Fifth Week in Japan

My program isn’t over for another 2 weeks but mentally I feel I am already gone.  From others I here them lament about how short the program is and how they have fallen in love with Japan, but none of those emotions seem to spring out from me.  Many of those same people, even though they feel sad, already have full exchanges to Japan set up for the future or at least plan on coming back, but I feel it will be a long time before I come back.  I don’t feel that deep of a connection to this place.  I didn’t buy that much stuff except two books and I didn’t really make any deep friendships.  It is probably because I checked out, I’m too lazy to making friends and living in the moment.  As a fellow blogger said, “Some students gave me flowers. They’re plastic so I don’t have to water them. It’s a nice gesture, but lately I feel like those plastic flowers, being there and looking the part but not really living.”

The most obvious way I have noticed this trend is when people from UVA ask me, “how is Japan?” and I answer, “Just a normal life.”  Maybe it is my western individualism shining through but I am me and Japan is Japan.  As long as I am me, the location doesn’t really matter so my life is essentially the same.  I often walk out of class slightly shocked to see I’m in Japan. It is like I forget about it since I’m in my own little world all the time. 

Maybe this was caused because I kept being told that Japan will destroy my ego and try to reform me.  Since I kept hearing that, I chose to put myself above Japan.  I feel no need to assimilate or even try to assimilate because I’m here for a short time.  I wonder if I was here longer at what point would I let myself be whittled away by this culture. I have seen many people try to assimilate by acting more polite or even talking completely differently when using Japanese.  I am slightly shocked by it, but I would probably end up doing the same if I was here longer.

It is sort of scary in a sense.  In our western, humanist worldview, the self is king.  You are a being that makes decisions and affects the world around you.  It is hard not to have pride in who you are.  I am noisy and loud in class, blunt with the people around me and crazy with people I don’t know.  It is easy to define yourself by your actions and thoughts.  In Japan however, it is so easy to see these traits muzzled for the sake of getting along with teacher and fellow students.  Is our sense of self so weak that it can so easily bend to social customs? 

Life is always throwing stuff at us and we should always be changing our outlooks and ways of life, but for some reason Japan gives the atmosphere that it needs to be done sooner and without your permission.  I don’t know if I should be happy or not that I wasn’t here long enough to experience it fully.  Knowing this could be a part of my hesitation to fully dive into Japan and be as in love with it as others are.  I don’t know if what they are doing is just giving up themselves or living life to the fullest.  They say in Japan there is the うち or inside and the そと or the outside.  This applies to social groups, work relationships, even societal hierarchies.  Before I even allowed the Japanese to choose where to put me, I declare myself as a 外人 and that I am on the outside and will remain there.  Now I wonder if that was the best decision to make.  

P.S. Nikki always be hating that I don't put pictures so here is one ha!

Fourth Week in Japan

As much as I say I’m a practical person, I still hold a lot of idealistic values.  What sometimes ends up happening is I act one way while thinking another way.  Even when I say I disagree with something, I may end up doing the same thing.  An example is when I once asked my friend why she didn’t want to hang out with certain person.  Her reason was she would only be at college for another 1.5 years so her time was precious.  She would rather deepen the relationships with the friends she has than find more.  Maybe because it is rare for people to ask me to do things with them, but at the time I couldn’t agree with what she said.  However now in Japan where my time is limited, I am noticing that my actions are more aligned to what she said than what I expected.

I’m starting to finally branch out and hang out with some Japanese people, but I only expect to meet them maybe once or twice before I leave.  Sometimes Da Crew (a group of classmates who I hang out a lot with) have plans at similar times and I have to make a decision who to hang out with.  I usually choose Da Crew, which means I choose being with my established friends rather than making new ones.  I guess because I have only 3 more weeks in Japan I can’t expect new friendships to blossom easily so it is better to put my efforts into the friends I have. 

Why I realized this was because of a slightly unrelated thing what happened today.  The Japanese program I’m in is 6 weeks broken up into 3 week groups and some people are only here for the first 3 weeks.  Today was their last day and it suddenly hit me that they were leaving.  Riso san I joked with a lot in class; Eugene was the person who backed up my craziness; Kira Kira san I rarely talked to but she gave good reactions to my crazy actions haha.  I felt bad that I didn’t talk to them as much as I could have and before I knew it, it was time for them to go.

I wanted to at least say something to them before they had to go since I will probably never see them again.  Usually after class people stand around the 1^st floor of our building for a bit before going, but Da Crew members were leaving to go meet up with Carmen and Nikki.  I saw Riso san taking pictures with someone and Kira Kira san talking to a group of people.  As I saw my friends leave the building, I didn’t know what I should do.  Should I wait and talk to these people who are leaving or follow my friends? 

Riso and Kira Kira san seemed so busy I thought it was ok for me to leave but as I was walking out of the building I kept looking back.  Finally when I walked out of the building, I took one last look through the glass doors.  Kira Kira san noticed me looking, gave a smile, and waved farewell.  I didn’t expect someone to actually notice me.  I gave a wave and a half smile, then turned to go run after my friends. 

Probably my first real regret in Japan. 

Third Week in Japan:Goals

In class we were asked what we thought we would receive from our study abroad experience.  Many people automatically started writing stuff like culture, friends, and language, but I couldn’t really consider things I was going to receive.  I had to think why I even came here in the first place. Truly the reason was because a huge amount of my friends were also studying abroad and I had no plans during the summer.  I guess the only goal was to not be bored, but that is a low bar.  I am not bored when reading or watching shows either, but I can’t really go around saying I did that all summer so I came to Japan.  I mean I guess I learned some culture and a few random words, but mostly it has just been me confronting problems I thought I dealt with second year. 

The obvious goal of being in Japan is supposed to be learning Japanese, but I never really took Japanese for the purpose of learning it but more meeting all the people and having the fun classroom environment.  I realize now why the Chinese at UVA bind together and speak Chinese with each other.  For me the goal isn’t to learn Japanese but to talk to people, so if English is the best way to do it I have no qualms using English. 

I have sort of given up on trying to make Japanese friends.  Really the low bar of “not being bored” is that I have peeps to eat with since I hate eating alone, but not really make friends.  It is really possible and I applaud people like John and Carmen who can do it, and maybe I could if I put more effort but with the mindset I have it isn’t going to happen.  I’m probably missing a piece somewhere.  I randomly talk to Japanese people and go to lunch/dinner with them, but that only is the, “having someone to eat with,” not really the friend stuff.  Maybe because I came to Japan not expecting to make friends, I already had a mental block preventing it from happening. 

I wonder if it is a bad thing to assume and expect things so early.  I usually have this problem.  Like when I saw others go to Japan I was lik,e “oh that is something other people do but I’ll never have that chance so I’ll just sit here.”  Then when I get the chance to go to Japan I think “oh well I will just be doing random stuff and really not gain anything from it unlike others who have meaningful experiences.”  At some point what I think ends up being true maybe or maybe not because of my mentality.  Will probably need to do a whole separate post about that later. 

As Yozora said in Haganai, when you hit rock bottom you have nothing to lose. I seem to have that mentality a lot.  I think I have nothing to lose so I act like my crazy self and do things for my own amusement that is probably not beneficial for others nor in the long run for myself.  Though I doubt I will change, it is good for me to tell myself that I am losing opportunities by only doing that.  People find the balance between being crazy and being trusted and normal when necessary.  I’m still going around to extreme.

I guess the think I have learned from Japan is problems I thought were solved were not so I guess it is now time to fix them somehow….How the heck can Hachiman say he has never hated himself when it is so easy (People who understand this I applaud)  

調子が出ない

So there is this series the Queen’s Thief I really like and the main character Gen is king but doesn’t really like being king so he always acts unkingly even though he is competent.  One part in the book, assassins attack him and he kills them, but they leave a gash in him.  He was screaming and complaining as his guards and attendants walked him to his room like he usually does so everybody thought, “oh he is just being normal it probably is just a scratch,” but when the doctor looks at the injury, it was almost fatal.  As the character Costis puts it.

“He [The king Gen] should have said something, why hadn’t he? Costis wondered. In fact, the king had. He had complained at every step all the way across the palace, and they’d ignored it. If he’d been stoic and denied the pain, the entire palace would have been in a panic already, and Eddisian soldiers on the move. He’d meant to deceive them, and he’d succeeded. It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain.”

The king didn’t want to cause a panic so he acted normal so nobody worried. If he acted out of the ordinary then people would note the difference.  It is like having a big sign saying, “I’m not being normal notice me!” If you really want to hide pain you act normal and people can’t tell the difference.

In our culture it is taboo to act anything other than happy with stranger.  Only with friends and family can you act many of the emotions we have.  If somebody broke up with their boyfriend or girlfriend, you don’t go running around in class telling people; you tell your friends and they help you through it.  So the idea that Costis said that how many people really want to hide by unsuccessfully pretending to not be a pain is pretty interesting.

The reason this came up is today in class I was just sitting and thinking and everybody was like “Tomy is quiet” and the teacher asked me if I was ok.  I thought to myself, “If I really wasn’t ok, why would I disturb class by blatantly acting abnormal?  If I wasn’t ok, I would fake being myself and nobody can tell the difference.”  It made me think that people who pretend to not be a pain are probably calling out to people to notice that they are being abnormal, whether consciously or unconsciously.  Not saying it is a bad thing, but if the person’s real goal is to hide their feelings from others, then the best way to do it is to hide in plain sight and act normal, not by being blatantly different than normal.  

Second Week in Japan

Been another week in Japan and my first week at Waseda.  Slowly getting used to the day to day routine and finding people to chill around with.  I know I will only be in Tokyo for 6 weeks so it is hard to make lasting friendships but I guess as long as I hang out with people and am not bored that is good. 

Something I find interesting is how people’s personality seems to change based on the language they are speaking.  It is probably because they are not as fluent in one compared to another which makes them have to use different means to communicate.  I feel I say more random stuff when I speak Japanese, but others sometimes lose the ability to be funny at all when speaking Japanese.  It is pretty interesting how you have to adapt yourself based on the language you are speaking. 

I try my best to speak only in Japanese but I can’t fully communicate in Japanese so if I ever want to have a deep conversation I have to switch to English.  Like today talking to Kohei at dinner I spoke Japanese but when we were talking seriously we switched to English because that was the only way I could do it.  These conversations are when I feel bond me to other people so if I can’t do it in Japanese then how can I connect with others?  Limitations Limitations. 

I joined two clubs but in Japan it is close to the end of the semester so everybody already has their established friend groups and it is hard to penetrate them, especially since finals for them is coming up and they will have less time than they do now.  Still I just try my best to eat lunch with people and also go out to dinner with some. 

I think the scariest thing is that since it is starting over with me having no friends and being in no clubs that it feels like first year again.  That means I act like I did when I was a first year like I didn’t learn anything from it.  I am worried that I may make the same mistakes I did before like for the sake of experience doing a lot of things but not really getting anything out of it.  For example a group of Chinese students were going to go to Roppongi and I wanted to go see it but Mike, one of them members said that I will probably find it boring since everybody will be speaking Chinese and I will not understand.  That for me is something I learned first year at UVA but I was about to make the same mistake again and if it wasn’t for me finding some of my other friends first I would have probably made that mistake.  I understand that people make mistakes in life, but then one should learn from it.  If I didn’t learn from it then I feel truly stupid.  

First Week in Japan

So I’ve been chilling around in Japan for a week acting like a tourist before my program actually starts.  Went to a lot of random places in Hiroshima, Kyoto, and Nara.  Typical stuff like museums, World Heritage Sites, and temples.  Of course I think they are interesting, but I find myself always in my own world.  I had to keep telling myself to look and actually take in what you are seeing because if I didn’t I would just look without seeing and walk away.  They are interesting in the sense that they are supposed to be interesting.

 

That doesn’t mean I didn’t find enjoyment in them, but I found enjoyment in simple things that I will remember more.  For example there are many kids taking school fieldtrips and one of the things they have to do is ask tourists questions to practice their English.  This one group walked up to a couple behind them and was like “えと May I have a picture?”  I thought it was really funny and kids were good natured so I was laughing.  They noticed me and asked me to join in their picture.  Now I am in some random middle schoolers’ field trip picture.  I found that really cool, perhaps even cooler than the centuries old temple in the background of the picture. 

As usual I do what I normally do when I’m not at school and haven’t talk to people.  I seem to grow super inverted when I’m outside of school.  I don’t try to approach people and talk to them though the best time to do that is probably while in a different country so I can interact with locals.  When I exited the restaurant today I realized it was 7:30ish so it was already dark.  Though I guess I am a morning person, meaning I can get up early and do work without being cranky, my favorite time is probably right after the sun goes down.  It isn’t too cold but it is dark outside, perfect for a walk.  Since this is my first time being out that late in Kyoto (gasp so late right haha) I decided to go for a walk.  Even in this busy city it was pretty quiet while I was walking.  Only a few people on bikes cruising around.  I guess it doesn’t matter which country I am in as long as I can walk around like this I am satisfied.

While walking I realized that I haven’t talk to people.  I mean that is usual when I’m abroad but I’m usually with my dad so there is someone I normally communicate with.  At school obviously I’m talking to people but for this entire week traveling alone I have really only ordered food and said some basic stuff to the train people.  I don’t think I could stand it if I was in that state for too long.  Good thing school is starting back up so I will probably have the motivation to make friends and talk to people.  Until then it is just packing and heading back to Tokyo.  

Second Year Reflection

I’ve wrote a bit before about second year in terms of my first reactions and friend stuff, but I guess the point of an end of year reflection is to consolidate everything into one.  I’ve shrunk my world a lot since first year.  Sure I’m still making a lot of new friends and hanging out with people, but I have become less involved with school activities.  I’ve dropped out of a few clubs and in some I’ve just participated less.  I came into college not knowing what I liked or disliked.  Many people say they don’t know what they like, and in the same vein I had to learn what I disliked.  I think me dropping out of clubs was mostly me not enjoying them compared to the effort and time necessary.  Now the problem is finding what I do like and supporting those organizations.

As expected, there is a huge amount of first year friends who I barely talk to anymore. Pretty normal so I can’t really hate on it, but I did find it interesting how I didn’t put effort into maintaining those relationships.  First year I was really adamant about putting effort into every friend I had, but that tired me out a lot and made me think it was all pointless.  I think now I have a more passive attitude in that based on the situation I will put effort into people.  People can’t help but be more likely friends who are around them more, open up more, and support them.  I think by being more accepting about friends coming and leaving, I can enjoy what I have better.

This year was when I took my last big chuck on non-Comm school classes before going into Comm School.  I actually only took one Comm class this whole year.  Not to hate on E school, but for me I could do math and science all day, but the liberal arts are what open my mind and force me to challenge myself.  I may not study that much for normal classes, but if you know me, I was in Old Cabell practicing guitar and piano all the time.  I’m not naturally good at instruments so I had to really work hard for those classes.  In addition, Japanese History made me see what we learned in Comm school through a whole different lens since we read Marx and Lenin.  The world is different from their time, but the philosophy they proclaim is something I feel everybody should read if only to hear both sides of the capitalist argument.  Even though I don’t think about my classes that much, this year has forced me to do things I’m not naturally good at and think in ways that if I just took Econ/Comm classes I would never had experienced.

I wrote a little about dedication in my last post and I just wrote about me not being dedicated to many of the activities I partook in last year.   By not doing things I like, it seems obvious that I have more time to dedicate to things I want to do.  Two times this year I have seen myself be super dedicated towards a goal.  The first was taking the Japanese Language Placement Exam.  I knew I was way over my head taking a test two levels above mine, but I put in a lot of effort through workbooks and studying vocab.  I knew I had about a month to study, so there was only so much I could do, so I just focused on what I felt could help me.  When guests came over for Thanksgiving they saw me studying so diligently that they commented on how good of a student I was.  Internally I laughed and thought “they should see me on normal days I’m such a lazy bum,” but now I think that maybe that dedication is my potential and I just need things I’m willing to invest into see that type of effort again.

 

The second things I dedicated myself to was applying to study abroad in Japan.  It was a long road and people I talked about it with know.  I kept on pushing it back and pushing it back until one day I was just like, “damn it Tomy go look at some scholarships!” I saw UVA was offering one but the deadline was next week so I rushed to get the app done with essays and recommendations.  Then I had to get the scholarship to approve my program which was the bulk of my hassle.  I put in a lot of effort into it and worked to make this a reality.  Now looking back at it, I sort of doubt it was me who did it.  I’m not used to seeing me so dedicated to a task, but it shows what I can do if I really want something.  That makes me more hopefully about my own potential. 

Eeh this is getting long.  Mostly I think the goal of second year was take what I actually, genuinely like about first year and try to enhance that while getting rid of the parts I didn’t like.  This meant I actually had to think if I truly enjoyed something.  Sometimes the idea that you need to try everything hits you first year and that gets in the way of reflecting if you actually like it.  It is good to try a lot of new things, but in the end, if you want to continue with it, you better like it.  Sure my world is smaller in terms of activities, events, friends, even physical space, but removing things I didn’t like surrounds me with more I do like.  Now if I find more things I like third year, then I can be even happier and dedicated, which will channel my energy and hopefully make me a better person.