Bust out the shorts, it’s officially spring in Japan. At the beginning of the month a festival called Setsubun took place, which marks the final day of winter. There are a couple of events that take place throughout the day. I wish I was making it up when I said that small children make demon masks and run around throwing beans at each other, but evidently the Brothers Grimm never made it out this far east. You’re also supposed to eat a number of beans which matches your age. Presumably not the ones which have been on the floor. I ate about 10 with my school lunch. I’m not 10. Sad times. Later on in the day you’re also supposed to eat ehomaki, which is to all intents and purposes a giant California roll. To have good luck, you have to clear your plate in silence while facing in an auspicious direction. I fulfilled none of these requirements. Seaweed does not fill me with joy, I don’t know where south-east is and I’d just eaten a small family tub of ice cream. Looks like I’ll have to hole up in a padded room somewhere and wait 2016 out.
Apart from the bad luck dangling over my head, my life has finally started to settle into a routine. Wake up, grumble, pray for the day to end, rinse and repeat. This is different from my life before, I promise! I’m now able to get through the day without surprise octopus in my food and the sight of bills no longer fills me with dread, just the desire to flip the V sign at everything. This has allowed me to reserve a little time to think beyond ‘must eat’ and ‘bed comfy’ and compare my experiences in Saga so far with my last time out here in Kyoto. It turns out that there is one particularly striking difference:
Ain’t nobody speaking English out here.
This may seem pretty obvious, which it is. However, I’m an idiot, so this has surprised me. Coming from a place which was pretty tourist friendly and being in a faculty full of people who’d studied abroad meant that I was able to get around easily with only the odd word of Japanese last time. Saga is an entirely different animal.
The general reaction to English here isn’t screams of terror, but it’s not too far off. When faced with English, people here tend to resort to more Japanese, only now trembling slightly and with eyes like dinner plates. Occasionally a gaggle of elementary school kids will chase me through my town screaming “Hello” at me, but other than that Saga is generally a bit of a ghost town when it comes to English.
This wouldn’t be an issue if I was fluent in Japanese. Yeah. I have my reasons. I’m looking at you, biscuits. In reality, I’m probably the most accomplished mime in Saga, as I’ve perfected my ability to carry out all daily tasks in total silence. My ‘deer in the headlights’ expression is becoming a fan favourite. However, as difficult as it is, I can deal with occasionally eating chicken when I want pork. I can even handle making fearful mumbling sounds when I’m trying to ask for the toilet. I’ve never needed to know the Japanese for ‘clean up in aisle 3’. My biggest issue is that only knowing one language locks you into the world of that language. Here in Saga, the English language world isn’t exactly thriving. Despite living in Japan, I am unable to make too many local friends simply because we don’t share a language. I’m reliant on a tiny pool of foreigners and English-speaking locals in my battle against accidentally becoming a hermit. This sucks, because I know a lot of Japanese people from last time out and they tend to be great.
It turns out, then, that being able to speak the local language is actually a bit useful. My Japanese is, erm, not the best, which leaves me with only one course of action if I’m to avoid crippling loneliness and a fully-fledged addiction to comfort eating. This post marks the beginning of my new language mission:
Be able to speak Japanese to B1 level on the CEFR scale (almost fluency) by June 1st.
I can almost feel your eyebrows raising in disbelief as you read that. Allow me to add to the feeling by saying that I also don’t intend to lock myself away from humanity while I do this. I have read and seen enough evidence over the last few months to know that this sort of goal is not impossible. In fact, if you work hard and focus it’s possible to go beyond the level I’ve set and reach fluency in 3 months. I’m going to be using methods inspired by Benny Lewis, Scott Young and Vat Jaiswal (links below), who have done this several times through immersing themselves in their target language and using the language as much as possible right from day 1. I’m not going to be doing too much sitting and memorizing tables of verb conjugations. My goal is to be able to speak Japanese with Japanese people, so a ton of practice will be far more useful. The best way to do this is to go out, meet people and challenge myself one step at a time in the language. I love it when a plan comes together. Sort of. I appreciate that this all sounds a bit vague, but hopefully all will become clearer as I progress. I need to start now, but I also want to save your eyesight. I am not responsible for any bills at the opticians resulting from the reading of excessively long blog posts.
I have a whole shopping cart of reasons why I’m attempting to do this, as well as justifications for why this is possible. However, the most powerful is the simple desire to see what I can do if I use the time I waste every day. The sheer amount of time I spend grazing through another tub of ice cream while staring vacantly at the ceiling is frightening. I’ve decided that I might as well battle procrastination in pursuit of a mad goal and get a little way than give Japanese by Osmosis a go for another year. If I am going to make new, long-lasting friendships with Japanese people in Saga, I have very little choice. Even if I don’t get very far, I will be better off than before I put down the spoon and tub and started trying. As nice as almond choc chip ice cream is, it’s never going to help me achieve anything. Except perhaps diabetes.
So how can you get involved? If you’re Japanese, let’s talk! I’m going to need all the practice I can get. If you’re not, then help me stick to my goal. Ask me questions, demand to know what I did with my day, beat me over the head with a dictionary, anything. Half the reason I’m doing this mission is to panic myself into achieving something. The other half is to be a human guinea pig and hopefully give everybody a fuzzy feeling from a satisfying conclusion. Try to leave the derisory laughter at the door, though. I’m quite good at providing that myself. I’ll be posting monthly updates on my progress that will hopefully shed a little more light on how I’m going about this. I’ll also be doing unrelated posts on life in Japan, so if this doesn’t rock your world, fear not. Until next time, where’s my ice cream?
The framework I’m using to define my goals is used across Europe to measure progress in a variety of languages. Fluency is generally believed to start at around B2 level: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages
Benny Lewis’ ‘Fluent in 3 Months’. Dive into it and find all sorts of tips and tricks for language learning! http://www.fluentin3months.com/start-here/
Scott and Vat lived for a year without English and learned 4 languages. Read more about it here: https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/the-year-without-english-2/
あなたに幸運を希望
🙂