７月４日（土）

Today was a humbling day. It's always good when you're really working on a skill and people are being encouraging to have one day where you're just thrown in the deep end and given a real hard time. It puts things in perspective. The day before my test may not have been the most confidence-inspiring time for this to happen, but I still think it was a good experience.

I met an old friend Hideki at Fuse Station in Higashi-Osaka and he immediately began speaking to me in Japanese the way he would speak to a native Kansai person: very quickly and thick in 関西弁 (kansai-ben, Kansai dialect). Since I studied for a year in the Kansai region, normally the dialect isn't much of a problem for me, but the speed was definitely hard for me to keep up with. Plus, he has a very masculine way of talking, while I have an easier time understanding feminine speech.

There's a lot I might have to explain about what I just said, so bear with me:

1. Kansai-ben
Kansai-ben has sound and word differences from 標準語 (hyoujyungo, standard language). For a sound change example, 会う (au, to meet) sounds more like おう (ou) in Kansai. The あ (ah) sound can be more like お (oh). Endings and expressions can also be different. A well-known difference is the expression そうだ (souda, that's right) actually turns into せいやねん (seiyanen) in Kansai. At the end of a comment in standard language, informally, people will say だよ (dayo) or だね (dane). If you put that in Kansai people will say やで (yade) instead. An example of a word difference is in standard language 自転車 (jitensha) is the word for bicycle, but a lot of Kansai people call bicycles チャリ (chari).

2. Male language vs. female language
I have met Americans with the perception that Japanese is a sexist language. This may indeed be true to some extent, but not always in the way people think. Usually people think words have gender like in some Romance languages such as Spanish and French. In Japanese, words don't have gender, but there are words that only men use, and words only women use. There are also conventions and sound differences in speaking depending on the gender of the person talking.
Word differences can be found in the word for "I." Now the word also varies on level of formality, age of the speaker, and sometimes dialect, but an example could be 僕 (boku, younger male word for "I") and あたし (atashi, younger female word for "I"). The only time you'll hear a woman say "boku" is when she is singing a song. Even some songs written with a female singer in mind will use the word "boku" for "I."
One convention is that the honorific お (o) or ご (go) is more commonly used in female speech. Even when speaking less formally, women are more likely to say お酒 (osake) or お寿司 (osushi) while their male peers will simply say 酒 (sake) or 寿司 (sushi). Women are also likely to speak more formally in general. In my thinking it's a bit sexist, but it is a convention that has remained in the language as it developed through different times when the culture itself was more sexist than it is currently, so I can understand.

That was a bit of a detour, but hopefully an interesting one. Anyway, I had trouble understanding Hideki, and he spent a lot of the time explaining new vocabulary or nuances to me while we were hanging out. Fortunately he was patient and helped me a lot. He seemed sort of surprised by how much trouble I was having, and seriously underestimated the number of years I've spent learning Japanese. That's just life, though. If you're a foreign-language learner you understand: some days your brain works just fine in the other language, other days you feel like you're just mechanically and shoddily translating each thing you want to say in your head.

After walking a while in the rain we decided to sing カラオケ (karaoke) for a couple of hours, a mix of Japanese and English songs. When you go to a karaoke joint in Japan, they give you a private box and you get unlimited soft drink and coffee bar. you can also order alcohol but it gets a bit expensive. It's a lot different from karaoke in the US because you are in a room alone with your friends, and it's usually seen as a stress-reducing activity. In the US you're usually in front of people you don't know, alone, and no one wants to hear you if you're not fairly decent. Fortunately in Japan, it usually doesn't matter if you're a good singer or not, it is just an activity for socializing. You can adjust the volume of your mic and the background music, so if you're really embarrassed you can try to hide your voice. People take turns choosing songs but if other people know the song someone picked they will sing it all together, not just individually. It's a lot of fun.

Maybe it wasn't the best tribute to America, but I sang Surfin' USA by the Beach Boys because it was 独立年日 (dokuritsu nenbi, Independence Day). Masao and Hideki both told me おめでとう (omedetou, congratulations) since it was Independence Day, which I thought was kind of funny.

I came home in the early evening feeling pretty panicked about my test because I'd just had my ass handed back to me in Japanese. All I could do was try to be calm, study a little, and sleep sufficiently.

Travel tips:
8. Scary and discouraging days happen, sometimes at the worst possible time, but you just have to roll with the punches. Don't let failure take your motivation, and don't let shame keep you from trying. Maybe you just had an off day, said something really stupid, or acted in a way inappropriate to the culture and unknowingly offended someone you care about. I've done all of these things, multiple times. It's the hazard of trying to fit in with a culture you didn't grow up in. You're going to fall flat on your face sometimes, but you have to try to forgive yourself and keep your confidence and motivation up in any way you can. Don't avoid putting yourself in scary situations, because if you avoid making mistakes you won't learn and grow. We're all human and we all mess up.
9. Do karaoke in Japan. It's super fun!

(All names used in this blog are pseudonyms.)