Why Japan? (and why this blog?)

"JAPAN?!?"

This was the reaction of one of my parents when I first mentioned I was interested in going to Japan to study abroad, around last spring break. Since then, as this whim of mine has morphed into reality, several people have asked me, "Why Japan?" 

It does seem random, I suppose. My major and career interests are in music and theater, and this endeavor has admittedly little to do with them. The program isn't filling any distribution requirements or giving me any credits I need toward my degree. And Japanese isn't one of the languages deemed "practical" to study as Chinese certainly seems to be.

Nevertheless, here I am, and all I can say is that it has come to make sense to me. The puzzle pieces have all just kind of fit together. I've been interested in learning Japanese for several years, to add another language under my belt. I even tried to teach myself on various occasions... but never got much further than a few letters of the alphabet. Then, my interest in Japanese history and culture was stirred in high school world history, and again in a fascinating course I took at Yale (History 303: Japan's Modern Revolution). Inspired by my friend Dom, and encouraged by my academic advisor to follow this developing interest, I decided this past year to go for it and take intro Japanese – even as a washed-up junior already struggling to balance his many priorities. Soon, it became part of the routine, and I found that my Japanese work was really intellectually stimulating because it was so new and required me to activate new ways of thinking and learning.

Fast forward to June, and here I am about to spend two months studying Japanese in Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan. I'll be staying in a fishing town at the south of this island called Hakodate (population ~250,000). It's a bit more remote/rural than mega-metropolitan Tokyo, but it should give me a chance to really get to know the atmosphere I'm in, without being too overwhelmed (since the language barrier will already be strong enough!). The program I'm with (through the Hokkaido International Foundation) is eight weeks long, and is equivalent as a year worth of class (i.e. lots of work). But it's gotten terrific reviews from all past students I've talked with (shout out to Denzil Bernard, whose blog of his experience I've been reading to gear up for my own), especially concerning the home-stay program. I'll be staying with a part-time nurse in her mid-sixties… I'll make sure to update you when I meet her.

image credit: http://www.japan-guide.com

…and did I mention that this is all paid for? Thanks to the unbelievable generosity of the Richard Light Fellowship at Yale, I and several other East Asian language students each year get to embrace this kind of linguistic and cultural exploration, without the guilt of incurring any more debt for it. (This is another reason this whole plan seemed to make sense). (I am very grateful).

Anyway, I won't pretend to have any profound answer for why I'm here, or precisely what I plan to get out of it. What I know is that I will grow as a result of this experience, and hopefully this blog will help capture some of that growth. Of course I have some goals – work hard to expand my language abilities, meet people and learn about the culture firsthand, put myself outside of my comfort zone – but I also feel like I don't want to put a limit on what my experience will be. In the meantime, I'm embracing the randomness of it – and I do believe, amidst that façade of randomness, that I've been put here for a reason, even if just to add to my ever-developing sense of who I am and what this world is.

So… enjoy! And thanks for following along. (Let's see if I can actually keep up with writing regularly. Feel free to nag me if I don't.)

がんばりましょう！