12.15.2004

The reidisu biker club

Kaori Shoji writes an  article describing what it's like to be part of a girls' biker gang. It reminds me of the character, Ichigo, in Shimotsuma Monogatari (Kamikaze Girls in US).

The movie was filmed in Shimotsuma and the title is literally, Shimotsuma Story. Shimotsuma is near Tsukuba-san, and my friend Lianne, who taught at Shimotsuma Niko, knows some of the students who were in the movie.

12.14.2004

Excuse My Grammar

Despite all my efforts to be as literary as any English major AND writer can be, I am still losing my English. So, now, I am not only losing my Japanese, but I am also losing my English.

But I have excuses! First, I just got back from Japan, and Second, I am reading school kids' essays all day and sometimes using the word "was" instead of "were" sounds completely legit to me. I can't even use idioms correctly. So if you ever hear me say something like this: "... all the Japanese I've learned since now..." just kindly walk me out the door.

I hope there's such a thing as an ex-native English speaker, cuz I am not no native no more.




Nihongo

I went to a Meet Up group for Japanese, and I actually reinforced all the Japanese that I've learned so far. Even though I can speak Japanese with mom, it's just different when you have to express yourself to new people. It felt nice to be around people who like Japanese and I could talk all I wanted about specific Japanese things and their eyes don't wander.

I think I really needed to connect with a group like this. These days, I had been feeling as though my whole Japan experience was slowly melting away. I know that I keep it within me, but at times, when all I see is English, and all I hear is English, I stop caring. It was so much more fun to be able to look at anything in Japan and learn something new. On the train, besides people watching, I'd make out the advertisements hanging from the silver bars, and I'd noticed that as the months went by, I could decode more and more of the kanji around me. Now, on my commute to and from work, I obsessively study car makes and models; something I never had an interest in before. I reckon after learning to consume so much information every minute of the day, I can't stop even now. I miss seeing kanji everywhere!

The best part was when we all took a purikura-like shot at the end of the meet-up with Aaron's sony vaio. It made me all natsukashii!