Japanese characters

(Disclaimer: I am neither a Japanese teacher nor a Japanese expert. If there are any mistakes in my posts about Japanese language, I apologise. Also, if you don't have Japanese character support enabled on your computer, you may see a whole lot of nothing.

See also my post on place names in Japanese characters.)

Some people say that Japanese is a very difficult language to learn. It's true that it is very different to English, and takes a lot of hard work. But personally, I think the biggest reason Japanese is so difficult is not the various levels of politeness; it's not the seemingly random particles people inject into sentences; it's not the vastly different word order in sentences.

It's the writing system. Basically, it takes a long time and a lot of commitment to learn to read Japanese properly. However, it is interesting. ^_^

Japanese can be written in three different types of character.

Katakana - each syllable represents a sound (eg カ is 'ka', レ is 're'), and is used to write foreign words and occasionally Japanese ones (for example, カラオケ, karaoke, is usually written in katakana). For example, Kawasaki's mall 'LaZona' is written ラゾーナ.

Katakana are the least common characters when reading Japanese sentences or stories. However, if you're a foreigner new to Japan, this is the set of characters I recommend you learn first.

Why katakana first? Well, it will help you read some signs, and particularly store names, menus and food items. If you go to a coffee shop, for example, it's common to see a list of items like アイスティー ('aisu tei', or 'iced tea'). If you go to a burger shop, you'll see バーガー ('ba-ga-', or 'burger') many times. A lot of product names in Japan are foreign words, and therefore you can read them in katakana without even needing to learn the Japanese word.

It is also useful for learning the correct pronunciation of foreign things in Japan. For example, no shopkeeper I ever met understood my pronunciation of 'croissant'. Until I read the katakana carefully (クロワサン、 or 'kurowasan'), I would be met with blank looks, or in one case, a muffin. (How does 'croissant' get mistaken for 'muffin' anyway?!)

For me, the katakana I grew best at recognising quickly were: 'cappuccino', 'coffee', 'karaoke', 'beer' and 'sawa'. Ha ha ha...

Hiragana - each syllable represents a sound (eg か is 'ka', れ is 're'), and is used to write Japanese words. Every Japanese sound can be written in katakana or hiragana. Generally, hiragana looks a bit more curved and 'fluid'; katakana is simpler and more blocky. Here are some examples:
ka ki ku ke ko sa shi tsu se so
In hiragana: かきくけこさしつせそ
In katakana:　カキクケコサシツセソ

Some Japanese words are made up of both hiragana and kanji. For example, look at this verb, 飲む - 'nomu', 'to drink'. The first character ('no') is a kanji, the second ('mu') is hiragana. If you make the verb past tense (飲んだ - 'nonda') or conditional (飲んだら, 'nondara'), you can see it's hiragana at the end of the word doing the hard work. ^_^

Hiragana is the character set which children learn first, so if you find picture books in Japanese, they will usually be written in hiragana. Also, comics and books aimed at children will, if not be written wholly in hiragana, will likely have hiragana written above the kanji (this is called 'furigana'), so the children who haven't learned those kanji can still read the text. You will probably find furigana in textbooks for students of Japanese, too!

Hiragana is the set you will probably focus on first if you are studying Japanese properly. As I said, I think katakana is more useful in the short term if you are actually moving to Japan, but as you learn more Japanese vocabulary, hiragana will become more useful. After all, if you can read the hiragana すいか (suika) but don't know that 'suika' means 'watermelon', what's the point? However, if you aspire to actually learning to read in Japanese, you will need to know hiragana well.

One nice thing about karaoke in Japan is that most songs have furigana above the kanji, so once you learn to read hiragana fast enough, you can sing along to your favourite Japanese tunes. ^_^

Kanji - the enemy! Actually, they are very interesting, but they are the reason why Japanese is difficult. Even Japanese people struggle with them sometimes. Kanji are Chinese characters (indeed, many of them have the same meaning in Chinese, though usually a different pronunciation). They range from very simple and quick to write (for example, 一, which means 'one'), to very complex (for example 曜, which is part of the word 'day', as in 'Monday', 'Tuesday', etc).

Usually, kanji look more complex and have more strokes than katakana or hiragana. Unlike katakana and furigana, kanji don't represent a sound, they represent an idea. The same character can have different pronunciations in different contexts.

For example, this kanji 新 means 'new'.
If you add a hiragana 'shii' on the end, like 新しい, the pronunciation is 'atara', making the word 'atarashii' (the adjective 'new').
If you put it directly before a noun, such as 月 (month) to make a noun compound, eg 新月, the pronunciation is 'shin', making the word 'shingetsu' (meaning 'new moon').
This 'shin' is the same 'shin' in 'shinkansen' (bullet train).

Some kanji have several different possible pronunciations. For example, 上, which means 'above' or 'top', can be pronounced 'ue' 上 (on), or 'jou' in 'jouzu' 上手　(skillful), or 'a' in 'agaru' 上がる (to rise), or 'uwa' in 'uwagi' 上着 (jacket, outer garment).

If you are trying to read a website or email in Japanese, but don't know all the kanji, I strongly recommend Denshi Jisho. You can install it as a 'bookmarklet' in your bookmark bar, and instantly look up any Japanese words (not only kanji, but any words).

Onsen Story

Japan is famous for its onsen, or hot springs. But a more traditional onsen may be a little intimidating - or difficult to find - for a tourist.

What's the solution? Oedo Onsen Monogatari!

(Photos courtesy of a friend of mine.)

Oedo Onsen Monogatari (the name means 'Edo Hot Spring Story', 'Edo' being the old name for 'Tokyo') is like a hot spring theme park. It uses real, natural hot spring water, and its decor is set up to resemble an old-style Edo street.

As soon as you go in, you get a yukata (bathrobe-style kimono) which you can wear around the complex. This sets a relaxed mood right away. They give you a plastic tag which you wear around your wrist; you can use this tag to open your locker and pay for items on site; you pay the bill at the end. There is a fairly large shared area which both sexes can wander - souvenir shops, restaurants, and an outdoor foot bath. It's relaxing to sit with your feet in a foot bath, in a small garden, seeing all the tall buildings of Tokyo around outside...

Among the outdoor footbaths were ponds you could walk through, the bottom of which were lined with rocks. The website claims these rocks 'stimulate the soles of the feet', but in fact they just hurt.

You can also get the opportunity to have some unusual foot therapy in the form of 'doctor fish'. If you've never heard of them, this is really neat! Basically, you sit down at a pool full of small black fish. They love eating dead skin, so when you put your feet in, they all go for your feet. They don't have teeth, so they nibble at you with their lips. It's the strangest sensation - really, really ticklish, almost hard to keep your feet in the water at first, but then it becomes relaxing, like a vibrating massage. It costs extra, but it's a unique little experience.

You can also get massages and other treatments, though these are also not included in the entry fee. When I went, I got a sand treatment, which involved being buried up to the neck in hot sand. I forget why this was therapeutic, but it makes you sweat a lot.

In addition to these shared areas, there are segregated bathing areas (naked) with a variety of hot spring baths, both indoors and outdoors.

If you're interested in going, they are open almost 24 hours, entry for adults is 2900 yen, check out their website here. The nearest station is Yurikamome's 'Telecom Center' station.

They have information and signs in English, but it's best to be savvy with Japanese bathing etiquette before you go. As always, with Japanese hot springs, they have a rule not allowing people with tattoos.

Eikaiwa

Japanese English schools, particularly 'eikaiwa' (English conversation schools) hire a lot of new teachers, teachers with no experience. The companies often recruit from overseas, then give a period of training in Japan, after which the new teachers are unleashed on the paying public.

Now, whether this training is adequate depends on the company and the requirements of the job. Many eikaiwa have developed specific ways of teaching a class, so once you've learned their 'method', it's fairly plug-and-play. As such, a lot of eikaiwa teachers don't have - or need - a proper background and training in teaching methodology.

If you have a university degree, and are a native English speaker, it's usually not too difficult to find an ESL teaching job in Japan. The virtue of some of the major corporations is they can look after you and ease your entry into the country, helping you sort out things like visas, providing accommodation, etc.

Is eikaiwa teaching for you? Some people say the pay is low, etc, but if you are not a qualified teacher, what would you expect? I think it's a good way to get into the country. However, I think it would be a shame to do this work only for the sake of getting into Japan. You will have lots of students paying good money to learn from you; if you don't enjoy your job and don't care about doing well, it's a bit unfair on them.

Eikaiwa teaching can be repetitive compared to other teaching jobs, but it can be a good opportunity to meet people, talk to students, and learn about Japanese life and culture.

Is an eikaiwa a good place to work? Well, it depends on the person and the place. Here's my advice.

Do your research. If you are considering a particular company, see what other people on the Internet are saying about it. (Be aware, of course, that every company will have detractors, and it's the people who had bad experiences who tend to speak up the loudest.)

Also, different companies have different conditions, different lengths of holidays, different benefits. Some companies have a policy that you can't socialise with students. Some companies don't allow you to find your own accommodation, but make you pay for theirs. So look into this.

Be aware that every situation can be different. I have known people who worked for various companies; some of them had a wonderful time, while others had horror stories. Even within the same company, it's possible for one school to be wonderful and another terrible. The biggest problem I heard of was clashes with management, management making ridiculous demands, personality conflict with other staff members, etc.

A lot of eikaiwa do have problems, but like working in any office environment, a lot will depend on the individual staff you work with, and your own personality. Generally, if you are flexible and have a positive attitude, you are more likely to get along with people. See the next point.

To have the best chance of happiness at an eikaiwa, it's important to be a team player. You may find yourself being requested to do some things which are not strictly in your contract. For example, your contract says you finish at 8, but your manager wants you to talk to a student for a few minutes after class. Or your school is organising a farewell party for someone and would like you to come.

Of course, you do not technically have to do something that is not in your contract, and you shouldn't let yourself get walked all over. But if you refuse in an obnoxious way, or make an issue of it, or refuse every request, it'll likely create bad feeling. I've heard of many such stories, where Japanese staff are upset with foreign teachers who refuse to help with anything apart from their core classes. Often, the staff are just passing on requests coming from senior management.

In my experience, the Japanese staff at eikaiwa, when compared with foreign teachers, usually work longer hours for less pay. If foreign teachers refuse to help with anything, the Japanese staff have to do extra to compensate.

Of course, sometimes it is a case of unreasonable management making unreasonable requests. Again, every situation is different.

You should be aware of the corporate nature of these schools. Education may be important, but ultimately, the businesses exist to make money. As a teacher at this school, you may be asked to participate in advertising campaigns, get students to sign up for things, etc. You may encounter frustrations with Japanese-style management techniques and policies.

A lot of eikaiwa require you to teach both adults and children. Some people enjoy teaching children, but a lot of people don't. The number of kids classes can vary greatly from school to school; some foreign teachers find they have more children's classes than adult's. You should be aware of this.

Your attendance is required. With most eikaiwa, you don't have a lot of holidays or sick leave, and you are unlikely to be working flexible hours. Again, this can depend a lot on your particular school's staff. Some will let you take a week off to go travelling; others will baulk at allowing you a single day. Some will let you take a holiday on your least busy day but never on a weekend. Etc.

Along with these potential problems, there are potential good things - meeting people, working with a team of teachers and staff, help if you are new to the country, a relatively un-stressful job (depends on the school and position), pre-established materials and lesson plans (again, depends on the school), parties, teaching experience, etc.

Practising

It is nice to be able to practise the new language you learn with real people.

My co-worker, who was new to Japan, had just learned the days of the week. He said them over and over to himself.

After work, we went to a department store's 'restaurant hall'. My co-worker went to look at the menus outside one of the restaurants. A waitress came out and explained the specials in rapid-fire Japanese. She looked at him expectantly. He saw an opportunity for communication.

'Kyou wa doyoubi desu!' he said proudly. ('Today is Saturday!')

She looked at him, opened her mouth, closed it again, and went back inside.

Japanese language

It's interesting studying a foreign language and seeing what things are similar and different between the two languages.

Japanese and English are quite different, and I couldn't possibly go into all the differences. But here are some differences which I find interesting:

In English, we have different names for each of the months of the year. However, in Japanese, months are called by their number, for example, 'January' is 1月, literally 'month 1'.

In English, our counting is done in increments of hundreds and thousands.

However, in Japanese, the counting goes like this:
juu (10)
hyaku (100)
sen (1000)
man (10,000)
juu-man (10 ten thousands) (100,000)
hyaku-man (100 ten thousands) (1,000,000)
sen-man (1000 ten thousands) (10,000,000)
oku (100,000,000)

You can see that in Japanese, they don't say 'ten thousand' - 'ten thousand' has its own word, 'man'. Then 100,000 becomes '10 ten thousands'. In Japanese, there's no one word for 'million' as in English; it's like 'a hundred ten thousands'. Instead, the next number to get its 'own' number is one hundred million, 'oku'.

As you can imagine, this makes it difficult for English students of Japanese, and Japanese students of English, to easily translate large numbers!

In Japanese, adjectives can be conjugated. In English, we conjugate the verbs. But in Japanese, you can make some adjectives past tense, conditional, etc.

In Japanese, there are many ways of saying 'and'. For example, if you are giving a complete list of something (there is a book and a CD (and nothing else)), you'll use a different 'and' than for an incomplete list (there is a book and a CD (and maybe other things)). You'll use a different 'and' if something is a direct consequence of something else ('press the button and the light will go on') than if telling a sequence of events ('I went to the shops and bought a cake'). I think I know at least six or seven different ways of saying 'and'.

One thing I found particularly interesting - and which I am realising is used a *lot* - is some verbs can be put after other verbs to change the nuance of intention. (Forgive me if I describe any of this grammar wrongly, as some of it I haven't used much myself.)

For example, take the verb 食べる (taberu; to eat). You can add words, like:
tabete ageta (this suggests you ate as a kind of favour to someone)
tabete kureta (this suggests someone else ate as a favour to you)
tabete shimatta (this suggests it was unfortunate or bad that you ate)
tabete kita (this suggests you quickly went out, ate, and came back)

In English, you don't have to think of things like 'now do I feel a sense of indebtedness?' to change your sentence. But in Japanese, I realise, these words are used often, and it can sound strange if you don't use them. Like if you say 'he helped me' and don't use a verb like 'kureru', it might suggest you don't appreciate it.

Reverse Culture Shock

Before I returned from Japan, I had been vaguely aware of the notion of 'reverse culture shock', but hadn't given much thought to what that was or what form it would take.

In my case, I never had any real culture shock when I went to Japan. I'd say I stayed firmly in the 'honeymoon phase' for the full two years I was there. I loved my job, my co-workers, my everyday life, the area I lived in, the new experiences I was having, the independence, the sights, the trips... Even when I decided to leave, I felt like I hadn't had my fill of Japanese life. Given that, I was probably a prime candidate for reverse culture shock.

I'm sure reverse culture shock has many reasons and manifestations, but in my case, there were three key factors:

When you're a foreigner living in Japan, your life is naturally consumed with Japanese things and Japanese everyday life. You hear about the latest pop star scandal, some new and bizarre exhibition in Roppongi, when the cherry blossoms are predicted to bloom, the new restaurant by the harbour. When you're making new discoveries all the time, you may well find yourself frequently talking to your friends about interesting aspects of the culture or language you've picked up, learning new tidbits of information.

Then you return to your own country, and have to realise that you are the only one of your friends who is interested in Japanese things. Sure, your friends might like to hear some of your stories, have a quick look at some photos, etc, but the key word is 'some'. I had to watch myself, that I didn't begin too many sentences with the words 'In Japan...'

I think a lot of returning expats, after extensive travel and mingling with other travellers, also have a feeling that their own society is a bit parochial, not interested in the world outside. Really, I think that's true of every country - everyone is most preoccupied with themselves - but it is more striking after going away and coming back. You feel that your worldview has changed, so it's more noticeable when others' haven't.

There is something liberating about going to a foreign country and making a new life for yourself. You can develop your own routines and live as you want to, without having to follow the social obligations of home. Everyone you meet only knows you as you are now; there aren't the years of history, and nobody has the same ingrained assumptions about you.

Now, I highly value the deeper friendships I have here in Australia - where I know I could go away, and come back, and go away, and come back, and they would still be my friends. But I also found that being away from everything familiar made me act in different ways and experience different things than I otherwise would have.

Indeed, I almost felt like a different person altogether in Japan. I think Japan suited my personality, because I felt very relaxed and confident there. I rarely experienced insecurity, doubt, ennui, gloominess. A few moments of loneliness in the early months, before I made friends, but in general I felt great, like I had changed.

But when I came back to Australia, I felt like I reverted to the person I was before I left. I'd become more nervous about things, less inclined to be active, more worried about my future. Naturally, this made me wish, all the more, that I were still in Japan.

Although I loved living in Japan, I never seriously considered settling there permanently. Everything was fun because it wasn't forever. The lack of nature, the baffling office politics, the feeling of pressure, of having to conform, the gender roles - they were things I didn't necessarily like, but they weren't my problems.

I was aware that there were things that, while not a problem for me as a temporary resident, could be tough about life in Japan if I were to settle there. And so I never exactly thought of Japan as 'home'.

But when I came back to Australia, I didn't feel like Australia was 'home' either. Rather, I felt that I was yearning to get away again, experience the freedom and novelty again. I will soon do this, but now I have a new concern - where will it end? Will I keep going to new country after new country, looking for novelty, never settling, never considering anywhere my 'home'? And if I do go gallivanting forever, is this a problem?

I feel like I've opened a bit of a Pandora's Box from the time I first left my homeland. Before I left, I was perfectly contented here, but now...?

Anyway, these have been the basics of my own personal culture shock. Just thought I'd share this more personal post lest others have the same experience.

I found this good blog post: How to Survive Reverse Culture Shock. I enjoyed reading some of the readers' comments - it seems to be a fairly common phenomenon.

Work hard, play hard (part 2)

How about 'play hard'?

Well, when Japanese people do relax, they often throw themselves into that as well. Going out to a dinner and ordering loads of stuff, having 'all you can drink' deals, or just freely ordering drink after drink without thought of cost, staying out late regardless of work the next morning, even shy people singing karaoke with gusto, etc etc.

Perhaps it was just the groups I associated with, but it struck me that it is easy to do this kind of free 'let's go out!' thing in Japan, because the areas where people work are also packed full of restaurants and nightlife. This makes it very easy to just leave work and go to an izakaya or something. Most people don't drive home, so most people can drink as much as they like.

Naturally, it depends on the person and their responsibilities. I'm just generalising.

On a slightly different tack, I think Japanese also 'play hard' in the sense that some Japanese people will often have a hobby they follow quite seriously. (Bar the numerous young girls I talked to who, when asked what their hobby was, said 'sleeping' or 'eating'. Hahaha...)

So for example, there's a category of hobbyists called 'train geeks' who really love trains - if they take a trip, they might go somewhere that has an unusual, historic or famous type of train they can ride. They might also betake themselves to particular points - eg, a place where you can photograph the shinkansen passing, or one of the few points where the underground metro comes above ground, or the train station that nobody can leave (Umi-Shibaura if you are interested ^_^).

They might also collect train memorabilia, note differences in train 'doors closing' songs, build model trains, etc. It really depends on the interest of the individual, but I've heard of all these things being done.

Or lets say you're a photography enthusiast. I've seen people with professional quality cameras, for example, in gardens and cat cafes, taking shot after shot after shot. In the case of gardens, the same person may visit the same park on different days so they can take photos under different weather conditions, in different seasons, and so on.

Of course, not everybody puts this level of dedication into their hobbies, but it does seem like an especially Japanese thing, that a hobby is also something you can work hard at like this. ^_^