Les Mis

There was a man in Tokyo, a really old man, who I sat down next to one day in the lunchroom on campus between classes. I opened my textbook and started going over -teoku congugations, and he scooted closer and asked if I spoke English.

His English was stunted but he carefully and enthusiastically explained what he was doing there.

The old man had never left Japan; when he was young, he read Les Misérables in English translation, and he cried. He could feel what the characters felt, he said as he pulled out a worn paperback 5 inches thick and, cradling it in his hands, tipped it so that I could see the title. He had never been so touched by anything in his life.

"Is French book," he told me. "English has different meaning. French has original meaning."

He took French classes for years in order to read the original French version of the book.

The man grinned proudly as he emptied one French-English dictionary and half a dozen notebooks out of his bag and flipped one open, angling them toward me so that I could see the tiny English scrawls. He pointed out the date and page number on the top of each page as he explained that he was slowly translating the book from French to English.

"Very slow! You help me!" He laughed as he said it, a self depreciating and overwhelmed grin hiding his eyes.

I laughed with him, tried to tell him that I'd never read Les Misérables, that my French was probably no better than his, but that I would help him with whatever he needed. He just laughed again and showed me the hundreds of pages of translations, notes scribbled into the margins, page numbers only into the 300's for a fifteen-hundred page book. He'd been translating for years.

He told me more about his project and showed me some magic tricks he could do with hair ties. He taught me how to do them, and gave me two of the ties to show my friends.

I saw him often in the eight months after that: in the library, in the cafeteria, in the commons, always pouring over his monstrous volume of Les Misérables, French dictionary at his elbow.

I'm not sure he remembered me. Maybe he talks to all the foreign girls. I don't know how far he's gotten by now, and I never got his name.

Giant Dancing Kittens

"The curry is pimped this time!" ~ David


I experienced a wide variety of prototypical "Japanese" things today that I decided to document, such as a giant kitten dancing to happy parapara music at THE most random "museum (???I don't know if it should be called that???)" that I've ever been to. The first floor was half rain forest filled with massage parlors and half Ghost Town. This floor also included Gyouza Heaven, which made up for any and all confusion and hardship caused by moving from relaxation to terror.

I freakin' love gyouza.

The second floor was slightly more confusing as the themes were less clearly defined; it seemed that half was Random Ice Cream Heaven, and half was the American old west. The old west theme managed to incorporate "Engrish" into my day, which is imperative in any stereotypical romp through Japan, including such famous Old West storefronts as "Restaurant Napalm" (that one made me nervous).

Random Ice Cream Heaven was a nice place to wander through, and Eyrun and I even managed to taste some new and exciting flavors. Ice cream is so overdone as a dessert, so we tried out Beef Tongue and Garlic flavored ice creams. I have nothing more to say about that except that it tastes exactly like you'd think it would taste. And that, yes, there were pieces of beef in the Beef Tongue flavored one.

Leaving the "museum (???)", we wandered by a few stores which bring up another important part of the Japanese experience: foreign imports. No one plays traditional-while-still-incorporating-EVERYONE-else's-stuff like the Japanese, and playing around in a Build-A-Bear Workshop and a GAP really help to put that in perspective for me once again.

Being overly-confident about speaking aloud is also important when in Japan; chances are juuuuust slim enough that no one will understand you that you easily slip into not caring if they actually do. Which is why I called out "My bear is gay," while cruising the Build-A-Bear Workshop, and I am still unsure whether or not the small girl who glanced over at me did so because I spoke Foreigner or because she wanted to see my gay bear.

But the largest part of being in Japan is, of course, being confused. So the most definitive moment of the day really was when, after staring at a size conversion chart in the Gap for about 30 seconds, all I could think or say was, "Hm. Centimeters huh?" It had taken me that long to realize that the numbers in front of my face were useless to me.

Thank you, Ikebukura, for summing up the entire last 8 months of my life into one day.

2 pass 1 fail

So yesterday I got all happy during class when everyone was reading aloud together. I don't remember what the sentence said because I was barely following along, but the verb at the end was something-o shiteimasu, and David next to me (who was also probably not paying attention) said, instead, o shitteimasu. Oh fascinating. Right. So it was such a tiny difference, but (possibly because I hadn't been paying attention to the context) I immediately heard the verb for 'to know' instead of 'to do'. The conjugation makes them sound so very similar that I don't think I would have normally picked it up, but I IMMEDIATELY heard the difference, and then I got all excited about it, but how am I supposed to giggle over something so small? And with David, who would probably be confused and a little insulted that I brought up his mistake.

Then today we were playing a game in class called shiritori, which I've seen on Japanese game shows but never played. One person says a word and the next person takes the last syllable of that word and has to say a word using that as the first syllable and so on, like "shiritori" then "ringo" then "golf" or something like that. Anyway, I realized tonight while I was doing my homework (which includes a small game of it) that while we were doing it in class, with the teacher standing right next to me, I had no apprehensions or troubles coming up with words. My vocabularly is for shit, but it's a least big enough to continue the game, and the two guys I was playing with each lost once while I kept going without a problem. It's nice to know that I can at least do that much in Japanese.

And to bring it all to a point, some Japanese guys came and sat with Eyrun and me today to interview for us for a paper their writing, and during the maybe two hours of conversation, despite the urging of them AND Eyrun, I refused to speak Japanese. I just didn't want to start something I couldn't finish. I understood them when they were talking to each other in Japanese, and the few things they said to me, but not enough to be able to respond appropriately. I am feeling more confident...just not that confident.

Just Like the Brochures...

I think I just realized how much a part of me all of this is now.

I just remembered writing Michelle's name in katakana on her whiteboard and being so impressed and surprised when she revealed that she'd already looked up all of the symbols for it. I think I felt flattered at that moment, like she'd just paid me a compliment by showing an interest in Japanese. I realized that I felt like it was a part of who I was, and then I wondered if I would always feel that way. I had been practicing some kanji.

Will I one day miss the feeling of writing in Japanese?

I think it was a couple of weeks ago that I was moving between writing a word in hiragana and one in English and it stunned me that the sounds the pencil made were completely different. The way I wrote the Japanese word sounded as short clicks against the paper while the English word was rapid scribbles. It's amazing for me to write in two completely different ways within seconds of one another, and with the same hand.

Will I miss that one day?

Miss attempting to write a Japanese word in romaji for the sake of my family and screwing up the first 3 or 4 times and writing こ　instead of k or something. It's happened a few times.

I don't want to give up this knowledge, but I don't think that I'm ready to make the sacrifices required in order to keep it.

I2 or J3

I think I've decided once and for all to drop out of Intensive Japanese. I feel like a coward for throwing in the towel, but it's just too much stress, too much pressure to keep up with the darn Korean kids...damn those Koreans...because I'll always be ten steps behind them and just doing well enough to be acceptable in class. I mean, I passed Intensive I with a B and even then I knew half the stuff we learned the first month and a half. Probably the only reason I really want to stay anyway is because of the other students. We were so close last semester and I would feel left out if I left them behind now.

So I'm going to switch into J3, which is only 6 credits instead of 12 meaning that I have to pick up two more classes: history and French. w00t. Well, Advanced French Writing (which I've already done at GVSU, just never with Japanese as the default language) and Modern Japanese History (with Eyrun, yay!) and hopefully after I get back into writing papers and speaking in English in class once in a while I'll feel better. Not that it will do a lot of good for my Japanese ability...but at least I'll have time to actually process the things that I'm learning in class.

I guess there's another reason why I wanted to stay in I2 but it doesn't matter anyway because...things never quite work out the way you plan anyway.

I Heart Kanji

I fucking hate when there is kanji on the homework that we aren't supposed to know. It's so annoying when I have to go through the stupid book to find one kanji to do one problem. And sometimes, it's not in the book. It's not exactly like I can type it into the fucking dictionary and see what it is. Kanji dictionaries are not required to take this class, therefore I should not HAVE to use one while doing my homework. It's a waste of my time, and it's frustrates me to no end! Then I end up skipping the question and getting it wrong. I know that while studying a foreign language it's best to teach the students from one step ahead of where they are, but it doesn't work when they can't figure out what the fuck is going on, and they get so frustrated that they just give up.

I guess I'm just in a bad mood. I'm so oversensitive.

I Break for Linguistics

There was a bug in my room a few minutes ago. I sort of wandered away (deathly afraid of it flying at my face or something) and wandered the halls until I finally grabbed Eyrun and made her get rid of it for me. She's such a good friend. ^_^ I was actually considering spending the rest of the night in the study room....

Anyway, on to linguistics. One of the Korean kids in my Japanese class has the hardest time making the z-sound, it's adorable. He also doesn't distinguish between ch- and sh-, so instead of saying 'chigai' (different), he says 'shigai' (corpse). But the best thing is that he really really tries to pronounce it well, and when he says a word with a z- or ch- sound he smiles and sort of looks around at us and repeats it to make sure he got it right. It's adorable.

It's easy to hear the differences between Japanese pronunciation and non-Japanese pronunciation of Japanese words in other foreign students, but it's difficult to hear it in my own speech. It's been brought to my attention, though, that my most blatant give-away (not that I could pass for Japanese, but anyway) is my pronunciation of d- in the middle of a word. American English (standard and most non-standard dialects) replace the d-sound with a flapped r in the middle of words -- consider the difference in the d's between the words dime (hard d-sound) and puddle (flapped r). Unfortunately, in Japanese the flapped r-sound is practically identical to the actual r-sound, so I pronounce words like 'kudasai', 'kurasai'. It's physically difficult for me to make the d-sound in the middle of the word! It just seems like an odd problem to have, since the d-sound is such an easy one to make. It sure isn't he French r- or u-. I just naturally do the flapped r-.

Japan Stories II

"I will sit in front of you for 4 hours. As long as you don't talk to me."

Cori is the only student in her Comparative Religions class, as in she sits in front of the teacher and he lectures -- at her -- for four hours. Naturally, a college student doesn't have the ability to focus for that long, and she actually ZONED OUT only to realize that he had asked her a question and was waiting for the answer.

Just outside the south gate, on Mitaka's main street, there are two ramen shops side by side sending the steamy smell of oily brother wafting down across the sidewalk, momentarily filling the air as we shoot by on our bikes.

Today I got upset when the dictionary.com translator wouldn't translate Icelandic to English.

"You can lie in class, but you have to live with the reputation." ~Ichikawa sensei

"I'm a black person." ~ Z

I think that I made progress in Japanese language today: I found that my roommates and other people from Global House would often speak to me in Japanese and I would completely understand and respond in English. That's a step in the right direction, right? I'm a little hesitant about responding in Japanese because so far I've only learned formal Japanese and it sounds kind of stupid. But tomorrow in class we'll learn short form so hopefully I'll be able to start using it soon.

10/5/08

"Sorry, I'll give the book back as soon as I can."
"I can't read your apologies at night before I go to bed!"
~Me and Erykha

"I wanna be a ... ペンギン。”　(penguin, with Japanese accent)
~Cory

"I feel like we're foreign."
~Eyrun in Shibuya

What the hell is Tokyo Tower? Is it really a copy of the Eiffel Tower? Does it have a function? Are Japanese people proud of it? How does it relate to Western culture?

10/6/08

Eyrun told me all about her culture's (Iceland's) belief in fairies while we were studying last week. They lure people into large rocks, so the government actually builds roads around rocks rather than moving them.
"Never follow a fairy into a rock."
She also said that Santa Clause's mother eats children? And her cat too.

Japan is such a homogeneous, group-oriented society that there are countless grammar structures based solely on asking for agreement. Even giving information in Japanese should be followed by "でしょう” or "I think" (whether you're sure or not) in order to lighten the blow of one person knowing more than another.

I'm thinking about writing really formal looking letters to my family in Japanese and including a dramatic translation that has nothing to do with the actual content.

10/10/08

The natives can take pictures of the gaijin!

I started a bucket list last night. It includes so far:

random long-distance bike ride
live in France more than one year
Visit New York
Visit Iceland
Visit Rome +
Learn 5 languages by 30 (at least advanced level)
Finish 'Running' (old story from high school)

The kanji for medicine is in two parts; the symbol for gross and the symbol for fun. o_0

Z dropped a paperclip down her shirt in the middle of class one day and she quite discretely laughed about it and fished it out. I mean seriously, we were sitting in a circle and I was the only one who noticed. Kudos to Z.

The same day as the paperclip incident (I think), I was pretty giddy so as the teacher went around the room showing the class the kanji on her chapstick, I pulled mine our and showed it off to Z who oohed and aahed.

ーせんとうからかえってからごはんを食べます。
lit: bath from returning after food eat
<-----You read it this way in English! <---

I read an article back home arguing that English and Japanese grammar were complete opposites. This amazes me, especially now that I can completely see it!

Japan Stories

Stories I've recorded the past two weeks of living in Japan.

9/10/08

One of Tyler's roommates keeps falling asleep in Tyler's bed. Tyler says they're just talking, then they wander into his room, still talking. Then Ko lays down and covers up, still talking. Then they stop talking for a second and when Tyler turns around, Ko is fast asleep. So Tyler turns off the light, locks the door, and leaves like he's not even there.

There is a legendary dog statue in Shibuya. Apparently about 70 or 80 years ago, a man's dog used to wait for him there every day after work, and when the man died, the dog continued to wait. So they built a statue in the station to commemorate the dog.

In contrast to Tyler's roommate, Erik (a classmate) gets no sleep! He lives in a men's dorm (which has no private rooms or air conditioning) and he's busy all day and can't go to sleep until his roommate does, usually around 2 a.m. He says he sometimes naps during the day, but only sleep for about four hours a night. I'm so lucky to have my own room!

Zee is Italian, has been in Italy all her life save for one years in Chicago for college, and because her mother and aunt are American and helped raise her and spoke English to her, she has a nearly flawless American accent. it's disconcerting when she says she's Italian and she sounds so American, or at least it was at first. I think I'm getting used to it now.

For the first time today, I sat with friends in Japan and laughed and mad stupid jokes and was completely at home. I can't believe I've only know these people for 9 days! We get along like we've known each other forever.

9/14/08

Erykah, Eyrun, and I ended up at a shrine festival yesterday when we were visiting Kichijouji. it was amazing; I'd seen shrine festivals in anime and manga, full of food and half the people in traditional clothing, but seeing it come to life was almost a shock. We even had some of the food and it was different. one thing we had was pretty much grilled bread with BBQ sauce.

A bunch of us went out for an Italian restaurant for dinner Friday night and Dominique next to me said something of which I only picked out the words "librarian" and "cute." Now the librarian at our school is cute, so I quietly agreed and Dom was confused so I was confused until finally I realized that she'd said his daughter was cute, because he was at the table right next to us. We had a laugh, (all this time I think he knew that we knew him because he kept his face turned away -- he's shy about his English) and we talked about something else, until Cori, across from us, who was apparently the only one at the table who didn't get the whole conversation, blurted out loudly, "So you think the librarian's cute?" And then everyone starts laughing as quietly as possible and Dom, red in the face, whispers, "No, I said his daughter is cute!" And we all try to gesture to his table until she realizes what she did and she starts laughing and gets red too. he left soon after that and I never saw his face even halfway turn toward us.

We had our first official dorm meeting today, and since two thirds of the students are Japanese and most of the remainder speak Japanese, much of the discussion was in Japanese. They translated everything they could, but when students started asking questions and arguing, there was no time to translate what was going on. So there were long stretches when maybe 15 or 20 of us couldn't follow. One OYR, a Middle-Eastern students who I don't know well, stood and asked that all discussion be conducted in English. There was an awkward silence and then the people in the front row explained to the leaders that he had requested more translation (they couldn't understand him for his accent) and the leaders sort of whispered amongst themselves about it and the whole thing felt really awkward. But then it seemed ok, because the leaders genuinely accept his concern, and there actually was more translation for the rest of the night. I look forward to spring, when we'll all know enough Japanese to ignore English.

9/15/08

"No offense, Eyrun, but Spanish poeple are dicks."

Z told us a story today about a friend whose boyfriend followed he to England (from Italy), and it was really romantic at first but then they got into a fight and he kept following her and they ended up arguing in the rain and finally he says, "You know what your problem is? You like me. But I love you." Apparently they started making out soon afterward. ^_^

9/16/08

I found out today that the microwave in my kitchen is also an oven, a boiler, and an ice cream maker. An ice cream maker.

On Friday during writing class, the teacher asked Cory to read the directions, which were in English. It was weird. We're so used to reading Japanese. He kept messing up.

Eyrun is the only person in this whole school who is from Iceland. She whispered something to herself in Icelandic, and it shocked her -- she isn't used to hearing it anymore.

9/17/08

Last week I had a cool moment; a Japanese girl and I bumbed into each other and at the same time she said "I'm sorry," I said "Sumimasen."

Today we had our bakayama performance, which went well. Afterward, our 'cool' teacher, Komatsu-sensei, told us about when she was a student at ICU. She had bright pink hair, loads of earrings, and always dressed punk. When she returned to teach, her former teachers didn't even recognize her! She told us that she once burned down the bakayama! She and a friend built an igloo there and doused it in water, freezing it solid. It wouldn't melt, so campus police were getting angry and were going to smash it in with axes. Komatsu wanted to do it herself, but they decided it was too much work to smash it. So they filled it with newspaper and set it on fire. The fire spread through all the grass! The campus police started to come -- they could hear the siren -- so they both ran! No one ever kew it was her, and she made us swear not to tell anyone. She used a mixture of Japanese and English when she was talking, and it was very cool.

I had just finished telling a story today at a Ramen place when Z said I had a really good American accent. She said it was clear and easy to understand and that I enunciated well. I was kind of shocked at first. It's something I've never heard before. But it made me happy.

Tyler didn't get much sleep last night because Ko fell asleep at the end of his bed. So Tyler had to curl up at the head of it.

Global House

I got two big pieces of information today about my study abroad. One, I received my certificate of eligibility from Japan, which allows me to get a visa which allows me to stay in the country for more than 90 days. Yay! Very important paper. Grand Valley is sending it to my mom's house, so I should have it within a week, then I have to take it to a Japanese consulate either in Detroit or Chicago.

The other thing was that my dad got a package from ICU about my housing. Apparently, I've been accepted into the Global House, which is an on-campus dormitory. It's kinda cool, but I was actually assuming that I'd get an off-campus student apartment in downtown Tokyo...which is what I applied for...I thought...but anyway, the dorm requires a lot more community living (like having chores, group meetings, and wearing giant teddy bear costumes the first week of classes), but I think I'll be alright. I look forward to it.

The Global House is the newest building at ICU. It's also the biggest dorm, housing 64 people. Which isn't a lot in Grand Valley standards. Most of the dorms at ICU have around 24 people. It's insane. Anyway, about half of the people staying in Global House are international students, so I can only hope that I'll be living with people who are going through the same new experiences that I am. We may even have the same classes, since there's only one class for each level of Japanese!

I've been feeling a lot better about going lately. Ever since Kanako-san started e-mailing me (the girl picking me up from the airport and showing me around the first day), I've been much much more at ease about the whole thing. I've even had a lot of good dreams about it. Plus, I've been chatting with this French guy on Facebook who is also going this fall. It's very reassuring to know that I will at least have a couple of connections when I go there. ^_^