Catching Up Pt. 2

Alright, so now that I've gone over essentially everything that happened in February, I'll talk about what happened in March. I'm kind of excited about March, because I went to my favorite type of concert: a Japanese drumming concert, called Taiko. It was at a local temple, and was performed as a play, called "Kiyohime and Anchin". But I'm getting ahead of myself.

(My favorite group, Kodo, is actually performing in a nearby city in early June, actually, and I'll be going to see them with a few exchange student friends! I'm super excited.)

So after I expressed an interest in going to see a Taiko performance, Rotary invited me and two other exchange students to a showing at a nearby temple. The Doujo that the Taiko drummers belong to isn't actually just for drumming; it's also a traditional dance studio, and we got to see some traditional dancing as well.

Anyway, the Taiko performance was about two...I hesitate to call them lovers, because while they were in love at one point, the man, Anchin, quickly fell out of love. However the woman, Kiyohime, was still in love, and was so angry when she figured out that he didn't have feelings for her anymore that she chased him basically across the whole of Japan before killing him. And apparently she turned into a giant serpent because she was just that angry. 

You know, I kind of understand where that story is coming from, though. After all, my mom also turns into a dragon when my dad does something stupid.

(Just kidding. I'm sorry mom.)

I researched this story after I saw the performance, I have to admit, just because it's really hard to convey turning into a dragon with just props. Also there was some speaking going on, but during Japanese story telling they tend to use old terms that even the modern Japanese don't know, so I was confused. At least the drumming was VERY COOL. There is something very satisfying about watching a bunch of fit people hit drums. Here's a video--I'm crossing my fingers that it'll work, but these things so rarely do.

Anyway, after that we watched a bunch of amateur performances by elementary schoolers, middle schoolers, and high schoolers. Very cute all around! This performance was also during cherry blossom time, so I got some nice pics of the temple. 

I found it very pleasing to ride through the mountains when there were sakura blossoms on the trees. Japan in the spring is the best. 

Anyway, continuing on. I got to see the semi-finals for the high school baseball league! You may be wondering, the semi-finals for the high school baseball league? Yes, that is correct. Baseball is a huge thing in Japan; there's a stadium in Osaka completely dedicated to the Spring and Summer league. The league is called 'Koshien', and I'm really disappointed that I'm missing this summer, because I really wanted to watch all of it.

Anyway, my host mom and I got to go because her coworker's child was on one of the teams, Chiben. Chiben won, and here's something I don't say often, but sometimes it's the truth: real Japan is sometimes a lot like anime Japan. Here's the story.

It was the bottom of the ninth, and the score was 0-1, with the other team in the lead. Chiben was having it's final at-bat, and here's the thing--no one actually had expected Chiben to win, because they'd been losing the entire game. 

But then one of the kids hit a huge one, and managed to get the two on base home. I think the stands literally exploded--everyone jumped to their feet and started screaming, and this guy who I'd only met that day reached out and grabbed my hand as we were all jumping and screaming. And then everyone started crying--Chiben was crying, my host mom was crying, I nearly started crying too out of solidarity. It was so much fun.

Anyway, so like I said in the last post--I had my aikido black belt test last week, and I passed! I am now a certified black belt! (Haha that reminds me--the other day in aikido I was paired up with this one friend of mine. And in aikido, you're trying to make people unbalance and fall over, essentially. So what I did was I pointed at his chest and said, "What's that?" When he looked down, I flicked his nose and pushed him over. Being a black belt really just gives you license to be eccentric.)

Language Learning

You know, I'm kind of in the mood to write, so I'm just going to make a short blog post about some experiences I've had with learning language. I've...packed a lot of language experience into the last seventh months, so I think I have a pretty broad view of it. My opinion is of course flawed, but I thought the perspective might be interesting.

One thing that I've really come to understand when learning a language, is the power of persistence and the grace to accept that you need to give up.

This is a very contradictory statement, and I'm aware of it. However it's true, and I'll explain why.

To learn a language, you need to be persistent; there is no substitute for an unrelenting drive. You can try to learn a language for years and years and never get a step farther if you don't practice. I remember when I was a kid, I used to go online and try and teach myself Russian or some other language, but I always got discouraged and gave up before I even tried. If I'd just pushed myself harder and practiced every day, instead of expecting to immediately be awesome at it, maybe by now I'd know two or even three languages.

However, on the other hand, you also need to know when to give up. I'm not saying give up on a language, or something silly like that. I'm just saying, there are somethings you're not going to understand at first, no matter how much you try at it. When I first started Japanese, there were some phrases that I would see and then spend hours looking up. I asked my Japanese friends, I asked my friends who were also learning Japanese. I looked it up in the dictionary, and online, where the results of my inquiries were mostly useless.

At a certain point in time, you need to accept that some expressions just aren't going to come to you until you have experience. I spend about a month looking up the phrase 'otoite', and then eventually learned that it doesn't really have an English equivalent, and there are just a lot of random things it relates to. It honestly still confuses me, but it's better than it was a month ago.

And that brings me round to my final point in language learning: there just isn't a substitute for complete language immersion. There just isn't. I've had a bit of an odd experience with learning Japanese; I would say that the first three months of my exchange I wasn't really immersed. My first host father was Canadian, so I spoke a lot of English at home, and because there were three Aussie exchange students at the school, I was pretty close with them and didn't have many Japanese friends. I was still speaking Japanese, but I would place the level of intensity right around a difficult college class, and not actually being in another country.

After I changed host families, and after the Australians returned--that's when my Japanese started to get really good. Which brings me around to the point that: if you are attempting to learn another language, I highly recommend that you watch movies in your chosen language. Read books. Get as much actual language exposure as you can, and if possible, travel to a country that speaks the language you're trying to learn. I know if you've tried to learn a language before, you've heard that about six billion times, but it's the truth.

Catching Up, Pt. 1

Okay guys, so I actually have a good reason not to have been posting ,besides the whole 'I was extremely busy' thing. I just recently moved in with a new host family, and they're...a little technology challenged, so I've been waiting almost a month to get my internet up. Sorry for the wait.

Because of this, though, I'll be doing a blog post a week, to catch up with all the stuff I missed. Forgive me if my English seems a little weird, as Japanese has started invading my brain and stealing my usual literary prowess. I shudder to think at the grades I'll be getting in my English class next year.

Anyway, to start: back in late February, I went with my host family to see a temple in Kyoto. I really wish I'd blogged about this earlier, just because the stuff in it was sooo cool. Here's the thing about this temple: right next to it there's the house of an old political leader, and most people can't go and look inside, just because it's considered a World Heritage Site. HOWEVER. Because the nephew of my host mom is a monk, we got a special VIP tour inside the house!! Along with some very, very interesting information.

This temple itself is called the Hongwan-ji Temple, and it is one of the many World Heritage sights in Japan (here's the thing about Japan, though--you could go a block away from your house in any direction and find a World Heritage sight). It's been considered one of the main schools of Buddhism for the last five hundred years, and is known as 'Nishi', which translates to West in English.

The house of the Political leader is directly next to it, and doesn't appear as impressive if one were to look at it. However it's got some really neat stuff, for example: as you walk along the wooden floor boards, you'll notice that there's an odd chirping noise. This is deliberate, because the floor was built so that the nails rub together whenever you step on them. Why is this useful?

Well in ancient Japan, people had a tendency to try an assassinate each other. An assassins job is made a lot more difficult if the floor they're walking on makes a sound every time one steps on it. This of course probably led to the whole legend of ninja walking on rooftops--because this 'Nightingale floor', as it is called, was built to prevent them from getting in the normal way.

Another interesting fact--the main visiting area is built like a hall, in that it's a wide, spacious area with pillars on either side, leading to the base of a tatami floor raised ever so slightly from the ground. I wish I could've taken a picture to give you a better image, but alas, pictures were not allowed. Anyway, when the political leader was visited, he did not actually sit facing his visitors; instead he sat to the right of them, perpendicular to the other person. I'm not sure if this had some sort of ritualistic meaning, but there you have it.

(I decided my explanation was too confusing, so I drew a picture)

However, right next to where the political leader would sit, there is a wall. However it is not, in fact, a wall, but a door, and sitting behind this door would be a retainer of samurai, ready to intervene in case someone decided that today was a good day to kill a leader. This led me to the conclusion that it was very hard to kill people who did not want to be killed in Japan.

Last of all, in this house there were pieces of carved wood hanging from the ceiling, placed between the massive pillars as decoration. Here's the thing: these giant slices of wood are really intricately carved, and depict beautiful scenes of nature or something of the sort. These giant slices of wood are also one piece of wood. Which means some person slaved away for hours on a tree to make it perfect. That takes dedication, people. If you ever come to Japan and see decorative wood hangings from the ceiling, chances are that it's one piece.

After that, we got to go to a movie park, and I got to sit on a horse and look cool. All in a days work.

Also, just to let you know, on Sunday I will be taking my black belt test for Aikido. Wish me luck!