Wisdom from the bottle

I spent last Friday night at my favorite bar in the 堂山町 (Douyamachou) district, about ten minutes walk away from the JR Osaka station. I've been to Bar Bacchus once a weekend and am on friendly terms with a number of the regulars (does that make me a regular, too?) and especially the bar master, Chano-San. He recently shared with me the adage "苦労無くして、前進なし”, which is fairly literally "no pain no gain". Chano-san repeated it to me, half-scoldingly and half-encouragingly, as I started to waver about why I'm continuously working so hard.

By the wee hours of the morning, when it was just me and bar-masters Chano and Goro, (I guess KenKen was there too, but he was, erm, "taking a nap") we got to talking about personal histories and where I was going with this whole Japanese thing. Chano-san likes to brag to other customers that I'm 賢い because I go to Yale and I'm gonna be all important doing 外交 at the 大使館, and I had to confess, that whole thing about going to work in foreign service and diplomacy is mostly to have a satisfying answer when people get curious about why I'm interested in Japanese.

I started to realize at their questions that I have a hard time justifying when people ask "why are you majoring in Japanese?" I kinda waver around it with a long-winded explanation of my defiant urge to be good at the language, to prove myself capable of thriving in their culture. "Why did you choose Japanese in the first place?" I weasel all over the mulberry bush with a rant of how I don't want to fulfill the world's image of the ignorant, mono-lingual American. "Yeah, but why Japanese?" Reasons citing food and video games don't really cut it anymore. Is it enough to just think it's kinda neat?

I confessed to Chano my belief that even if I worked in Japan for a year or two at some point, I could never really be an ex-pat for a whole slew of reasons about me not belonging or not fitting in, not in Japan. He thought most of my excuses were kind of silly. This infinitely wise, moderately inebriated middle-aged man gave me a heart-to-heart explaining exactly how I was holding myself back with all the assumptions I've made depending on being accepted by others' systems.

But this week, I've been able to begin (gradually, painstakingly) shifting myself out of self-deprecating Yalie study mode, obsessed with all the reasons I'm treated differently and barred from ever fully integrating into Japan. I have little patience to deal with non-native speakers of English, yet somehow I've been fortunate enough to make a number of older friends here willing to sit and talk to me for hours, continually correcting my word choice and grammar and politeness and intonation, and then buy me drinks to boot. Even if I'm not finding that connection as much within the student group, the fact that strangers have been so kind and welcoming to me does a lot to undo the damage Ive dealt to myself by focusing on all the ways I'm not accepted.

I was told by a friend, in English, after a series of email exchanges in Japanese: "I could see your heart because you were the first foreigner to write so many word to me..." (awwwww) "...with so many mistakes." (crap).

From Summer 2010 OSAKA

If only happiness were really that simple. And a little bit stylish.

In other fun news, I have a cellphone! I hesitated for the first couple weeks but ultimately its been instrumental in allowing me to get out of the apartment and make plans with new friends I meet. If you're ever just so despondent you need to hear my voice, I receive calls for free at (International code 81) 080-3825-2476. I also have email on my phone- works a lot like texting if you write to roll.you.up.into.my.life@softbank.ne.jp. It is a fact that all Japanese young people must have obnoxiously long email addresses that can not easily be conveyed through spoken conversation, so I followed suit.

From Summer 2010 OSAKA

From Summer 2010 OSAKA

I found some broskis- Tim came up with some friends from Yale Summer Session in Tokyo. We fratted hard by going to the aquarium.

From Summer 2010 OSAKA

FISHY. WHY ARE YOU SLEEPING.

From Summer 2010 OSAKA

Most terrifyingly large crabs ever. They make Alaskan King Crabs look pretty docile. They also have like five layers of claws inside their mouths. ナニコレェ〜？！

From Summer 2010 OSAKA

The enormous Ferris Wheel overlooking Osaka Harbor.

From Summer 2010 OSAKA

Little prayer cards at a temple in Umeda.

From Summer 2010 OSAKA

I found Waldo! Who knew he was at the novelty omiyage store the whole time?!

From Summer 2010 OSAKA

Please note that when the class went on a study tour to the corporate office of Leo Palace, they had an enormous projection of Lady Gaga playing continuously in the lobby. This is the one aspect of the tour that could possibly make me want to work a corporate job in Japan.