August 7th: Japanese

 1999

After a lazy day on the beach with fellow JET participants, we all headed to the small town next to mine, to attend the summer festival.

We ate Japanese street food for dinner, before finding our way through the crowds to get to the site of the festival.

Out of all these new people, I wonder which ones will become real friends?

The festival was breathtaking; taiko drummers performed a couple of pieces of music, on a floating stage on the water, surrounded by fire. The music sounded melancholy, and made me think about my friend who died suddenly a couple of months ago.

I’d met him when I was backpacking in Tokyo, way back in 1994, when I came here for a month to visit a Japanese friend. He and I were the only two westerners staying in a youth hostel in Shinjuku, so we bonded and explored the city together. We communicated in my broken French and his broken English, and fortunately, he knew some Japanese, which was really helpful.

Coming to Japan had been his dream, and after he returned to France he enrolled in a university in Paris to study Japanese. We had been due to meet up in England the week he died, so his death was quite a shock.

Living in Japan would have been his dream come true; I have ended up here by chance, really, whereas he was seeking this life out.

After the drumming ended, a huge wooden structure that had been on the same stage as the drummers, but hidden in the darkness, was set alight. Men danced around it, sending it spinning in circles.

Suddenly, it fell into the water; we all thought it was an accident, but as it splashed into the water, the night sky was simultaneously illuminated by fireworks. They were amazing; the display lasted for an hour, these were easily the best fireworks I have ever seen.

B noticed my melancholy and she asked if I was OK; I explained about my friend’s death. I hadn’t really told anyone here about it until today.

2000

So, what of the future?

Recently, I’ve been thinking about what to do next. Right now it’s refreshing to be in Sapporo, to be a student, in a different situation, living a different life for the summer.

Today I tried to picture myself studying Japanese full-time after I finish this job, but in reality I don’t see that happening.

I looked around at the other foreigners while I was at the International Communication Plaza this afternoon, and tried to imagine living in Japan permanently, but I don’t know if I could do that either.

Do I stay in Japan for a third year, or do I head back to England next summer? It’s a big decision to make. Meanwhile, I feel like none of the Japanese that I’m studying is sinking in. Learning a language is hard, and I need to put in more effort.

2001

We headed to the school after lunch, to attend a Japanese class with our students. We helped to teach the Australian students about Japanese culture, with different activities for them to try, such as kendo, calligraphy, origami, and so on. It was only for an hour, but it was a lot of fun, and a real joy to watch my students using English to teach their Australian counterparts.

I spent three years teaching English in Japan, from 1999 until 2002, as a participant on the JET (Japan Exchange Teaching) Program. I’m telling my story based on journals that I wrote at the time. Each blog entry will focus on the same day, repeated for each year that I was in Japan.