日本に振られた！(Dumped by Japan!)

I have a feeling that everyone experiences their time abroad and their return radically differently. I suppose that would make sense.

Reverse culture shock and reverse homesickness (lame names, but what else do you call them?) has not been fun at all. It hit me when I walked past security in San Fran and saw a Burger King that I would not see Nanzan, Sakae, my host family, and a lot of other people and places for a while. All in all, the emotions have been really similar to a break-up. It may sound ridiculous, but fits perfectly.

There has been some culture shock, but that I can handle. People are rude to complete strangers! People hug each other! Lots of non-Japanese Asian people who are fluent in English - didn't expect to be shocked by that. Attending Reba Place Church has been particularly jarring culturally, but that church has the tendency to do that to anyone.

Yeah, this isn't fun, but I know it's part of the experience, and probably a good thing.

James

P.S. I really like this Okinawan song.

Where Are You Now?

I've been back in America for over a week now. Like my return from Egypt, my trip home has been full of unpleasant surprises, only more insidious and difficult to pinpoint.

How does one synthesize his newly changed identity with his old American self? That is the perennial question. Being in Egypt made me question my faith, my beliefs about the goodness of God, my love for others. Being in Italy made me question the finer points of my faith, the values of Protestant culture, and the stickier dogmas and stricter Biblical beliefs I have always held, but often fought in my mind.

Traveling for a good 8 months, I found myself, and still find myself, searching for "home", for belonging. That is an old pursuit for me. But it took a more starkly religious form this time, since my choices for spiritual support were limited. And I think I came home more confused and frustrated than ever. And I just want somebody to take me by the hand and tell me what to believe, so I won't always be wrong to half the people I love. And I want it to make sense.

I could not wait to be alone these past couple weeks. Now here I am in my apartment, and I have the music up loud so I don't notice how empty this place is.

Change is lonely. I just want to find God. I'm always surprised when He finds me instead. That's grace for you.

Buon Natale

I wanted to wish you all a merry Christmas. I felt that this can best be expressed with a very strange, very Italian commercial for cheese.

Actually, i just needed and excuse to post this:

Parmigiano Reggiano

一冊、二冊 ...

I am sitting next to a half-empty suitcase full of all the books I've acquired here. Books on cross-cultural communication, on the Japanese language, novels, and even a hymn-book - I count 15 in total, and I want to make one more run to the 本屋 this week. The nice thing is that they're small and therefore easy to pack, but they're heavy, so I'm going to have to be careful about the weight limit.

There's an appropriate word in Japanese:　ビブリオマニア, bibliomania.

Today was the last day at the church, and we talked to the pastor over lunch about our respective cultures, the churches we go to back home, and about Bonhoeffer. I still can't get over the fact that I talked about Bonhoeffer in Japanese.

--

Unless I come across anything really interesting upon returning, I think I'm going to cut off my portion of the blog here. I've used it before to unload ideas and thoughts buzzing in my head, but now I don't really have anything to write.

I think this was right length abroad for me, and it's been a good experience. It's helped that I've been here before, but I've still gone through some cultural confusion and conflict. And I've learned a lot. I would definitely recommend at least a term abroad for any college students reading this.

That's the way I do it.

I am writing to you all from JFK International Airport in New York. Why, you ask? Well, let me tell you. You see, I thought it would be fun to miss my connecting flight to Boston so I could spend the night here instead and then go to Chicago tomorrow morning, seeing as my plane will most definitely take off in a blizzard.

Why did I post this, you ask? Just to be dramatic. And also, if any of you are wondering where I am, now you know. Walking around the terminals of JFK like a homeless person.

See you for Christmas, I hope.

今、私が感じていること

Today was the last day of classes, and our Japanese class's party. We were treated to a rakugo performance by one of the Nanzan students, which is a one-man, storytelling act. A little hard to understand, but pretty funny. After that, I played cards with some of the other students for a hour or two (sadly, no Nerts or Dutch Blitz). We taught one of the senseis Egyptian Ratscrew - she really got into it, and as she got excited, she started speaking like someone half her age.

「あの、さ ...」

For those of who can 話す the 日本語, our class created a webpage with mini-essays about some of our experiences. 良かったら、是非見てください：　http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/~yasui/

I have a week left here and I don't know what to say anymore. I created this blog so that the four of us could let our friends and families know what we're up to, but that didn't work so well. It's hard enough to tell someone about your life when you're separated by a great distance, and impossible when that experience is as intense as study abroad. And it's not like conveying things will get easier upon returning. But I think that's somehow alright.

Arg, I don't want to leave Japan.

Why can't I have my cake and eat it, too?

Just for the sake of participtaing in the act of cyber-bullying, and fulfilling my own post-quota, I totally agree with James and Christine.

Geez, Tom.

Fine! Nyah! :P One more for the road...

At the trumpeting of my legions of obedient pawns, I shall grace thee once more with my manifestation before I embark upon my much-heralded return to the fabled land of my genesis.

These final tidings come to you at a time of great tribulation for me. I have been beset on many sides by all manner of tests and projects. Though I have already vanquished a great deal of them, yet a few more would seek to destroy me, choosing to disregard my inevitable triumph. I have no fear of them and will sweep them aside with a terrible joy.

I think it is appropriate to describe the various ways that I feel I have succeeded and failed in study abroad. Actually in terms of failures, from my perspective I don't think I can technically say I have failed my own expectations, because when I came here I had no expectations except that my previous life - the life at Northwestern - was going to become inaccessible, and so it was with a kind of grim resignedness that I both got onto the plane to Nanjing and got off of it. For quite some time after arriving, I think more than a month, I was extremely frustrated with myself, because I did not have good reasons for coming to China. I came to China because I had heard that study abroad is a good experience, and I mentally included myself among those brave types who claim to enjoy traveling. Well, traveling is one thing, and living in another country for a prolonged period of time very far from the people you care about it entirely another.

Of course, I can't say that I came to specifically China because I heard that study abroad is a good experience. To get at the root of it, I had decided to study Chinese for fun when I entered Northwestern - I was not in the College of Arts and Sciences when I entered (I was an engineer), so language was not a requirement for me. I picked Chinese because I knew I enjoyed learning languages, I didn't want to study another romance language (had already studied French), and Chinese was about as different as I could think of, and useful to boot, since China's development was pretty well known then - it was only two years ago, after all. Afterwards, I joined MultiEthnic InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (MEIV), and as any MEIV'er knows, half of my friends from thence onwards were Chinese. Between that and my language studies, China became an obvious choice for study abroad. And as for study abroad itself, I always knew I wanted to do it because of my family's experience in Kazakhstan (which I won't go into now). I wanted to live in another country again and I knew it would be good overall for me.

Flash forward again to this August. When I got off the plane, I was still thinking, "This could be fun," and I managed to hang onto that for a few days as I went through the adjustment process. But it really wasn't very long before the truth started to set in - I had come to China without doing much research on the country or even the city I was staying in, and I had just chosen to study abroad because "studying abroad is a good experience"! I had excelled in Chinese classes for two years but had never made much effort to actually learn to speak the language with people, and for the longest time the idea of people only using Chinese to communicate seemed simply ridiculous to me. Even a lot of my Chinese friends back home speak Chinglish to their parents. Yes, you know who you are.

I will illustrate my feelings on coming here by quoting a bit from my journal on my 10th day here, minus "spice" here and there that helped me express my frustration:
"Four months minus one day. Actually, in 3.5 months I will be back in Chicago. Today is my 10th day in China."
...
"Honestly, now that I'm here, I'm not that interested in learning Chinese. When am I ever going to really need this?"
...
"Maybe I should try a drinking game."
[several pages of frustration]
"At some other time there existed a Tom who wanted to do this. This Tom had not settled in anywhere, had not committed himself to anyone or anything, was free to travel and explore anywhere.
This is not me.
China is a prison for my soul."
So I'm a little melodramatic in my journal.

In the end, I somehow finished that journal entry on a positive note. And every time that I felt in despair about the pointlessness of my coming to China, I ended up coming back to a bit of hope: I could learn something from being here - and eventually, somehow, China would be good for me.

And here in the last week, I feel that China has been very good for me. My point, I suppose, if I am to stay at least vaguely on topic with my original intent when I set out to write this, is that I feel that I got a great deal more than I imagined I would from coming here. I will provide a few examples, though I won't explain my understanding of how I got from point A to point B because this blog is already too long: I feel that overall, my outlook on my existence is much more hopeful than it was this past summer (and for much of the past year), I feel that I have a deeper understanding of my (our?) identity as a community (perhaps because I left my community behind), and I feel that I recognize the importance of events and things in a broader way - perhaps because I am seeing the effects of leaving things behind and recognizing that I'm going to leave everything behind again! And also, I think that having your passport stolen in a foreign country will either make you very cross or build a bit of character - both, really.

But! besides those things, I think I will leave this blog entry open-ended, so that I may return and discover how I am different in America now compared to before I left. Having looked at life from the other side of the world for the past 4-ish months, I think my perspective on many things has changed.

I am sad to be leaving China, and I am glad to be returning to you all.

See you soon...

I agree with Christine - Tom, you should both post at least once before you leave.

Give and take

One of the most remarkable and unexpected things that's happened during the past few months - besides Dave posting twice within one month - is how the American exchange students at Nanzan University have started speaking Nihonglish, a mix of Nihongo (Japanese) and English. It tends to start with people substituting adjectives into their sentences,

"Oh man, that dessert looks oishii!" (delicious)

and slowly grows and morphs until people start conjugating Japanese verbs into English,

"I really ganbatt-ed that shiken."

It kind of started as a game for us, but sometimes when we're speaking in English, we'll use sentences that have more Japanese words than English ones. And as a few of us are getting ready to leave, we lament having to give up Nihonglish. It's both fun and allows you to be expressive in new ways.

This got me thinking about the idea of the purity of culture and language. I think I sort of have/had the idea that cultures and languages are betsu-betsu (separate) until people intermarry, but when I really think about it, it falls apart. Japanese language and culture has this image of homogeneity, but actually contains a lot of influence from China and the West. And I don't have to say anything about America, which is culturally something of a beautiful mess. Just look at the music we listen to and where it comes from - jazz, country, and rock and roll, to name a few.

Although it's good to maintain an identity and protect one's culture, cross-fertilization seems to be a good thing if done equally and in moderation. And I think it would be cool to see more people intentionally thinking up creative ways to do this, through language, music, food, or whatever. Maybe this would turn the immigration debate in America (and Japan, for that matter) on its head.

Once in a lifetime

Something remarkable happened today, so I decided to surprise my readership and blog ahead of schedule.

Today, in class, I accidentally drew on the pretzel of the person sitting next to me.

How is this possible? you may ask. Well, I was passing the attendance sheet and holding a pen, and his pretzel was there, and it just happened. There was a clear line across his pretzel afterwards. I don't think he noticed; he ate the pretzel during break.

Sometimes something happens, and you realize it will probably never happen to you again as long as you live. This was one of those times.

My posts will now proceed as scheduled, the next installment coming sometime in January or February or maybe March.

"Ti Saluto"

Today was my last day of Greek class at the Università di Padova. I am taking the final exam early tomorrow, since I am leaving before the Italian semester finishes.

"Ma non ci sarai di più?" asked a friend, sitting in front of me. And then I realized that it was true -- I won't be coming back. The people I've met and sit with every day I will probably never see again.

This student had been really helpful all semester, although she definitely got tired of me being confused and asking for help every morning. And my limited list of Italian questions, like "Com'è andato il tuo fine-settimana?" (How was your weekend?) I'm pretty sure I asked that on every day of the week.

We walked down to the main piazza and I had to go under the arch to get to the Greek library. And then we stood there and I realized that of all the things I've learned, the phrases and idioms and sentence structures, I never learned how to say goodbye.

And so she said it for me.