Seven Month Anniversary

On Sunday (the day after tomorrow) I will have been in Japan for exactly seven months. I had lots of ideas about the thoughts I might be thinking and the things I might be doing by the seventh month mark. I can't say if I'm ahead of progress or behind, because the truth I've gone completely off track. My goals have dramatically changed and I've realized that the reasons that I'm here now and what I'm supposed to be doing are not precisely the reasons why I came in the first place.

I thought by now I would be fluent in Japanese, or near fluency. Because I went through my first text book in three months, I was sure I would working through "Japanese for Busy People Three" by now. I thought I would be in love with the Japanese school uniform and that I'd be able to cook Japanese food. I thought I would enjoy Japanese television with my family and that I might even read Japanese books. I thought I own would have Hello Kitty stickers and pins stuck on it and that I would have whole CD's of famous J-pop singers memorized. I thought I would have no communication trouble and that I would speak only Japanese to my English teachers by now. I thought I'd be brilliant in kendo by now and that I'd have discovered a "new me" and that I would be completely in love with Japan by now.

I am not fluent in Japanese. I still have difficulty making myself understood. While I've made considerable progress, I can only barely call myself "conversationally fluent", especially if I'm talking to my host grandparents (who I've decided have worse Japanese than I do). In the four months that I've been working through my second text book, I have made it about a third of the way through. While this book is considerably more difficult and also introduces kanji, my learning has slowed waaaaaaaaay down and I am content with a new grammatical structure a week. When I'm walking home from school, I enviously watch the college students sport the newest fashions, looking down on us little high school kids. I can't cook Japanese food unless it's the table-top yaki style, which is like barbeque style only a little different. I watch TV sometimes, but more often than not, I completely tune it out and forget to even concentrate on what's going on. It's a lot like math class. As for reading, I bought my first manga and worked through about half of it with only few difficulties, then ran into an English book store and that's the last time I ever touched the manga. I'm still not a huge fan of Hello Kitty, though tolerating her is a survival skill I've picked up. I haven't memorized one single Japanese song, though I can sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" in English with my favorite Japanese singer. I still refer to my Japanese/English book and I still primarily speak English with my English teachers. I'm still the worst in my club at kendo (and the newest) and I'm still the same old Heather. And as for being in love with Japan, that's a little more complicated...

I was in love with Japan the minute my Rotary Club back home sent me the email announcing I'd be spending a year here. I was in love Japan as I peered wonderingly at the floating airport out the window. I was in love with Japan as all my teachers smiled and wished me a good morning in japanese-english. There hasn't been a moment when I haven't really loved Japan. But I love Japan in a totally different way than I did before. In the first two months, I loved that I had to remove my shoes and wear slippers in the house and that I ate rice with every meal and that I had to take a subway and a train to get to school. In the second two months, I loved that I was communicating in a foreign language and that I was learning kendo and that I was making so many friends by virtue of being foreign. And during months five and six, I loved that I was adapting and that the food was awesome and that I had scored two awesome host families. I loved the sites and the beauty and the people.

I've realized that I'm not here to be Japanese or to disregard American traditions. I've learned that I dont need to