It’s incredible that it’s actually over….
This summer has been my journey into a space where I can see just how little Japanese I know and how much there is to learn from now on. Accordingly, I don’t think I can get to the level of Japanese I want to be at quickly, but I realize now that I don’t want to do it quickly. I want to enjoy the experience of learning: mistakes, spirited conversations with classmates and teachers, community, sense of direction. That being said, this summer was all but leisurely; we went fast. In the hustle I felt preparing for class and rush to submit my last homework assignment for the day moments before it was due, it was easy to look past how much ground I covered and forward to what I have to learn next. This was a little tough as I felt like I wasn’t making much progress at times, but having the chance to slow down now that it’s over, I think my Japanese did grow. Mainly, in a sense that I can be more dexterous with the Japanese I already knew. Supplementing this with new material, I became more comfortable navigating novel situations in Japanese.
On the final night of the program, our 9 person class was assigned a project where we could present about anything we wanted to; the draft just had to be around 600-800 characters. I was second to present and was really nervous for the 3 weeks leading up to my presentation; I thought I had to present in front of the entire KCJS community, students, and staff. To my surprise, this night would come to be one of the highlights of the program for me.
Firstly, it turned out that I only had to present to our small class.
*Huge sigh of relief*
The prompt for the project was, in essence, “present about something that is indispensable to you”. And so the first presenter began:
“While many might think about something indispensable as something they would regret throwing away, that something, to me, is regret. Though sometimes regret is seen as a negative emotion in Chinese and American culture, I believe that regret can be a positive thing, and it has been a sort of compass for me. Guiding me away from making the same mistakes, pushing me to work harder and do my best, this is regret”.
In that moment, this was just what I needed to hear. The topic was in itself very interesting, but I was more moved by how they presented. Perhaps it was that they seemed not to be bothered too much by nervousness, whether they didn’t feel it or did and were able to overcome it. Perhaps it was that they spoke with clarity, seeking to shed light on their genuine experience of the world, observing and exploring it. To me, this felt vital, of essence. It made me realize this is something I want to work towards, to find this clarity in my voice and to understand my experience of life more fully.
All of this to say, I felt reassured before I presented that there is so much more to life than worrying about one presentation, that life is so much more complex than appearances. I can be doing something meaningful even if it doesn’t appear like it to other people, even if there is no grand display of fireworks to indicate “meaningfulness”. It felt okay not to worry about being good at Japanese or whether I came off as nervous, because I cannot directly control these parts of my experience. I cannot support a claim that I know more Japanese than I do, because when tested it will be obvious that I don’t very quickly. It is the same thing with being nervous; when it comes down to it, the truth is in my body language, regardless of how I want to appear.
Now, it can simply a matter of finding a way to accept these things and work with them, whether it be to study more Japanese or to work with my difficult feelings so they do not hold me back from experiencing other aspects of life, too.