someone got their information wrong. I ended up spending about $26 just to not be hungry, and though it was very, very delicious, my wallet was definitely hurting. Then, of course, I reminded myself that I'm being funded for this whole trip and I don't really have much room to complain – and hey, maybe I could consider this a cultural outing. At any rate, it will be back to the $5 lunch meals for the next several days...
Well, anyhoo, after lunch we stopped to dip our feet in the public footpath right outside the restaurant. (Please don't ask me why the water is that color… I'm just assuming it's minerals or something.) While there, a few local high schoolers started up a conversation with us, and it was so great to talk with them, even despite my broken speaking ability. It's these kind of interactions – and great people - that make this whole thing worthwhile, I think. I'm a grammar nerd, and I think the kanji are beautiful and cryptic, but when it's said and done I love the door this language study opens up for me to an entire society of people that would otherwise be forever at a distance from me.
I could only chat for a few minutes before heading back to the school building, which I so regret. But I had signed up for another Oral Proficiency Interview with a professor, this time 30 minutes long. It's optional, to gauge our ability, and then I'll do it again at the end of the program to gauge my improvement. It went fine – I was ranked as Intermediate-Mid (not bad, I suppose) – but each time we would get into a topic, conversation would hit a clear standstill when my vocabulary just ran out. I can't really speak about anything in much depth at this point. For instance, when asked about what was going on in the news, I mentioned Iraq; she asked what about Iraq, and about all I could say was "There are bad people… who are doing bad things…. because society."Profound, no? Nuance is something I am not yet capable of. I will get there gradually, I suppose. Man, it is so hard. In English, I so appreciate the ability to manipulate the language, to get inside it and crawl around and explore its crevices, to recognize the subtle changes that come from choosing specific words and their ordering (Thank you, Andrew Ehrgood and English 120). Maybe one day I'll get there.
Still feeling pretty discouraged, I decided to walk home for a breath of fresh air, and to get a sense of all of the city I was passing by each day in the tram. It's a long walk! I walked for about an hour and a half, then hopped on the train for the last few stops. I passed some pretty, and interesting, sights on the way.
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| Yep, KFC |
Thursday
Thursday was a better day. After class, I got a peanut butter donut from a nearby bakery (maybe that's all it takes to make the day good? hmm…). Then, our activity for the day was a forum discussion at a local high school English class. We walked up to Nishi high school, perched at the top of the hill, removed our shoes at the door, and got to talk in small groups about our dreams and what it means to live in a global society (pretty ambitious topic, eh?). The English teacher, whose English was slightly choppy but understandable, said it was his dream to raise up students who could speak English out in the world. He's doing a pretty good job.
On the way back home, Nick and I and another friend were talking in English, and it was actually really great. Nick (my house-mate here) and I had previously decided we'd do all our communicating in Japanese, but it's difficult, and prevented us from getting to know each other too well. It also just got me frustrated when my Japanese was clearly less experienced, etc. But this gave us a chance to break some of the ice, and once we got a home, a delicious meal awaited. Okonomiyaki, pancake-like things with vegetables inside and topped with bacon-like meat. She made tons, and I could only eat two and a half (along with the squid sashimi, salad, and soba noodles on the side).
Afterwards, she pulled out a home-made fruit liquor she had made years before, from plums, Japanese sake, and sugar. We sampled a bit – it was very, very sweet (delicious).
Friday
Finally, Friday arrived! It felt like at least two weeks had gone by, due to the density of classes each day. During class, I gave a presentation on my hometown (we each have to over the course of the next few days), and talked about Forest Park, the Muny, and the Arch. For lunch, I had a delicious curry-rice from the HIF kitchen, but it didn't fill me so I went and got a thing of noodles from the convenience/grocery store nearby. The food there is very cheap – I'll probably be eating there more often.
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| (There was also an ice cream bar, not pictured) :) |
After lunch, we had a mandatory lecture by a professor of Japanese from England. The talk was moderately interesting, he talked about his background, stumbling upon the Japanese language, and (briefly) on some approaches to the language classroom. Afterward, I participated in a research study one of the professors was running, then I headed back home and got myself an end-of-the-week congratulatory snack. (I haven't had chocolate for a while!)
Later on, after dinner, Okaasan showed us how to make the plum-drink she had showed us the night before. She doesn't really drink them, but likes to make them, she said. Then, to cap off the evening, we went to another local onsen, and there I was able to relax a bit, before snoozing right when we got home.
All in all, a tiring first week. Lots of different emotions, changing with each day. We'll see what the coming weeks bring. It is my continued goal to maintain this as something that is spiritually and emotionally rewarding as well as intellectually – to get my head out of the textbook and keep learning from real life and people here.
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