Becoming Assimilated
I have a little time on my hands and haven't posted for a while, so I thought I would update people on what has been happening. This post is unlikely to be that funny, though I will try to put some humor in, if possible. It is mostly for my parents and friends back home who are wondering about my general condition, not people looking for a good story. I will write one of those later. I have now been living in Japan for about 15 months, and haven't left the country in 6 months. Actually, I haven't even left my island, Shikoku, for 5 months.
As you might have noticed with my lack posting, I find myself usually very busy in Japan, and I have only been getting busier over time. With my good friend Steve having left Japan in August, I have started hanging out with a lot more of the other foreigners and making friends with Japanese people. Given the low level of English in my rural area, combined with the lack of young people aged 18-29, and general social customs, making friends was quite difficult for me my first year. Sure, I got to become acquaintances with some people, but only in the last couple months has my Japanese improved such that I have I met people and made friends outside the "gaijin social circle", which includes the foreigners and the Japanese who hang out with various foreigners often. Not just friends, but people who I can call up, hang out with, ask questions, or do whatever I want. They also have a variety of jobs and hobbies, which has lead me to doing things like Octopus hunting and knowing good mechanics to get a sound system in or get my Shakken(Japanese Vehicle Registration) done for cheap.
My Japanese has been improving(I have been studying, just not enough), but I go back and forth between feeling like I am starting to get very good and feeling like I will never get to where I want to be. My mood has, for the most part, been fairly upbeat(though tired), but it seems that one moment or incident can make you feel really depressed for a short moment sometimes. I feel like I need a really long vacation, but when I have time off, I tend to spend most of it doing things that make me even more tired.
I am also somewhat conflicted about where I want to go in the future. I am enjoying living here, making decent money and learning Japanese, but as my father pointed out to me, my engineering degree will become worthless if I leave it collecting dust for too long. Talking with several friends, I realize that graduate school is the best option for me, but the choice of where to do it(Japan, America, Binghamton, Albany) when to do it(After this year, after my 3rd year, after my 5th), and what to do(Bioengineering, Business, Japanese, Politics) is still difficult for me. Also, affording graduate school will put me into debt, which is not something that I like to think about. I also have a perfect Math score for my GRE that will expire eventually.
I also feel like I am starting to assimilate to Japan, and not always in the best of ways. I think I have lost a lot of my morality, and it is falling even faster. I am getting used to things that I should be outraged about, and I do or consider things that I would never have thought about doing back in America. In a country were sexual harassment is a joke and seems like it is welcomed half the time, your sense of decency and morals start to waver. I now can tell how old Japanese people are, see the differences between them, really understand the culture, and have a general feeling of knowing the ropes.
The constant feeling of being out of place has started to subside and it is being replaced with the feeling of being a local. This has the added effect of making me even more upset when someone freaks out in the supermarket just because I am not Japanese. I normally humor most people, and thought that I would never really get angry just because of stupid questions, but when you walk into a place, read the kanji on a menu, they know you have lived here for over a year, you speak local dialect phrases with your Japanese, and they still ask if you can use chopsticks, or worse, have ever had udon(basically the standard food in my prefecture, and the only type of restaurants in my town...I have had it 1,000s of times), it really annoys you a bit. Though it is fun to hang out with Japanese friends, go places(movies, restaurant, stores), and have them see and watch the way you are treated. It gives them a totally different view on things.
I once argued with a friend that I couldn't be seen going into the adult section of a book/game/video store because I was a foreigner. Since going into such a place isn't abnormal in Japan and people usually don't mind or say anything about it, even for a teacher, they didn't know why it would be a problem. One shopping trip to Utazu, where in every store we went, I was stopped by students who saw me and then asked me 20 questions convinced her otherwise. That the rules of privacy in Japan only apply to Japanese people. After a few lessons like these, it is fun to see your Japanese friends get defensive for you. "Of course he can use chopsticks." "He can speak Japanese, you know." "Why do you care?" It is kinda nice.
Anyways, it is taking me a lot of time to adjust to being busy with full time work and life. You end up, after essential things, having maybe 2 nights during the week and 1 day and 2 nights during the weekend to do things like socialize, study Japanese, clean your apartment, meet new people, go to parties and events, visit temples, exercise, or even just relax. You get really worn down, the coffee can't keep you going any longer, and you just crash, having wasted a day on sleeping and yet still feeling just as tired the next day. I have so many things I want to do, but they all seem to cancel each other out. Anyways, I gotta go eat lunch with the students, so I am going to go now. Don't worry, I promise the next post should be funnier. I have a group blind date(4-5 Foreign guys meeting 4-5 Japanese girls at an izakaya) this Friday, and a lot of other fun, story generating things have happened as well. Oh, by the way, if I hadn't mentioned before, I got my Japanese Driver's License.
As you might have noticed with my lack posting, I find myself usually very busy in Japan, and I have only been getting busier over time. With my good friend Steve having left Japan in August, I have started hanging out with a lot more of the other foreigners and making friends with Japanese people. Given the low level of English in my rural area, combined with the lack of young people aged 18-29, and general social customs, making friends was quite difficult for me my first year. Sure, I got to become acquaintances with some people, but only in the last couple months has my Japanese improved such that I have I met people and made friends outside the "gaijin social circle", which includes the foreigners and the Japanese who hang out with various foreigners often. Not just friends, but people who I can call up, hang out with, ask questions, or do whatever I want. They also have a variety of jobs and hobbies, which has lead me to doing things like Octopus hunting and knowing good mechanics to get a sound system in or get my Shakken(Japanese Vehicle Registration) done for cheap.
My Japanese has been improving(I have been studying, just not enough), but I go back and forth between feeling like I am starting to get very good and feeling like I will never get to where I want to be. My mood has, for the most part, been fairly upbeat(though tired), but it seems that one moment or incident can make you feel really depressed for a short moment sometimes. I feel like I need a really long vacation, but when I have time off, I tend to spend most of it doing things that make me even more tired.
I am also somewhat conflicted about where I want to go in the future. I am enjoying living here, making decent money and learning Japanese, but as my father pointed out to me, my engineering degree will become worthless if I leave it collecting dust for too long. Talking with several friends, I realize that graduate school is the best option for me, but the choice of where to do it(Japan, America, Binghamton, Albany) when to do it(After this year, after my 3rd year, after my 5th), and what to do(Bioengineering, Business, Japanese, Politics) is still difficult for me. Also, affording graduate school will put me into debt, which is not something that I like to think about. I also have a perfect Math score for my GRE that will expire eventually.
I also feel like I am starting to assimilate to Japan, and not always in the best of ways. I think I have lost a lot of my morality, and it is falling even faster. I am getting used to things that I should be outraged about, and I do or consider things that I would never have thought about doing back in America. In a country were sexual harassment is a joke and seems like it is welcomed half the time, your sense of decency and morals start to waver. I now can tell how old Japanese people are, see the differences between them, really understand the culture, and have a general feeling of knowing the ropes.
The constant feeling of being out of place has started to subside and it is being replaced with the feeling of being a local. This has the added effect of making me even more upset when someone freaks out in the supermarket just because I am not Japanese. I normally humor most people, and thought that I would never really get angry just because of stupid questions, but when you walk into a place, read the kanji on a menu, they know you have lived here for over a year, you speak local dialect phrases with your Japanese, and they still ask if you can use chopsticks, or worse, have ever had udon(basically the standard food in my prefecture, and the only type of restaurants in my town...I have had it 1,000s of times), it really annoys you a bit. Though it is fun to hang out with Japanese friends, go places(movies, restaurant, stores), and have them see and watch the way you are treated. It gives them a totally different view on things.
I once argued with a friend that I couldn't be seen going into the adult section of a book/game/video store because I was a foreigner. Since going into such a place isn't abnormal in Japan and people usually don't mind or say anything about it, even for a teacher, they didn't know why it would be a problem. One shopping trip to Utazu, where in every store we went, I was stopped by students who saw me and then asked me 20 questions convinced her otherwise. That the rules of privacy in Japan only apply to Japanese people. After a few lessons like these, it is fun to see your Japanese friends get defensive for you. "Of course he can use chopsticks." "He can speak Japanese, you know." "Why do you care?" It is kinda nice.
Anyways, it is taking me a lot of time to adjust to being busy with full time work and life. You end up, after essential things, having maybe 2 nights during the week and 1 day and 2 nights during the weekend to do things like socialize, study Japanese, clean your apartment, meet new people, go to parties and events, visit temples, exercise, or even just relax. You get really worn down, the coffee can't keep you going any longer, and you just crash, having wasted a day on sleeping and yet still feeling just as tired the next day. I have so many things I want to do, but they all seem to cancel each other out. Anyways, I gotta go eat lunch with the students, so I am going to go now. Don't worry, I promise the next post should be funnier. I have a group blind date(4-5 Foreign guys meeting 4-5 Japanese girls at an izakaya) this Friday, and a lot of other fun, story generating things have happened as well. Oh, by the way, if I hadn't mentioned before, I got my Japanese Driver's License.
posted by Omega037 @ 9:35 PM
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