Last post from Japan

Ok, I didn't quite catch up before I left, so I'll have to write up the last few days after I get home.

Right now I'm sitting in the airport, waiting for my flight. I really enjoyed my stay but I miss Ron and our kitties so much, it will be wonderful to get back home.

One thing about the trip...I had really wanted to immerse myself in Japanese, but it didn't really happen. With the internet, the familiar is just a click away. I could watch my favorite tv shows through the miracle of VPN (it was kind of cool to be in Japan watching the Amazing Race episode where they visited Japan, and they even went to places that I knew). I could follow my RSS feeds. I had a video chat with Ron almost every day.

But my Japanese is definitely much better now than it was when I got here. One big accomplishment is that I can now more or less read and write kana at speed, which I couldn't do before ("nu, nu, how do you write nu?") My kanji recognition is much better too.

Initially I frequently had to ask people to speak more slowly, or repeat what they said. Towards the end, that was much rarer. I'm now pretty good in situations where the conversation stays more or less where I expect it to, like getting directions, or conversing with waiters. But unexpected things still throw me for a loop. (I ordered some chicken ramen one day and the chef asked me if spicy was ok. Even though it was all language that I knew, I had to ask for it to be repeated because I wasn't expecting it.)

I think the biggest difference between Japanese and other foreign languages I've studied is what I call the "kanji wall". In other languages, if you see a word written, and it's a word you know, you can read it. Even if you don't know what it means, you can pronounce it. And if you have a knowledge of root languages, you can even figure out what it probably means.

Not so in Japanese...I know about 300 kanji, but there are over 2000 in common use. When I encounter an unfamiliar kanji word, I have no idea what it means (mostly...sometimes, because complex kanji contain simpler kanji, I can guess that it might, for example, have something to do with water, but that isn't always right.)

I found most Japanese people to be friendly. Many many people complimented me on my Japanese and always seemed willing to work it through if I didn't initially understand what they were saying. There is a neighborhood Doutor coffee shop where I've stopped almost every day...they sometimes start making my drink as soon as they see me coming in. Today, I told the person behind the counter that it was my last day, and she came over while I was drinking my latte, bowed, and thanked me for my business.

Many aspects of Japanese life remain mysterious. Why, for a country that places such a high value on personal cleanliness, do most public restrooms not have soap? Why are paper towels unheard of, and hand dryers so rare? Why are there so few trash cans around? Why, when you're out and about and need a rest, is it so hard to find someplace to sit down for a few minutes?

It turns out that if I had stayed one more day I would have gotten to experience an annular eclipse of the sun. Oh well!

Time to board my plane.  さようなら。(Sayounara...goodbye.)