Nandeyanen!? (Ethan)

While in Japan, I’ve learned many new things about the language.  I’ve learned a lot of new grammar, kanji (Chinese characters), and vocabulary.  Of all the things I’ve learned, one, which can’t be learned in a normal class, is Kansai-ben.  Kansai-ben, or Kansai dialect, is one of the many regional dialects in Japan.  Because I go to school in the Kansai region, this is the dialect I’m exposed to the most. 

Map of Japan showing all the regions.

I’ve learned Kansai-ben from many of my Japanese friends.  There’s never a particular type of situation in which they bring up Kansai-ben, they just always teach me a new one here and there.  We’re typically having a casual conversation and the person I’m talking to will use a word I don’t know and then explain to me that it’s Kansai-ben.  I often don’t have to ask about the word, as it’ll be explained to me before I ask.  On a few occasions, however, I’ve also had to ask about particular words and phrases.

 I find it interesting that all of my friends from the Kansai region seem happy to teach me Kansai-ben.  Friends from Osaka, Kyoto, Wakayama, and various other places in the area all use and teach me Kansai-ben.  Sometimes, though, I wonder how much particular words are actually used.  There are certain phrases I hear pretty frequently, but I don’t typically hear some words that I’ve been taught.  Regardless of use, people want to teach me Kansai-ben and I think it’s connected to a sense of pride in where people come from.  To some extent, I understand this, and I enjoy teaching people unique words from my region as well.  Recently, I even had a conversation with a friend in which we were exchanging special words from our regions.

Map of Kansai and all of the places it includes

I try to use a little bit of Kansai-ben here and there and I’ll try to throw in my most recently learned word to a conversation but it can be hard.  It feels a little awkward to use Japanese that I didn’t learn in class, but my friends seem to be encouraging and always happy to hear and use Kansai-ben.

*The title of this post is a popular Kansai-ben phrase and roughly means “What the heck!?”

Note: The map of Japan came from http://www.jref.com/articles/regions-of-japan.154/ and the map of Kansai came from http://traverseworld.com/Kyoto_and_Kansai-japan/

Summer Firework Festival (Millie F)

I consider myself lucky, because three days after I came to Akita, I had the honor to take part in the Omagari Fireworks Festival. 大曲の花火 literally means “Fireworks of Omagari.” It is a historic nationwide fireworks festival competition that has been held since Meiji 43 (1910). It is not just a little local affair; fireworks team from throughout the country compete with each other to put on the best show for audiences. More than 700,000 visitors are expected for this one of the Tohoku region’s biggest fireworks festival.

The unique things about this competition are that the firework artists launch fireworks that they have made themselves. The whole show lasts about two and half hours. Before we arrived the show　ground, we ate a lot from the station which we left to the main venues. There are many market stalls to sell the delicious local food on both sides of the streets. Since my friends and I didn’t bring anything for a seat, we only can sit on the ground. However, we still enjoyed viewing various kinds of colorful shapes and patterns formed in the night sky.

Market stalls, photo by Millie

I really like the competition with many creative fireworks; I saw the cartoon at the beginning, smiling faces, even these star patterns are the image of a star- shaped firework. The extraordinary part is these fireworks displays were choreographed to popular music. The fireworks rose into the sky one after another and then explored into beautiful patterns making people couldn’t close their eyes. 

Fireworks, photo by Millie

There is another summer festival named “Omonogama River Fireworks” in Akita too, but I didn’t have the opportunities to see it. The summer means fireworks in Japan. It is an annual Noryo festival; Noryo means, “evening cool” in Japanese. It represents kind of folkways in Japan which people loves short-lived beauty such as cherry blossoms in spring which best for only a couple of days. It is not only an exciting moment for local people here, but also a very fantastic moment to the visitors likes me.

Japan’s “Southern Accent” – Kansai-ben (Hannah)

It’s a journey, to say the least, to apply the knowledge you learned in the classroom to everyday situations. It’s even more of a journey when you learn standard Japanese and most of the people around you are speaking in a dialect you can barely understand. Imagine someone from Chicago going down to New Orleans and not being able to understand a word.

That’s how it is for me.

Especially living with a host family, I had to get used to the dialect very quickly. My host mother and grandmother have very thick accents, though I can tell my host mother tries to tone it down whenever she speaks with me, something I’ve figured out when I compare how she speaks to me versus the rest of the family.

Kansai-ben is the dialect of Japanese spoken in the Kansai region, an area in southern Japan made up of Osaka, Kyoto, Wakayama, Shiga, Hyogo, and Nara prefectures. I’ve noticed it’s a bit more nasally than the Japanese I hear in class, with slang terms and pronunciation varieties that confuse me greatly. Kansai-ben is most often associated with Osaka, and is often mistaken for Osaka-ben, or a dialect that seems to be only spoken in Osaka. Each Kansai region has it’s own variation of the dialect different from that spoken in Osaka.

Luckily, I’ve made friends who help me!

Selfie with Natsuki (right) and his friend Yuuya (left)

A Japanese student named Natsuki approached me in the international student lounge one day, and he has been very helpful in deciphering Kansai-ben. Every week we sit together and teach each other different phrases in each other’s languages. Not everything he teaches me is Kansai-ben, but a significant amount is, and I’ve overheard the words he teaches in conversations on trains or bus stops.

Natsuki is proud of his dialect, from what I have gathered. He told me he teaches Kansai-ben to his other international student friends, and is as eager to learn new English phrases as he is to teach Japanese ones. I am a master of tongue twisters now, thanks to him.

He taught me words like なんでやね “Nandeyaneh” which means something similar to “are you kidding me?” andおおきに “ookini” which is a Kansai casual form of “thank you.” I’ve even learned words outside of my Japanese friends’ guidance, a frequent one I have begun using being めっちゃ “me-cha,” or “very.” I feel like I’m more in the inside group than the outside when I use Kansai-ben, and it’s very comfortable to use.

I’ve heard these words in and around the area, and I love the feeling of hearing words I’ve learned in real life situations. I just hope that I don’t suddenly speak Kansai-ben in class when I get back to Beloit!

Paying Closer Attention to My Surroundings (Ethan)

For this assignment I was asked to do participant observation at a site in Kyoto that I hadn’t been to.  There were many places I wanted to do this at but the place I decided on was Nishi-Hongan-Ji.  I decided on this site because it’s a Buddhist temple with over 500 years of history but, unlike many other historic temples in Kyoto, it is still very active.

I went to Nishi-Hongan-Ji for my observations on a Sunday morning.  When I got there I was impressed with the size and beauty of the temple.  I’ve seen some large temples and shrines in Japan but this is definitely one of the largest.  Next, I tried to pay attention to the people using this massive building. 

Nishi-Hongan-Ji

I noticed that while the space is a tourist destination, it doesn’t feel heavily marketed as one and the majority of the people using the space seemed to be Japanese.  There was a variety of ages among these people, from middle and high school students to senior citizens.  One thing I noticed while walking through the inside of the temple was that no matter their age, many of the people stopped, even if just for a second, to pray or pay respect to the Buddha inside.  I’ve seen this at other locations as well and find it interesting that people will stop for every temple or shrine they see.  Around the side of the temple, there was a several hundred year old gate, which was an original piece of the structure.  Here, there were significantly fewer people and people in this area were just taking pictures.  Here, any religious feel from the temple seemed to disappear. 

Gate on the side of the temple

In addition to the Japanese people, there were a few foreign tourists around the site as well.  While they were much smaller in number, they were visibly present at most times and interacted differently with the space.  The tourists seemed fairly well-mannered and respectful of the site, but it didn’t seem like a religious place for them.  I didn’t see as many of them enter the building or interact with it in a religious way.  I also saw tourists at the gate on the side of the temple taking pictures (along with people that I believe were locals)

From just a couple of hours, I learned a lot about this space and how people use it.  I noticed that not everyone uses the space in different ways and everyone appreciates it differently.