Playing with Kansai-ben (Sarah)

The dialect that is used where I live is called Kansai-ben, and when I first arrived in Japan I thought it would be hard to pick up and learn because the Japanese students or other Japanese people wouldn’t feel comfortable with a foreigner trying to speak in their local dialect. I quickly found out that wasn’t the case. On the day I moved in with my host family, I learned that おるwas the Kansai-ben way of saying いる. And since then, being aware that I probably didn’t understand many of the Kansai-ben phrases, my family has explained other phrases or words that have come up in conversation.

Me and one of my host sisters in a picture we took during the super moon that she then decorated and sent me. My host family in general uses a lot of Kansai-ben, but my two host sisters speak almost exclusively in it, so they have been a big help in getting me used to it.

Beyond just my host family, the Kansai Gaidai students have been enthusiastic in spreading Kansai-ben among foreign students. At first (and still sometimes when I’m using a new phrase) I would feel embarrassed using it in my daily conversation because it felt a bit unnatural, but since then I have become more accustomed to both hearing it everyday and using it myself. That is largely due to the fact that when talking to students, they will more than happily teach me new words. If they use something they think I might not understand they will stop, repeat it, ask me if I know what it means, tell me what it means, and then let me try using it. They then will continue on with what they were saying and stop again later for something else. When I use it myself in conversation sometimes they won’t notice, which is good because that means it sounded natural and fit into the conversation, but often they will. They’ll smile and maybe point out that I used Kansai-ben, or often they will just repeat what I said seemingly amused by it. They’ll often be happy and excited when I, or other international students, use it in conversation.

Me and friends from my club, tabikenkyu-bu, on an overnight trip to Otokoyama. I often hear and learn Kansai-ben from them as well as phrases from the dialects of other areas like Hokkaido. On this particular trip, that night, the six of us spent the evening comparing dialects.

To me it seems like most people are rather proud of their dialect and like that it is very distinctive. And it seems like they not only have no problem with foreigners using their dialect, they encourage it and like it when they do. Whether they like it because it is amusing to hear foreigners using it or because they are genuinely happy to be spreading their dialect. I’m not sure. I think it is a little bit of both, but I’m okay with that because it is fun to use, and it makes me feel a little bit more a part of both the school and the general community when I do.

            

Media Connection (Sarah)

Over the past month, I have become a regular at a number of places near my university. Almost everyday or a number of times a week, I will go to the 7/11 that is across the street from the front gate of the school. When I have limited time to eat lunch I go and buy almost the same thing every time: an Indian curry meat bun, a fruit cup, and sometimes the occasional added bread (with any number of interesting fillings). However, I never got much of a reaction. Perhaps because it’s right in front of the university and nothing about the interaction is particularly interesting or memorable. I also became a regular at a ramen restaurant further away from the university that can only fit about eight people at once, but over time I’ve found that isn’t entirely unusual. The most reaction I got there was the first time I went. I was talking to the man who ran the restaurant, by himself, and his initial reaction was the usual ‘you speak Japanese so well’ reaction that I was used to getting when starting a conversation in Japanese. But after that, when I returned multiple times with other friends there was never much more of a reaction except perhaps that he assumed using Japanese was okay and didn’t try to use English. So maybe the lack of a reaction was a suggestion of familiarity?

However, overwhelmingly the most interesting thing I participate in as a regular is watching the same news channel at breakfast every morning and comedy shows at night. Every morning. My host mom will watch the news, so everyone (the two kids, me and sometimes my host dad) will watch it as well. As the days went by and I got more used to the routine and flow of the program, I found myself being included by my family in conversations about the news and being able to make comments on it myself. They would include me in comments and conversations. For example after the short cooking segment, Moco’s kitchen, where the cook tries his own food and says that it was delicious and everyone at home should try making it themselves, they would say “he always says that doesn’t he?” and then laugh as they imitated the cook’s favorite closing line. Or my host mom would talk with me more about a news story that just came out, sometimes explaining things I didn’t understand.

At night they would watch TV while eating dinner, but unfortunately for me my family members aren’t the biggest fans of dramas, so what we often watched were comedy/variety shows. And like the news, I found that over time I came to be included in more and more of the talk that went on while watching. And through watching variety shows, where famous singers and groups were often featured, my host family has come to learn my taste more and more. Since I’m often excited to see certain singers come out on shows my host mom or host dad (who likes music) will make an effort to put on the music station. And when there was a special program that was showing one of my favorite band’s (ONE OK ROCK) two most recent concerts, they recorded it on the TV for me so I could watch it when I had time. My host dad also offered to copy it onto a CD for me, so I could watch it on my computer too.

So, though I’ve become a regular at many places (conbini, restaurants, TSUTAYA…), I think regularly watching the same shows with my host family has been the most rewarding. It lets them learn more about me and it is a way that I can connect more with them.

Expanding Maps (Sarah)

My first map.

Looking back at my first map, it looks so simple. My current mental map expands far beyond it’s edges and many of the white spaces, I could now fill in with finer details that I have discovered over time. During those first few days I remember clinging to the one path I knew that took me from the seminar house to the university and back again. At the time, mastering the twists and turns of only that on path was more than enough of a challenge with all the small side streets that looked practically identical and seemed to wind on forever in all directions.

Unknown areas marked as  masses of houses.

As the days went on I began mastering my little area, but as I became more comfortable with my navigation I noticed a separate subtly increasing discomfort. I could reach out my hand and touch a passing car, I could touch my neighbor’s house from my window, walls made clear boundaries between tightly nestled houses, what looked like one-way roads somehow fit cars going both ways, and the list goes on. I had heard the term ‘densely packed population’ before but I had never really understood what that meant for daily life, and subtly as time went on I began to feel frustrated without knowing why. But one day as I was walking around Hiriakata City and stumbled upon a park, I realized what I was missing, open space! Even the park itself was nestled inside the buildings of Hirakata City. It was just a concept of space I wasn’t used to.

Over time I got used to it, and felt more comfortable being contained and fitted into the limited space of my environment. The narrow streets made space for me and the crowded buses somehow managed accommodated my presence, and as I continued to explore the dense maze that made up my new home I learned to look at it all differently. The side streets that continued forever didn’t just wind of into oblivion, they went somewhere and if every once in a while, when I had a little time to get lost, I took a peek down one of them, more often than not I would stumble upon something interesting that would expand my map just a little bit more.

A New Perspective (Sarah)

As I set out on this journey I’m only just beginning to catch my breath. I spent the majority of my summer working a job that a few years ago I would never have believed I was capable of. I got to work at the language camp that originally inspired my love for Japan, languages and culture in general. Just like all the summers before as a camper, it was challenging, but it was also extremely fun! I worked to overcome doubts in my own language ability and began taking on the role of not only a teacher but also a caring and at times almost parent like figure to the campers. I found myself invested in each of the students, especially the girls that lived with me, much more than I had expected. I also found myself working side by side with people who had been my teachers as a camper, which made for some interesting first interactions. I was originally afraid that working at the place that had inspired me years ago would ruin the image I had preserved of it, but it did the exact opposite, it became something even better than what I had remembered it as.

However, only two days after returning from this great experience I nearly lost consciousness for no apparent reason and continued to feel strange for days afterwards. I received an alarming suggestion from the first doctor I saw who thought that it may have been a partial seizure, which as you can probably imagine sent me into a bit of a panic. Not only was that a serious diagnosis with life long implications I had no way of fully understanding at the time, but I also plain didn't have time for this. I was leaving for Japan in a month; I had no time for a serious diagnosis. But during the ride from that first doctor’s office to the emergency room, the following five hours I spent getting tested there (with no food mind you), and the ride back home I realized that as much as I wanted to go to Japan, if there was something serious wrong, I would be staying. I had a month to figure this out. For those next few weeks I felt like I was lying whenever people asked me if I was excited and ready to go to Japan because I answered that of course I was excited and my preparation were almost done! I didn't want to explain what was wrong because I didn’t really know what to say, so I did my best to keep preparing and keep myself busy. In between the MRI’s, blood tests, eco-cardio grams and doctor’s appointments I went to the embassy to get my visa, kept track of emails from Kansai, had various goodbye parties with relatives and unpacked my things from camp that had been briefly forgotten in the confusion.

Waiting at the doctor.

In the end it turned out that the cause had been nothing dangerous and nothing that would stop me from going to Japan. So now I can say, without feeling like a liar, that as I set out on this journey I am very excited because a week ago I wasn’t even sure this was going to be possible. In the past few weeks I’ve come to understand that not only are MRI’s some of the most terrifying and strange medical tests ever, but also just how much of a privilege being able to do this study abroad program really is. For seven years I have desperately wanted to go to Japan, and in those seven years my interest in the language and culture has matured a lot. In the end, my interest led me to applying for study abroad. But I don’t think even in this past year as I applied for study abroad that I fully understood how amazing the opportunity I was signing up for was. That is until this last month where it was no longer guaranteed that I could go.

Some time during the middle of the flight when we crossed the date line and I celebrated my 20th birthday thousands of feet above the earth.

So as I go to Japan I enter into it with a different frame of mind than I had when I originally signed up. This entire summer has been about challenging myself, growing and seeing things in a new light and I expect that to continue in all kinds of ways over the next year. I expect for things I assume to be universally understood to be misinterpreted and misunderstood, I expect that there will be misunderstandings and differences between me and my host family, and I hope for things I take for granted to be challenged and re-understood from a different perspective. As a result, I hope through these experiences, and many more that I can’t even imagine yet, that everyday I will learn numerous things, whether I realize them at the time or not. But lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I hope it is a whole lot of fun!