Confessions of a Japanophile

Hello Steemians! It's been a while, hasn't it? Between moving back to New York, schoolwork, and a new internship, I'm afraid I just dropped the ball on posting for the last couple months. But to get back in the swing of things, and since many of us will be traveling to Lisbon for SteemFest (I can't wait to meet you there!), I thought I would write about traveling to another country that I adore as much as I hope to adore Portugal. Happy reading!

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I am fourteen years old, and I have just discovered the joys of manga and anime. I fall down the rabbit hole at a dizzying speed, learning how to read comics right-to-left and read subtitles while watching television. Japan seems like a far-off, mystical land, and I have trouble integrating the historical knowledge I have of it with what I'm learning through my rapid-pace consumption of their entertainment. I'm disoriented by the lexicon of -kuns, -chans, -sans, and -samas (these are honorific suffixes denoting status and relationships between speakers, but no one bothered to explain this to me, dear reader.) For the first few months, I'm convinced that every character in every Japanese story has at least four names. I'm completely bewildered. But I'm also completely smitten.

I am sixteen years old, and I have convinced my parents that I should be allowed to study Japanese with a tutor once a week, even though I'm already studying French at school. I'm slightly less obsessed with manga and anime now, but they have been replaced by a deep interest in Japanese language and culture. I struggle with learning hiragana, regale my tutor with tales of my attempts to cook Japanese food (she indulgently becomes my supplier of kombu seaweed), and realize that all of my anime-watching has actually gifted me with a decent Japanese accent. See Mom? Television can be educational! And of course, I start to dream of going to Japan.

I am seventeen years old, and my dream has come true. During my spring break, I end up on a whirlwind tour of Sapporo, Kobe, and Kyoto during cherry blossom season. I am delighted by the beautiful scenery, the high-tech trains (and high-tech toilets!), the way the old and new sit comfortably next to each other. As an American, the idea of having a modern society based on thousands of years of history is both completely foreign and deeply appealing to me. I also experience a significant culture and language barrier, but this only leaves me determined to learn more about Japan. The country is infinitely more complex than I ever could have imagined in my anime-induced dreams, but it is also infinitely more entrancing, and I fall hopelessly in love with it.

I am nineteen years old, just out of high school, and studying Japanese in Tokyo for two months. It's a crash course in living on my own -- when I start college, it will seem easy by comparison. I learn to navigate the infamous Tokyo rush hour, make new friends during the long hours at language school, cram as many kanji into my brain as I possibly can, and am rewarded by my growing understanding of Japanese. The two months are heady and wonderful, but they also help me to realize a bitter truth: even if I speak Japanese perfectly and live in Japan for the rest of my life, I will always be viewed as an outsider. With this knowledge, I decide to change my planned major from Japanese Studies to Technical Theatre (a drastic shift, I know. Perhaps I'll explain in another post).

I am twenty one years old, and I am in Japan for a two-week backpacking trip. Despite ending my formal study of Japanese, the country still calls to me, and I'm delighted to be back. I visit all my old favorite spots in Tokyo, ogle at the Daibutsu (Great Buddha) in Kamakura, cry and admire the resilience of Hiroshima, pet a lot of deer on Miyajima, become friends with a pumpkin (you can read about it ) on Naoshima, and meet up with my dad and little sister to serve as their translator in Kyoto. I have a more nuanced understanding of the country now, thanks to years of studying the history and language. I'm also more confident in my ability to respect the unwritten social customs that are ingrained in Japanese society, though I still encounter awkward situations at times. Compared to the first time that I visited Japan, I'm far better prepared. I'm also incredibly happy, hoarding my new experiences and memories to look back on fondly when I'm in the United States again.

But the biggest shift comes when I leave the country -- unlike every other time, I'm not sad. Because by now I know that Japan owns a piece of my heart, so no matter how many times I have to leave it, I will always find my way back.

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All of the photos in this post are my own work, so please be aware that the usual copyright rigmarole applies.