I’m feeling reflective so this is going to be a list of new things I’ve learnt that I didn’t know before, things that I now just understand better, and things I knew but wasn’t consciously aware of. Not just living here, as an Australian in Japan, but living as a human on Earth too.
For me, living abroad has been like going from living in a house that had the windows and doors locked shut, pleasant and comfortable as it was, to finally busting open a window and jimmying open a door. Suddenly the most refreshing breeze gushes through the window, tickling your face, stirring up excitement and wonder in the depths of your belly, causing you to deeply inhale the cool air, filling your lungs and giving you a spectacular burst of energy. Then you whip your head around to catch your first sight of the bare threshold, that once formed the boundary between your familiar cosy home and the awesome mysterious ‘out there’, but is now a mere step to the endless opportunities you’ve dreamed of for… well forever. Walking across it, anxiety and fear invade you but once on the other side, it is the most liberating, adventurous and satisfying thing you’ve ever done.
Inside my old ‘house’, it was like I was a child always watching and listening to the kids play on the swings but not being able to get out and join them. I could see and hear enough of what was happening out there to be curios, envious and restless but never so much that I could feel part of it. Now I am getting to run and jump all over the playground, and it’s even bigger than it looked from inside!
My mind, and consequently my world, is growing exponentially bigger and I love it. Apart from studying and immersing myself in a fascinating foreign culture, being away from your home, your family, your friends and your native country is like taking a highlighter to your social and physical identity, opinions, habits, interests and experiences. I just feel more…myself. And better yet, more and more ok with whom and what that is.
So, the list of my lessons (and confirmations) at 4.5 months in:
- Time really does fly when you’re having fun!
- Hiragana (50 character Japanese syllabary for native words)
- Some Katakana – it’s a work in progress! (48 character Japanese syllabary for foreign words)
- A syllabary is like an alphabet but is “A set of written characters for a language, each character representing a syllable.”
- Kanji – Ok I only know like 5! (The complex pictures that stand for whole words or concepts in Japanese writing)
- Japanese vocabulary that I remember easily (in the order I’m recalling them): hello/ good afternoon, goodbye, good morning, good evening, thank you/ thanks/ thank you very much, excuse me, sorry, beautiful, cute, scary, wonderful, amazing, me, mine, I, you, yours, too, to, and, so, um, yes, no, mountain, hill, river, road, egg, bread, rice, grilled, water, tea, coffee, different/ wrong, foreigner, train, station, please, book, this, that, here there, maybe, funny/ interesting, but, yet, nothing, cold, hot, weather, nice, really, right, ok, one of, two of, festival, juice, skilled, speak, a little, one moment, thanks for your hard work, teacher, company employee, bank, chair, meat, fish, cherry blossom, month, week, today, tomorrow, next week, 1-100 (kind of!), understand, have, don’t have, am/ is, am not/ is not, come from, person, English, American, Japanese, japan, bullet train, ticket, English language school, student, same, plum wine, chicken, tuna, take care, go ahead, month, let’s go, where, who, why, eat, drink, cat, dog, because, well, sweet, soy sauce, meal, hand…um is that all I know? Ahhh first time I’ve recorded these! Now I need to write them all in Japanese for homework, methinks.
- The people in your life really are the sun, the moon and the stars
- I have an exceptional support network of family, friends and associates
- I am patriotic (never thought of myself as this)
- I am a feminist (nor this)
- Australia really is the lucky country
- I don’t know enough about it
- I am actually interested in politics
- British people don’t say specifically the country they are from e.g. “I’m from the UK”, not England/ Scotland etc.
- Japan is roughly the same size as Victoria but its population is over 6 times Australia’s
- Australia is 350 times the size of Shikoku Island
- I have a serious addiction to sugar
- My boyfriend is remarkably accepting and encouraging
- I am stronger than I thought and braver than I believed
- Optimism is a decision
- I do not want to raise my children in a mostly homogenous community
- I am embarrassed by the racism I’ve grown up with
- My technical knowledge of English grammar leaves a lot to be desired
- Japanese people are amazingly kind, helpful and generous
- I enjoy my own company
- I love Japanese food, especially soba (buckwheat noodles), tempura and anko mochi (sugary red bean paste sticky rice dumpling thing)
- Japanese food is not just weird gross stuff like raw fish – prawn and tuna really are gross. But salmon is good
- Spaghetti Bolognese is my go to dinner
- Mediterranean cuisine is my favourite
- I love cleaning, especially my floors
- Acne is my biggest hate
- I’m not a fearful person
- My family is very difficult to draw as a linear tree
- I like hiking
- Hiking is just bushwalking
- I’m more outdoorsy than I thought; when I go back to Australia I want to take advantage of all the nature-based activities around me
- I have a small face, according to Japanese people
- I love being naked
- I love onsens (public bath houses using natural spring water)
- Japanese customer service shits all over Australia’s. All customer service trainers should study their models.
- I love being on, near or in the water
- I want to travel, I want to travel, I want to live overseas in other countries, I want to travel
- I want to continue studying Japanese even when I leave Japan
- I want to revise and further my Spanish studies
- And I definitely still want to live and teach English in Spain
- I can’t function without lists and schedules
- I am a natural mediator
- Waxing is one of my necessary evils and Japan is sadly not on board
- The best thing about driving a car is being able to transport large or heavy things. And temperature control
- Asian men can be hot
- Exercise is extremely important to me and I want to train as long as my body can handle it
- I get excited over vegetables
- Grocery shopping makes me happy
- I can’t push a trolley without wanting to put my whole body weight on the handlebars and glide along the floor
- Soybeans are one of my favourite snacks and sides
- Evening Primrose Oil is a permanent fixture in my life, I’m sure it prevents me from moody dives and dips
- Japan is very good at problem-solving; spare glasses next to the spare pens at the post office, head nets for preventing makeup marks when trying on clothes, automatic parking machines – as in human less, baby seats in women’s’ toilet cubicles,
- Japan is shockingly far behind in ‘saving the environment one plastic bag at a time’ – you get plastic on and for everything here! I mean every bag of cookies has each one individually wrapped. And there is no question at the checkout, you have 5 bags on your person but if you buy a drink you will get it in a plastic bag, plus a plastic wrapped straw and a plastic wrapped towelette.
- I love, love, love watching TV series, movies and listening to music – can’t imagine life without them
- I am an excellent networker
- I will not settle for mediocrity
- I want big professional, material, monetary success and I believe I will get it
- I really do want my big, beautiful Northern Beaches house by the ocean, this dream has become a goal
- I also want to be seriously and actively philanthropic
- I kind of want to change the world, a little bit (mostly in terms of educating people, and children most importantly, about good mental health and happiness as a choice)
- My mind is chaotic sometimes
- Excitability is a good characteristic
- Absence makes the heart grow fonder
- I really, really love animals
- I still baulk at and hate conflict
- All clouds have a silver lining.
There is so much more I have learnt and realised, I really should be documenting more of it. I am going to make more of an effort with this blog. Maybe If I wrote more often it wouldn’t be such a long, random, rambling! I guess I usually go to Facebook or Instagram to share my thoughts, feelings, moments and findings. I do want to have something more in depth to look back on, and practise my writing though so I am going to attempt to write once a week for the remaining 38 weeks or so. (Wow that’s like a full term pregnancy!).
I am already in my 19th or 20th week and I only have 5 Funny Pics of the Week up! I guess it’s not always funny, or fun, or worth writing about; sometimes it’s very serious, or mundane, or normal or difficult. So I will at least just upload a Pic of The Week, no set tone.
At the end of the day, I am working full time and looking after myself by myself so it’s business as usual a lot of the time. And then I remember I am in Japan making one of my dreams come true, and I am truly enjoying my life!
Anyway, this experience is proving to be extremely rewarding and it is building a strong foundation for me to continue learning and discovering. I never want to be stationary or complacent. Here’s to our collective human revolutions.
If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.
same frog, new pond 