Diatribe about Japanese... in English!

At this point, I've got most of the major stuff for my trip under control (I think?? I hope??). For the time being, it's a lot of submitting paperwork and sitting around on my hands while the bureaucracy creaks along and takes its sweet, sweet time in getting back to me. The bureaucracy may rule Japan, but the American bureaucracy owns my ass.

So what do I do to fill the hours? Seeing as though I've wasted enough time on English movies and TV (for the love of God, I rewatched the first half of Season 6 of Sex and the City and it was AWFUL. And I knew it going in), I haven't been able to commit in full to any book (started a couple, but none have really grabbed my attention), and I spend a gross amount of time reading crap on the internet, it's time that I commit myself to that which I've been putting off all summer:

戦争！！

*Fair Warning: As the above indicates, there will be a fair amount of Japanese or Japan references in this post and I'm not going to bother to translate/explain everything. Maybe it will still be of interest to those that don't know any Japanese, but I understand if it's tedious and am giving you an out now to run screaming into the night.

Okay, perhaps not that extreme, but it is time to buckle down and attack the Nihongo. I've never been very good at self-study, but I've got just over a month before I have to take this placement test and I should be preparing. It's also freaking me out that I'm going to get off the plane at Narita and I won't have friendly Tsukamoto-sensei waiting for me like I did the first time around when I arrived at Chubu, arranging my takkyubin (luggage delivery service) and

shuttling us around via bus to our business hotel where I promptly passed out without having to speak a word of Japanese. Now I have to do this all myself, and though the likelihood the airport employees speak English is relatively high, it feels like a cop out. I've already got dialogues runnign through my head about making sure my luggage does not arrive at my apartment until the afternoon of 8/26 (my building doesn't have a super and therefore the belongings I need for the next 10 months will be hanging out in limbo somewhere), to attempting to find this express bus that runs from Narita to Pacifico Yokohama (right near my school), then attempting to find my hotel in an entirely new city (the need to approach an actual Nihonjin is high), and then wading through the mess that will be my hotel reservation. いやだ。

I'm going at this pretty scattershot, but I'm doing what I can. I haven't bought a new Japanese text book in a long time, and my old materials pretty basic. Not tooting my own horn here; it's just that many of the classes I've taken have relied on printed materials from newspapers and books and therefore there aren't sections I haven't yet covered. In the meantime, I've tried to listen to the 会話練習 (conversation practice) provided by IUC, but man, that is some low budget production they've got going on over there. You can hear some dude in the back hitting a xylaphone every time they want to indicate a change, and occasionally miss-hitting and playing an extra note. Japan: The Land of Contradictions epitomized: your toilet can talk to you, but an electronic buzzer or some audio editing software is above and beyond. Also, the kaiwas are Boring with a capital B. I can only listen to a guy introduce himself as John Smith to whatever poor sap he has on the phone. And their 初級語彙・漢字　復習シート (Introductory Vocabulary/Kanji Review Sheet) is exactly as it says: introductory. If I don't know this stuff already, about 80%-90% of my language study over the past 6-7 years has been a giant waste of time. Though I swear I will never remember the Japanese word for "to dance" (踊る). I've always known it as ダンスする (the Japanese phonetic spelling of "dance:" "dansu") and I'm sticking to it.

So I'm in search of a challenge. As such I've tried to come up with a multi-pronged plan of attack in climbing my Mt. Everest (*sherpa not included):

Reading
I'm trying to read a couple of articles a day on Japanese news outlets (http://www.asahi.com/ or http://mainichi.jp/ - they all have English websites if you are interested) as a way of practicing my ability to scan and skim (holla atcha, Kato-sensei, though honestly I don't remember the difference between the two any more... I think scanning is reading the headlines, and skimming is giving the article a quick once-over??) and pick up the main point of an article quickly. And of course, I have the assistance of good ol' Rikaichan; if you study Japanese and haven't learned about this yet, it's definitely worth your time: http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/. It allows you to roll your mouse over dreaded kanji (Khaaaaaan-ji) and get the reading and definition. It's a time saver, though it does feel like a bit of a cheat when I'm trying to test my comprehension.

Additionally, I am tackling some more Japanese literature, this time ノルウェイの森 (Norwegian Wood) by Murakami Haruki. I did the same last year with ねじまき鳥クロニクル (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle) where I read the original Japanese novel alongside the English to make sure I understood the finer details. Murakami isn't an easy read in English and he's even more out there in Japanese (some critics refer to his prose as "buttery" or some such adjective: oily and impure due to its Western influences), but I found the project fulfilling last year and I figure I have the time and need the practice. I've done the same with both Oe Kenzaburo and Kawabata Yasunari, and though it's still a cheat to have the English alongside, my Japanese is not good enough (and I don't know that it ever could be since I am not a native speaker) to read these on their own.

Writing
Writing poses a little bit of a problem, as self-motivation in this area is hard to come by. I don't feel like sitting around and writing mini-essays in Japanese. However, in preparing for my arrival in Japan, I periodically write e-mails to my contact at the agency that owns my apartment building (thanks for the keigo practice, Kato), and also to my host mom who is excited I'll finally be coming back to Japan. However, I suppose I should practice some kanji stroke orders since apparently the IUC placement exam has a writing component. But dammit, Japanese people don't even know how to hand write kanji any more! Isn't it enough to be a ワープロ・プロ (word-processing master)？

Arithmetic
Wait, what?

Listening
My love of pop culture should serve me well here, but Japanese pop culture and I have never gotten on very well. I have no love of anime (in fact, most of it just irritates me), Japanese dramas or other TV programs (their game shows continue to baffle me. If you've ever watched them, you know what I mean), and I haven't seen many of their movies. On this last point, since I don't have a lot of contact with their movies (the original version of The Ring scared the crap out of me and I enjoyed 千と千尋の神隠し - Spirited Away - when I watched it last year), so I figure this is my best bet if I am to have any success with listening to Japanese.

So far, I have tackled two other Miyazaki films, ハウルの動く城 (Howl's Moving Castle, thanks DQ) and もののけ姫 (Princess Mononoke), with varying levels of success. I watch with subtitles on and do my best not to use them. However, casual speech is not my forte (I'm bookish), and when the vocabulary gets too out there for me, I often lose focus. I liked Mononoke much better than Howl's (sorry DQ). I understood Howl's, but didn't get it; I think I have to be a different kind of girl to really like the movie. I can reason out themes and such, but I don't feel them. Mononoke was much better as an adventure film and I relate to some of its themes (not so much the environmental stuff, but the ideas of being a loner and having to fight for a place in this world). For the time being, I've only been able to locate アキラ (Akira) online in Japanese with subtitles, but I'll probably attempt a couple of Kurosawa films, and maybe go on the hunt for some more Japanese horror. I also need to give Battle Royale a go.

And music? I'm sorry, I can't listen to J-Pop. Or enka. Or any kind of Japanese music. I just... can't, okay?

Speaking
This area of course poses the biggest problem since I speak English all day, and even though I know people here that speak Japanese, it's just easier to communicate in English. Plus speaking has always been my a trouble spot for me, mostly due to my own embarrassment at making mistakes and I just have no confidence in my abilities any more, not that I ever did. It may come as a shock to some of you, but I am hesitant to speak in English from time to time (me! Shy! Believe it!), and that makes it all the more difficult for me to find the 自信 to speak in Japanese.

For the time being, I'm not really doing much speaking and leaving that for when I get off the plane. I figure the survival instinct will kick in, and I usually do well when the pressure is on. If I'm going to make in Japan, I'm going to have to learn to speak and quickly. Plus, I'll pretty much be seeing my host parents right after I land, and they were really good about forcing me to speak coherently.


Obviously living and going to school in Japan will be the best practice of all, but I have to make sure the foundation is there. I've never been very disciplined about keeping up with Japanese practice in the summertime, so if I keep up with this at all it will be an accomplishment. Who knows? If I do well enough in Japan, maybe I'll need to take English lessons from this woman when I get back.