6,778 Miles

As a half-Japanese and half-Chinese American, my childhood was filled with a mix of different traditions, foods, and trips to Hong Kong and Japan. The one thing that was missing was language, which wasn't that surprising; my parents communicate in English and I talk to my sister, parents, and friends in English. My understanding of Japanese and Cantonese was limited to the words that I would overhear my parents speak at restaurants or over the phone to their family. This language barrier between me and my family living in Hong Kong and Japan became more pronounced the older I got because what I wanted to express to them became harder and harder to communicate through charades or drawings. When I was 5 and wanted to play a game with them, all I had to do was bring the Othello board to them and my grandparents would understand. If I wanted to talk to them about a friend I made or what I did in school, I could show a picture of my friend or present them with my notebook or project from class and they'd understand what I meant. But now when they ask me about how college is or how I'm doing, I have so much I want to say and little to express with. 

Growing up with this language barrier made me much more attentive to details such as intonations in their voices, changes in body language, and expressions in their faces. It makes me appreciative of how even though we don't speak the same language and we're 6,778 miles apart, it doesn't change how close I feel to them. Since the distance is so long, we don't see each other that often in person, so a lot of our interactions take place over the phone. My grandparents try to learn English words and it made me think about how even if I don't speak Japanese or Cantonese fluently right now, by learning these languages, I'll be able to express more to them and make 6,778 miles seem smaller. I am taking Japanese now because I want to be able to communicate with and understand my family more.  I also want to learn more about my heritage. I hope to strengthen the connection that I have with them and hear their stories and share mine with them. I'm excited to surprise them with the Japanese I'm learning now when I next see them!

I'm really excited to learn how to speak and have conversations in Japanese as well as read and write. I want to be able to speak to my family in Japanese, read signs/navigate Japan, watch TV shows, go grocery shopping, and engage more with people from my mom's town.  I also am looking forward to learning about the culture and traditions in Japan. I went to a historical museum in Japan that had been dedicated to the history of the town that my mom's family is from. It replicated the town so that the whole exhibit is the town as if it were when my grandparents were children. The museum made me think about the aspects of Japan that have carried over throughout the years and those that have changed. I'm fascinated in Japan's history and how Japan has maintained so many of its traditions and customs while transforming into such a modern and high-tech country. 

These past weeks, I have found that spelling words with hiragana can be difficult because words are not always spelled as they sound when there are long vowels or double consonants. I have also found that the particles are tricky. If I don't keep in mind that a conversation has been ongoing, I put the wrong particle. If there's a conversation between two people and something has already been compared, I put a "は” instead of using the correct particle, which would be a "も." There's also an emphasis on who the speaker and listener is in Japanese that I need to adapt to. The audience matters a lot; if it's a teacher, boss, or stranger, the more polite form of a sentence or question needs to be used. It's also taking me time to get used to reading hiragana at a regular pace especially because there are not really spaces between words. In English, I can break up what I'm reading by the words themselves, while in Japanese, I find myself breaking it up more by the thoughts rather than individual words. 

じゃあ、また！クレア