Usually whenever I visit someone's blog, there's already fifty posts or more, and I never need to ever actually read the first post.
But I suppose, upon thinking about it, that the first post should provide the background for the rest of the blog. So, here it goes.
My love affair with Japan began in 1998, when Pokemon became a thing in the States. I was eight at the time, and though I didn't know much about Japan, I had an older brother who did. (Well, he at least knew more than I, being in junior high at the time.) I loved Pokemon, which meant I loved Japan by extension.
I still remember one time in an MSN chat room when I was ten. That nostalgic question - "a/s/l?" - popped up, and someone said they were in Japan. (Now that I think about it, that person was probably an English teacher on the JET program. Heh.)
I FREAKED OUT.
And I was then quickly booted from the chat, but it didn't matter. I had enough time to quickly ask about how much Pokemon stuff was there and how awesome it was. (The answers, of course, were, "A lot," and "Get out of the chatroom, kid.")
Even though I was a huge Pokemon fan I never really branched out. I knew of Sailor Moon and I knew of Dragon Ball Z and other animé, but I never actively sought them out. I didn't wear Japanese clothes or try to teach myself Japanese.
That stuff didn't come 'til I was 15.
My junior/senior high schools offered four different language courses, and we were required to take at least two years of one. To help us make an informed decision, we were required as 6th and 7th graders to take a a short introductory course of each as part of a quarterly rotation of classes. 6th grade offered Latin and French. I excelled in Latin, and I nearly failed French. Neither really mattered; I had my sights set on Spanish. I could already count to 10 and greet in Spanish, and that was the course of destiny for me.
Until I actually had the class. Talk about your dream crushers. For starters, the teacher was a very creepy, very large man. Which wouldn't normally matter except for that first part, and how he would often stand quite close to you (and his protruding stomach made it even closer). We had to choose Spanish names for the class, and I wanted Catalina (because I was in the middle of a love affair with the musical Cats at the time.) However, another girl in the class also wanted the name (because she was in the middle of a love affair with cats as a species), and we were made to flip a coin. She won, so I had to choose another name. I chose Veronica. The teacher reacted my choice by saying, in a very boisterous voice, "OH, VERONICA! SAME AS MY WIFE!" Super creepy.
The first few days were still excellent, however, and I mostly enjoyed it... but after a single week of studies, the teacher unfortunately fell ill and couldn't continue teaching us. Instead of finding a substitute who could teach us, the class was turned into a study hall. I'm pretty sure my grade for the class something like a U - "unfinished" - and I was so disappointed that I pretty much completely forgot about Spanish.
The Japanese class was totally different. The teacher was great, she didn't make us choose Japanese names, and we spent the time playing games and singing songs (and good on her for getting a bunch of 7th graders to stand up and sing!) She said that she had a few awards that she would hand out at the end of the class - an award for highest grade, most enthusiasm, and the cream of the crop, The Ohashi Award. That would go to whoever had not only good grades and enthusiasm, but also who clearly had a passion for the language.
Since my grades up to that point pretty much peaked at 85%, I quickly forgot about that and hoped I'd get "Most Creative" or something.
The class went on, stupid puns like murasaki Kawasaki were made to remember the word for "purple," and we sang about closing your fist and opening your fist (of which, I remembered all of the words for years and years and only fairly recently realized that I was saying "Close. Open. Clap. Close.") (Also, if you're interested, you can listen/watch the song via this horribly creepy video.) Man, I loved that class.
Anyway, our short time as a class came to a close, and the awards day came. My best friend Adrienne got the most creative award. She was always drawing cute pictures and stuff. Another girl in the class predictably got the award for best grades, although to my great surprise I wasn't far behind. I think she got 101% (from extra credit) and I got 100%, or something like that.
Anyway, the Ohashi Award. Not only a paper certificate, but also a pair of real chopsticks, and not the cheapy disposable kind either. Reserved for whichever kid not only had good grades, but also who seemed to have a spirit for Japanese. As you've probably already guessed, my name was called!
I went up and awkwardly received my prize as we'd be trained: bow low and take it with both hands. I used those chopsticks for probably five years, until one of them was snapped in half by the garbage disposal. C'est la vie.
And thus, my language choice was set... or would have been if I hadn't also enjoyed Latin. I had gotten 100% in Latin as well as oodles of "Latin Money," big laminated paper coins that we got for doing various things and could trade in for prized sundries like erasers and pencil toppers (remember, we were 11 year olds.) I had had my sights set on Spanish, but when that fell out, Latin seemed the choice. Until Japanese.
I asked a few people what they thought and it pretty much seemed to be, "If you want to study medicine, you should study Latin." That was it. I never really entertained any thoughts of becoming a doctor, so to me, the choice ended up being boiled down to "Dead Language VS. Living Language."
Naturally, I went with the one with a pulse.
The first day of 8th grade held a lot of new things. One was a new school building. Our school district was divvied up into four different buildings: Elementary (of which there were actually 5), Middle, Intermediate, and High schools. The school was enormous for some reason that I never really figured out, and it was very easy to get lost. It was also built across 3 floors and a basement, so my first year I actually lost 10 pounds simply because I had to go straight from gym class in the basement to computers on the 3rd floor...within 3 minutes.
Another was the first day of the rest of my life. (Just joking...mostly.)
The Japanese classroom was located in the same wing as the rest of the language classrooms. Theoretically, had I grown bored of Japanese, I probably could have just switched to any of the others the next year. Here's where I would love to describe the classroom itself, but to be honest, I don't remember. All I can recall is a table in the front that our teacher would sit on, and a phone on the right side in the space between cupboards. Sorry, folks.
The teacher - whom we of course called sensei - was one of my all-time favorite teachers; a very sweet woman, a little crazy and very funny and often willing to share her life with us (some kids said she talked about her life too much, but I never minded.) Whenever it was time for flashcard practice she'd say, with ultra-drama, "I'm going to flash you now." Every time she'd answer the phone she'd say "Mushi mushi!" The correct words (in Japanese) are moshi moshi, but she did it just to jag around. (On a funny note, mushi actually means "bug." Which means she'd answer the phone "Bug bug!") When she quit her position to be closer to her son (and ex-husband, unfortunately), she invited us to her house to "nosh" and say farewell. I haven't known many teachers that are willing to invite students into their lives like that, even if it is just for a farewell.
And I loved that class. I loved everything about it. I loved learning to write in a different language, I loved learning the different words and phrases, and obviously I loved my sensei. I actually ostracized myself on more than one occasion because I wanted to practice speaking Japanese with my one friend who was willing to, and that was just too weird a thing to do in 9th grade at my school to ever be allowed to exist. (Case in point: talking with my friend in the lunch line. The girl in front of us turns around and angrily (?) says: "GOD, Ashley! Stop talking Japanese!")
10th grade brought me to the high school building, and of course yet another new Japanese teacher. This time around, she was an adorable, tiny Japanese grandmother from Tokyo. Predictably she was often the target of rude behavior from the kids, thanks in no doubt to her thick accent (as well as the fact that she often bobbed to and fro as she spoke.) But I loved her, including the funny incidents that would crop up because of her accent. ("So, one Haroween, we went to a whore house!" "Sensei, you...you mean a horror house, right???") And she was totally manic, always full of energy. She would completely veer off topic to tell us about anti-Christianity in 1800's Japan ("They say, 'Stomp on Jesus's face!'"), making doughnuts with her family ("Stiiiiiiir it, and stiiiiiir it..."), and everything else in between.
The class went on, stupid puns like murasaki Kawasaki were made to remember the word for "purple," and we sang about closing your fist and opening your fist (of which, I remembered all of the words for years and years and only fairly recently realized that I was saying "Close. Open. Clap. Close.") (Also, if you're interested, you can listen/watch the song via this horribly creepy video.) Man, I loved that class.
Anyway, our short time as a class came to a close, and the awards day came. My best friend Adrienne got the most creative award. She was always drawing cute pictures and stuff. Another girl in the class predictably got the award for best grades, although to my great surprise I wasn't far behind. I think she got 101% (from extra credit) and I got 100%, or something like that.
Anyway, the Ohashi Award. Not only a paper certificate, but also a pair of real chopsticks, and not the cheapy disposable kind either. Reserved for whichever kid not only had good grades, but also who seemed to have a spirit for Japanese. As you've probably already guessed, my name was called!
I went up and awkwardly received my prize as we'd be trained: bow low and take it with both hands. I used those chopsticks for probably five years, until one of them was snapped in half by the garbage disposal. C'est la vie.
And thus, my language choice was set... or would have been if I hadn't also enjoyed Latin. I had gotten 100% in Latin as well as oodles of "Latin Money," big laminated paper coins that we got for doing various things and could trade in for prized sundries like erasers and pencil toppers (remember, we were 11 year olds.) I had had my sights set on Spanish, but when that fell out, Latin seemed the choice. Until Japanese.
I asked a few people what they thought and it pretty much seemed to be, "If you want to study medicine, you should study Latin." That was it. I never really entertained any thoughts of becoming a doctor, so to me, the choice ended up being boiled down to "Dead Language VS. Living Language."
Naturally, I went with the one with a pulse.
The first day of 8th grade held a lot of new things. One was a new school building. Our school district was divvied up into four different buildings: Elementary (of which there were actually 5), Middle, Intermediate, and High schools. The school was enormous for some reason that I never really figured out, and it was very easy to get lost. It was also built across 3 floors and a basement, so my first year I actually lost 10 pounds simply because I had to go straight from gym class in the basement to computers on the 3rd floor...within 3 minutes.
Another was the first day of the rest of my life. (Just joking...mostly.)
The Japanese classroom was located in the same wing as the rest of the language classrooms. Theoretically, had I grown bored of Japanese, I probably could have just switched to any of the others the next year. Here's where I would love to describe the classroom itself, but to be honest, I don't remember. All I can recall is a table in the front that our teacher would sit on, and a phone on the right side in the space between cupboards. Sorry, folks.
The teacher - whom we of course called sensei - was one of my all-time favorite teachers; a very sweet woman, a little crazy and very funny and often willing to share her life with us (some kids said she talked about her life too much, but I never minded.) Whenever it was time for flashcard practice she'd say, with ultra-drama, "I'm going to flash you now." Every time she'd answer the phone she'd say "Mushi mushi!" The correct words (in Japanese) are moshi moshi, but she did it just to jag around. (On a funny note, mushi actually means "bug." Which means she'd answer the phone "Bug bug!") When she quit her position to be closer to her son (and ex-husband, unfortunately), she invited us to her house to "nosh" and say farewell. I haven't known many teachers that are willing to invite students into their lives like that, even if it is just for a farewell.
And I loved that class. I loved everything about it. I loved learning to write in a different language, I loved learning the different words and phrases, and obviously I loved my sensei. I actually ostracized myself on more than one occasion because I wanted to practice speaking Japanese with my one friend who was willing to, and that was just too weird a thing to do in 9th grade at my school to ever be allowed to exist. (Case in point: talking with my friend in the lunch line. The girl in front of us turns around and angrily (?) says: "GOD, Ashley! Stop talking Japanese!")
10th grade brought me to the high school building, and of course yet another new Japanese teacher. This time around, she was an adorable, tiny Japanese grandmother from Tokyo. Predictably she was often the target of rude behavior from the kids, thanks in no doubt to her thick accent (as well as the fact that she often bobbed to and fro as she spoke.) But I loved her, including the funny incidents that would crop up because of her accent. ("So, one Haroween, we went to a whore house!" "Sensei, you...you mean a horror house, right???") And she was totally manic, always full of energy. She would completely veer off topic to tell us about anti-Christianity in 1800's Japan ("They say, 'Stomp on Jesus's face!'"), making doughnuts with her family ("Stiiiiiiir it, and stiiiiiir it..."), and everything else in between.
The books we used were also ace. It was a set called "Ima!," and unfortunately the only one I really remember was "Hai, Ima!" These books were awesome. The were mostly set in Tokyo, and living in Japan now, I can appreciate how much of the books were based on real life. There was no, "Let's go to B Coffee Shop with Ken tomorrow," it was "Do you like Glay? Glay is a good band. No, I like Puffy AmiYumi. It is a good band." Characters would order Very Very Strawberry (a flavor available at Baskin Robbins) and visit Harajuku on Sundays.
It was around this time that my friend (who I practiced Japanese with above) and my brother introduced me to the wide-world of anime and manga. I watched/read everything and anything, but never really more than a few episodes of each. Fun anime like Di Gi Charat, Dragon Half, and Excel Saga; bloody anime like Hellsing. My friend's mom made us "kimonos", and we wore them in the school homecoming parade for the Japanese language club. (We also dressed up as geisha... so embarrassing.)
Where I and my friend differed was that I never wore these costumes to school, because I really didn't want to ostracize myself anymore than I already was. She, on the other hand, did. We went our separate ways around 12th grade.
The summer after 11th grade, I finally (after much pushing from my teacher) went on a 6-week culture exchange and home stay to a little town in northern Kyoto Prefecture. I had a good time, but I'll talk more about that later, in its own post. A lot of shit went down at that house.
Upon graduation, there really wasn't a question of what I would study in college. I didn't actually have any other interests that would have been of any use to me; my hobbies up to that point were Japanese, violin, piano, and drawing characters that never seemed to stand up straight. I was accepted to my first choice university (oh yeah, somewhere along the way I learned how to do homework and graduated with a 3.9 GPA), and of course enrolled in Japanese courses.
Since high school and college courses are two completely different balls of wax, I'll talk about college life and beyond in the next post.
It was around this time that my friend (who I practiced Japanese with above) and my brother introduced me to the wide-world of anime and manga. I watched/read everything and anything, but never really more than a few episodes of each. Fun anime like Di Gi Charat, Dragon Half, and Excel Saga; bloody anime like Hellsing. My friend's mom made us "kimonos", and we wore them in the school homecoming parade for the Japanese language club. (We also dressed up as geisha... so embarrassing.)
Where I and my friend differed was that I never wore these costumes to school, because I really didn't want to ostracize myself anymore than I already was. She, on the other hand, did. We went our separate ways around 12th grade.
The summer after 11th grade, I finally (after much pushing from my teacher) went on a 6-week culture exchange and home stay to a little town in northern Kyoto Prefecture. I had a good time, but I'll talk more about that later, in its own post. A lot of shit went down at that house.
Upon graduation, there really wasn't a question of what I would study in college. I didn't actually have any other interests that would have been of any use to me; my hobbies up to that point were Japanese, violin, piano, and drawing characters that never seemed to stand up straight. I was accepted to my first choice university (oh yeah, somewhere along the way I learned how to do homework and graduated with a 3.9 GPA), and of course enrolled in Japanese courses.
Since high school and college courses are two completely different balls of wax, I'll talk about college life and beyond in the next post.
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