Thoughts about Bravery

Me, as a 20 year old girl ready to take on Japan without fear. 

I’ve been having problems with my confidence recently. People who know me will see me as outgoing and someone who is everywhere at once, doing all the meetups and friends with everyone. But I used to be so much more. I think there’s a better word for it, but I used to be brave when I was younger. I used to do a lot of drama, I loved to be on stage and when I went to Japan to study I didn’t care if my Japanese was good or not, I just used it.

But I have found that I’m not that person anymore, I seem to have lost that side of me. My German friends constantly ask me to speak in German with them… I guess I could and it would be ok but there’s an element of “losing face” involved that’s just too risky… or scary for me. Every German I know speaks amazing English. It would just be embarrassing to let them see just how little German I speak. And also when we speak in English we can have amazing conversations but if we spoke in German we’d be reduced to boring, simple stuff. But I can’t ever remember feeling this way with Japanese. Maybe it’s because I was a cocky little shit, but this time round I just can’t get the German out, even though I know my friends won’t judge me and I know it’ll only make my German better.

I finished the advanced improv course a few weeks ago and I noticed in that area too I’d become a lot more withdrawn. I love improv – I love being on stage. When I was younger I used to do SO much theatre; regular stuff, improv contests, I was a dame in the village panto (meaning I was 16 year old girl pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman…) and I even entered a solo theatre contest in a division 2 years older than my age (and still won). I was this girl, but now I am not, and I think it’s holding me back.

When you’re an expat or just a regular language learner, I think you need to be super outgoing to be able to get the most out of your life in your adoptive country. Langauge-wise it’s pretty straight forward – you need to be brave enough to just go for it and you’ll get the hang of the language. As an expat it’s best if you just throw yourself into various situations and go to random meetups because you never know what will happen. Of course, it’s also ok to not be outgoing and an expat, but you won’t have as many crazy stories to tell your grandchildren

I guess this lack of bravery has been bugging me for a while. I guess various things happened and I lost the drive I used to have to be like this, but I’m taking steps to get it back. Improv helps me a lot, but I’m *thinking* of maybe dabbling in stand-up comedy. A comedian friend of mine who I admire very much came over the other week so I could road test my routine on him but I just clammed up. I’d like to work myself to the stage where I’m able to do this – even if I’m not funny I think the experience will be good for me.

During the first week of April I’m going to do a German homestay. It’ll be in Frankfurt so I’m not going far at all, but I’m actually really nervous about it. I have no idea where the 16 year old who went off to Japan to do homestays is, but she’s not here right now. I feel nervous about speaking German to someone other than the few people I share my terrible skills with and I feel nervous that it’ll be a whole week of me and the teacher – her teaching me in intensive lessons during the day and cooking and hanging out together in the evenings. This all seems very daunting to me.

But I think once I’ve taken these steps I’ll feel a lot better about myself, so I need to take them. Do you take steps to put yourself in different and daunting situations?

OCS Japanese Store Frankfurt – Closing

I have the day off today because we get an extra day when we move house. Apparently this is just a Nintendo thing and isn’t universal in Germany.

As I was biking round town trying to get official things done for my move (like registering my change of address, taking my name off of the bills for my old apartment..) I went past the Japanese store OCS. The has been a hit with the Japanese speaking population in Frankfurt since it sells Japanese books, magazines, snacks and other cool things.

But apparently it wasn’t popular enough since it’ll be closing at the end of March. The online shop will still remain, so there’s not much of a sale (right now it’s 30% off). Just like when I was in Paris, I didn’t feel the need to splash out on a 20 euro Japanese book, so I left empty handed in the hope that that 30% will grow a little in the next few weeks.

Anyway, if you are in Frankfurt then check this place out before it closes down! Find it at Große Gallusstraße 1-7.

Why You Shouldn’t Speak Your Learning Language With Anyone Other Than Native Speakers

As I’ve mentioned previously, I am giving myself the challenge of being able to have a proper conversation in German before the summer. In order to boost myself in this, I go to German Facebook meetup every week. Forcing myself to speak German with these people (or, more often than not, forcing people to suffer my German) helps me get the chance to use the language I learn whilst studying. I am ridiculously bad at German. I can barely string a sentence together. But it helps.

However, there is one guy there who is not German. He’s a very nice guy, very welcoming and friendly. But he stands in the way of my German learning, and here is why. When you are pretty good at a language, and you meet someone else also studying that language, then you feel the need to take them under your wing. When I speak with him he’ll use a range of expressions to try to stretch my learning experience. At my level, this isn’t really helpful. With a native speaker, their aim would not be to nurture you, but to have a conversation with you and to be understood by you. Helpful Non-Native’s aim is to show you just how much they know, and try to pave the path of your linguistic learning. But all it ends up doing (to me, at least) is frustrate me as it’s not natural, it’s not helping me and it’s a little off-putting since they are showing off so much I feel lost in my own abysmal level.

If you are a learner who is pretty good at the language, Helpful Non-Native turns into Competitive Non-Native. I find this happens A LOT with Japanese. When you meet someone new in Japan, people like to size you up and see where you are on the scale, to see if you are better or worse than them at Japanese. When I was at uni, I was ridiculously competitive, to the point that I turned into a not very nice person. But once I got into JET, I chilled out a bit. But I noticed the competitive streak in other people I met… they’d mention some Japanese just to test out how much I knew, or even worse, just come out and speak Japanese to me straight off. I don’t know about other languages but it is a real faux pas to speak in Japanese to non-Japanese people unless there is a good reason, ie it’s at a language event or if there’s a Japanese person who can’t speak English there.

So for someone who is learning a language, having someone who is trying to push you along, show how much they know, someone who is trying to show their superiority is not going to be helpful in your quest to learn a language – whether they mean it or not. A native speaker has no hidden agenda, and won’t throw you linguistic blue shells to try and trip you up, either. You’re not distracted by their level because they’re a native speaker and you’re not aiming to be like them any time soon, either.

Does anyone else feel this too? In other languages is there a competitive feeling when meeting a new person?

This is a “write thoughts down” kind of blog post so let’s see if we can get some kind of discussion going!

Thoughts on being an Expat

I love being an expat. I can’t imagine not living abroad for the foreseeable future. I absolutely love living in Germany. It’s safe, clean, things get done and the food is awesome. I couldn’t really ask for more (well maybe 24 hour supermarkets or a few hours’ shopping on a Sunday…) I would recommend expat life to pretty much anyone, and here is why -

1. You make your cv awesome. If you’ve lived for a few years in a different country, this makes you very tasty to employers back home. It shows that you can step outside your comfort zone, overcome difficulties, be your own boss etc etc.

2. You can pick up another language. There are lots of people I knew in Japan, and people here in Germany who do not bother to learn the local language. I think in Japan it’s a lot harder because Japanese people aren’t so forthcoming with their language skills, so learning Japanese is best. Here in Frankfurt everyone speaks English and even when you speak German to people, they reply in English. So it’s a lot more of a struggle because you feel like there’s no use in learning it. But I think it’s polite to the host country to learn it – and I’ve found my life a lot more fun now I’m really putting effort into learning German.

3. You get a deep understanding of another culture. You can acquire a smug sense of knowingness when people talk about “those crazy Japanese and their panty vending machines” when you have been there for a long time, and know that they don’t exist but you can list 10 things you’ve seen that are way crazier than a panty vending machine. You can learn to see beyond the “German people are boring and like to hog the beds beside the swimming pool” stereotype and you know what German culture is really like.

4. You can meet people from all over the world. When I was studying in Japan, there weren’t any other people from English speaking countries and my closest friends were Korean, Chinese and Thai. Our common language was Japanese so we all spoke together and me wanting to get to know them better was my motivation to speak more. I remember there was a day when I looked around the table at all the girls from other countries, sharing stories and teaching each other our languages and cultures (the poor Thai girl spent a whole day trying to get us to speak Thai once…) I just thought, you know, this is my idea of heaven. Being around all kinds of people and sharing stories and learning more about each other. On JET I got the same – even though we were from English speaking countries, I learnt what a Tootsie Roll is from my American friends, I learnt more about Canada, Singapore, The Philipines… and each person was so passionate about their home country or home state that I have a ridiculously long list of places I want to visit because they’ve sold it to me.

5. You can take advantage of exchange rates and gaps in the market. I was ridiculously lucky because when I studied in Japan, the pound was pretty strong against the yen so my student loan went quite far, and then when I worked there the yen was the strong one so when I went to send money back home to pay off those loans a little money turned into a lot of money. Another thing is the gaps in employment markets – this doesn’t affect me here nor did it in Japan, but for example, Australia needs certain professionals and you can get a job as, say, a hairdresser over there much easier than you could in the UK. If I worked as a Japanese translator in London I probably wouldn’t get such a good job over there as I do here in Frankfurt.

But it’s not an easy thing to do. There are huge sacrifices that one must make in order to live abroad. When I lived in Japan I was unable to go home for Christmas and this was really hard to do. My first Christmas in Japan was a very difficult day for me, and I got so frustrated and angry because I was not able see my own family, but the local Nagoya people were – and yet they were still suited up and going to work on Christmas day. I missed the funerals of two family members, and was not told about my budgie dying for a few weeks after the event. When you’re not there in person, it’s easy to miss out on important news.

Friends from back home also move on. Because I’m only in my hometown once or twice a year, my best friends and I grow apart faster than we would do normally. I wasn’t there when a best friend needed me, and I’m not around to share things with her as much as I’d like. This may be true of people who aren’t even expats, but it’s still an uncomfortable feeling to know you can’t be with your closest friends.

Culture shock is a nasty thing, and can turn you into a very bitter and closed minded person. I spent the better part of a year and a half being so bitter about everything to the point that I was almost racist. When things don’t go as you expect them, when people don’t act like they do back home, when you can’t get the same comforts you enjoy at home then it all piles on top of you and eats away at your soul.

It takes a lot of guts to go out of your comfort zone and live abroad. But despite all the negative sides to being an expat, like I said, I wouldn’t swap it in the world, especially now I am in Germany. Look at the world – there are so many opportunities for people. The world is your lobster!

If you have any expat pros or cons that I haven’t mentioned, be sure to leave a comment!

Notes on Dating in Japan

Dating as an expat is hard. You’ll probably have some kind of language barrier, and even if you speak the local language, you need to find someone who is willing to date outside their culture (assuming you are dating a local). In Japan, the focus is on dating the locals. I don’t even need to touch on the type of people who say they “only date Japanese” – these people are lame and also loads of other blogs who talk for pages about it. I just thought I’d have a nice frank post about dating as a foreigner, in Japan.

Of course, the first thing when talking about dating in Japan is that people think it’s easy for western guys to get girls and impossible for western girls to get guys. When I lived in Japan, I knew many really amazing western guys who were pretty unlucky in love. They were handsome and gentlemanly but it just wasn’t happening. I also know a fair few women out in Japan with Japanese boyfriends and husbands, and all are pretty happy. I myself have dated 2 J-guys on the long term and a handful of awkward mini relationships with guys that it just didn’t work out with.

So, how do you get a boy/girlfriend in Japan? The key, as with any situation is that you concentrate on having fun – not on finding the one. It took me a long time to realise this. I’d go to events and things and focus on which guys I thought I had a chance with. But you need to just do your thing, meet people, make friends, and then everything will fall into place.

It’s hard when you’re an expat because you feel homesick sometimes, and there are things you don’t understand, and you feel lonely, too. You start to think that getting a boy/girlfriend will solve everything for you. You’d have someone to be with all the time, and if they are a local, they can explain the culture and the language to you, too! I thought that in Japan, so went on a wild hunt to get a guy. I did – a wonderful guy who was kind and sweet and good looking. But it wasn’t right. I wasn’t dating him for the right reasons – just for the sake of it. I broke it off with him far too late, and broke his heart too. I’m really ashamed of that.

BUT if you did really want a boy/girlfriend in Japan, here are a few ways to find one -

1. Get out! Someone once told me that when you live in Japan, just get out the house. Even if it’s to buy an apple. Those were his words. And I think it’s true. You’re not going to learn the language or make friends by sitting at home at your kotatsu. Go to events, go to that lame looking international festival those sweet old ladies wanted you to go to. Go talk to the guy at the counter at the combini. GO!

2. Find a bar – not a gaijin bar, a local bar – and keep going there until you become a local. I did this with a bar in Ise, and made loads of friends there. I made the mistake of telling other foreigners about this amazing bar I found and soon enough EVERYONE was there. But if you go to a mainly Japanese bar, you can practise your Japanese and you’ll be rare in your gaijin-ness so it’s easy to make friends (and potentially pick up a date).

3. Mixi.jp is a Japanese social network… but you need a Japanese mobile phone, and an invite, to join. If you have an account, you can join the community of wherever you live in Japan and start interacting with the people there. A word of warning, especially for the girls out there – when I used this, and got speaking with a guy, the next stage of the relationship seemed to be “let’s go for a drive”. No one seemed to understand that I will not get into a car with a stranger. Japanese guys found it highly annoying that I wouldn’t just lighten up and get in a car with them. But be careful – you never know what might happen. Play it safe, people!

4. Go to a gokon! Gokon are Japanese dating parties. Usually you’ll have a set number of boys and girls, and you will go to a Japanese restaurant like an izakaya together. You’d usually swap phone numbers with the person you like and then take it from there. I went to a few of these. I found them really funny. I never was successful from them, though.

I want to do a German post similar to this, but with more of an emphasis on meeting people as opposed to boy/girlfriends. But if you have any tips for the boys and girls out there on how to find love in Japan, let me know!

Things I Keep Close

 

When I am at home, I spend most of my time at my desk. I eat there (like a loser), do makeup there, blog there… so I like to keep this area full of things that keep me going. Things and people that are important to me. I thought I’d share some of these things with you.

Photos – I have a lot of them. I like to have the people who have touched my life close to me. My friends from school, exchange student friends in Japan, my friends from when I worked in Japan, and my english teacher coworkers from the school I taught at. These people are all so important to me.

 

I also have a photo of myself as a maiko! The postcard to the left was actually bought after I dressed up that day, so the similarity is a coincidence. It was an amazing day that I spent with some friends dressing up, but it’s there to remind me to keep my “excited spirit” about me. It may no be cool to dress up as a maiko, and it may be “weeaboo”-like, but I don’t care. I frickin’ love geisha and maiko and all that jazz. And it was awesome being a maiko for the day.

 

The map on the right was given to me when I left Ise. I think of it as much as my hometown as I do Bury St Emunds. On the left is the wall where I have all the messages my students wrote me when I let Japan. I have one board for each class I taught. They have such wonderful comments on them, whenever I feel like I’m not doing well in general, I like to read through them and remember that I am a great person and that I made a difference in their lives. I miss my students so much.

 

This last one is also from an old student of mine. This sweet little girl who used to make a beeline for me every day drew this lovely picture of me. I used to have a necklace with a fish on it, and she’d come up and play with it, so she drew it in the picture.

What things do you keep near you in your home?

 

That Awkward Moment When You’re Not Fluent

Back when I was an exchange student in Japan, I went to a small gathering at a friend’s house. The people there were a few Japanese girls, my Korean friend, and myself. I’d been dating a Japanese guy for a few months, so I was pretty good at conversation (if you don’t know the correlation, you’ve never tried dating someone from a different country ) but I wasn’t fluent.

When people would aim conversations at me, I was ok and could answer. But when they spoke between themselves, I was lost and just shut off. Now this isn’t me saying my friends were bad – they weren’t. I had a lovely time, and they made a Japanese name for me (which is Sayuri), and taught me how to cook some Japanese food. But I just wasn’t quite at the level where I could be a proper member of the group. One girl next to me turned to me and said “I studied in London for a year. I can see the look on your face and I know that feeling. Don’t worry, you’ll get there.”

I mention this now, because I had the same feeling the other night. On Wednesday night, my German teacher put down the grammar book after half an hour, sat back and said “ok, let’s speak in German. Tell me about your week”. I spoke, in German, for the first time. Not just ordering a beer or some food, but actual conversation.

I don’t know if this is just me but I get a real rush from this. Speaking in another language… it’s just such a great feeling and I can’t describe it. So, naturally, I wanted more.

On Facebook I’m part of a number of Frankfurt groups, one of which is an all-German group. They had a meetup on Thursday, so I decided to go.

It’s one thing to click “I’ll join” on Facebook but it’s quite another to walk into a bar, see all these people you don’t know, speaking a language you don’t speak and just jump right in. I had a mini freak out inside, wondered what the hell I was doing, but then bought a massive beer and just stood at the side and looked awkward until two guys doing exactly the same started talking to me.

I did pretty well. I’m proud of myself. They didn’t realise I wasn’t German for quite a while, but that’s mainly because I answered with single words for a while until I got into the swing of it. But it was hard. I had to keep asking them to repeat stuff, and I got into the habit of repeating everything in English to make sure I had understood it before I answered. I didn’t initiate anything, because, quite frankly, I forgot how very tiring it was. But also because I felt so sorry for these two guys who got stuck with me. I wanted them to know they could escape at any point, so I kind of zoned out when they were talking to each other.

One guy left after a little while and the other sat down with me and we just spoke in English for the rest of the night. I’m pretty proud that I did such a long time in German. But it’s not a nice feeling to be a burden on someone in a conversation. I want to keep going to these meetups and trying again and again until I can speak German for real.

A Language Challenge

I feel that my language learning has become really stale recently. With Chinese, I’ve not been taking any lessons in a month because I’ve had my improv classes. With German, I’ve just not been that motivated recently.

But learning languages is one of those things that if you look at it from the outside, you can’t find the energy to do it. But if you just jump into it anyway, every small success makes you crave more.

SO I have decided to give myself a challenge. I know of this website called All Japanese, All the Time. The guy writing it is a little cocky/patronising/ugh sometimes but basically, he taught himself Japanese in 18 months by doing everything he wanted to do in Japanese. Books, music, tv, games… the lot.

I have been wonde

ring if I should do this with German and Chinese… and even Japanese, too. I can’t do all of them at the same time, so I might try one of them, for a 2 week period.

I’m going to start this with German (since it’s the easiest!!) from Monday. Wish me luck! I’ll be posting about my progress often, of course!

Keeping Warm in Germany

 

Someone on facebook just posted this amazing blog post about keeping warm through winter in Japan. The joke is that Japanese buildings don’t have insulation and the way they heat their homes is ridiculously expensive, not to mention dangerous.

I am very, very happy to report that Germany is very different to Japan. My apartment is old but the walls are lovely and thick and my room is nice and toasty without having to go OTT on the radiator. At the end of last winter, when my heating bill came through I was outraged because my share was 200 euros (shared with my old flatmate). But when I think back to how much I was spending on kerosene in Japan, 200 euros is a bargain.

My Japanese flatmate lived in Germany for a year, but some things about western life still baffle her. I taught her how to drain her radiator the other day, which confused her no end. The heating/electricity companies work very differently here, too. Firstly, they predict how much electricity you’ll use in a quarter/half year, then when that time is up they’ll either ask for a little bit more money if you went over, or give you back if you didn’t use as much as they had thought. I got a lovely 150 euro payback last year because my German flatmate and I didn’t overuse stuff. I think the situation will be different this time round…

With the heating, we have little machines on our radiators which calculate how much we’ve used each individual one. This is great because my flatmate can use all the energy she likes and only she’ll be charged for it. The radiators in the kitchen and bathroom will be shared.

It got to “feel factor” minus 20 last winter. The actual temperature was something like minus 7, but the wind brought it down so much lower. I survived through by enjoying mulled wine at the xmas market, but I also followed the locals in stocking up on good quality clothes and boots. Say what you want about German style (and I often do..) they know their quality products. I spent out on some leather boots last year that were good for the whole season – they look very worn now because I really did over wear them, but they are still good. They were actually actually Japanese (or at least had a Japanese brand name..) but this year I have invested in some German boots.

German people seem to put quality over style, which explains their crazy love for Jack Wolfskin clothes (though according to the boyfriend, Jack’s coats aren’t as high quality as it may seem…) But it’s best to follow the locals and invest in an ugly massive puffy coat. I didn’t last year – I survived with my wool coat with a hoodie underneath (layering FTW) but I am considering buying the prettiest ugly puffy coat I can find.

Up until xmas I don’t mind it being cold and wet and horrible. But once the Christmas market is gone, and once Christmas is over it does suck quite a bit. Do you have any tips on staying warm in winter? Let me know if you do!

Language Learning – Musings

 

If you are a bilingual, polyglot or language learner you’ll know it well. One week you’ll be learning your chosen language and you’ll be like a massive sponge – there isn’t a word around that can escape your amazing linguist brain. You’ll go talk in one of your other languages and the words roll from your mouth. You feel amazing.

Then, a few weeks later you’ll be sat staring at grammar or some new vocab and it’s like trying to get an elephant through a keyhole – it’s just no getting in there. You try to have a conversation and it’s so hard going because every other word you’re having to stop and think before you can communicate.

My high achieving sister recently started 6th form, and one of her AS choices was French, with the reason being that she likes it and she’s good at it. I tried to persuade her to drop it, but she wouldn’t listen. Langauge A Levels – like learning languages in general, are bloody hard. Unlike a science, there are few right or wrong answers. Languages are also living creatures. You can’t just memorise a bunch of vocab lists and some grammar and say you know a language – if that was so, Japanese people would be famous for their great English skills!

Just think about it – it takes you 5 years at least to learn your mother tongue to any great level. And that’s when you are there in the language 24 hours a day, you have groups of teachers slowly dropping you into the language by teaching it to you bit by bit, repeating until they have a response from you.

My boyfriend is currently halfway through his intensive Goethe Institute course – which he attends three days a week for a few hours a night. Our current favourite(!!) thing to do is to sit at the table on a Sunday and do his homework together. Though very clever, he’s not really a linguist. Where I am a Jack of all trades, he is a true master of the English language. However, he’s currently beating himself up about not being better at German already. I know the feeling well.

But how can we get out of the language funk when we feel stuck? Though it’s easier said that done, one way is to study things that you are more interested in/find slightly easier to pick up for a while. For me, this is easy since I take private lessons and when I’m sick of the dative form, I can just ask to have a week studying a different area until I get my “sponge” brain back. For the boyfriend, it’s harder since he’s in a course and can’t dictate what he studies.

In that case, like I keep telling him, I suggest that, if you feel frustrated with language studying, you just give yourself a break. Don’t give up, just remember that you CANNOT learn a language in a few weeks. No matter what those books say.

If you have any tips for getting out of a language study funk, let me know! I’d like to know all the tricks of the trade!