帰国

Okay, I really want to go to bed, but I wanted to bang out some quick thoughts on my overall experience on my last night here in 守口市。

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the whole thing. And I think that's to be expected. I'm definitely glad I came. I'm really determined to put my Japanese skills to use, and get better, and maybe even someday call myself fluent. It's good to know that I still have that resolve after spending 4 months here. I am not sure how I feel about living in Japan, though. I think that when this current 20s-ish generation grows up a little more, there are going to be a lot of social changes. So maybe I'll wait until then to live here again. But you know, this was a really important experience for me, as a young person, as an American, as a woman. It was really quite something to be in the minority. And you know that's another thing--Japan's homogeneity scares me to death. Sure, there are foreigners living here, but I think that if Japanese society would stop marginalizing non-Japanese so much, we might have an easier time. Part of this has to do with the language barrier. The general view is that Japanese is a ridiculously hard language, so no foreigner is going to know any of it. The truth is, Japanese is not a hard language to speak, not at all. You can convey entire sets of emotions and feelings with just one word, instead of having to construct an entire sentence. Compared to English, Japanese spoken sentences are extremely short. Reading and writing is a different beast however, but the more aggressive you are with your spoken Japanese, the more people will try and understand you.

I suppose next time I should try living in a smaller town. Andy has had some wonderful experiences in less-populated areas, and I've had other people tell me that the relationship you have with people in a smaller town is radically different from what you have living in a big city like Osaka, and I believe that 100%.

But you know, it was fun, I didn't work too hard, and I certainly learned a lot. And I'm really excited to go home and have my beautiful California summer and eat burritos and go to the beach and play video games and see all the people I missed so much while I was here. And I'm sure when I come back, I'll have an even better grip on things.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about blogging. I really liked having it as an outlet. If I do decide to continue though, I'm going to start a new one at a different address. So, thanks for reading, I really do appreciate it.

それじゃ、また。