私は馬鹿だよ

(written today, April 21st, 2009)

I hope I used the right Kanji...

I feel really stupid. Did I come to Japan too early in my studies? I feel so confused in class. I understand some Japanese, but I just got done with Japanese Society and Lifestyles (first time in that class), and all I got from about an hour and a half of her talking was that wives were/are parasites to their husbands, pention plans (Japanese people have them), old Japanese cellphones look like modern day American cellphones (also, they way they used to dress is how Americans dress now - judging both cellphones and clothing from a VHS tape that looked like clothes that Americans wear today - did that make sense?), and there is a reason why Japanese people hand out tissue paper (but I have no idea why - something about the 80s). We watched a video that said something about Freet and NEET. It showed money, which is probably related to the pention plan.

I feel really dumb, but maybe it is just because I just got here and my advisor will not be back until Thursday. Even then, I may not be able to talk to him until Friday. The deadline for classes is the 28th, which is next Tuesday. Or maybe it is the 27th, and the 28th is when you can no longer turn it in? I dunno.

And as much as people want to think that the fact that I am in Japan means that life is wonderful - which it is pretty nice compared to America, all things considered - if a problem comes up, it is a bigger deal because my Japanese is not up to snuff. To repeat what I told a friend, "does getting hit by a car in Japan make it any better than getting hit by a car in America?" The Japanophile responce is, "yes, because you are in Japan," until they realize that the hospitals here are extremely expensive.

Something else I noticed is that last May, when I visited Japan with my school, a lot of guys thought they were making headway and going to score with some Japanese girls because they gave them their emails and phone numbers. "I got 17 email addresses!" "Yeah? I got 20!" I discovered that they were just entertaining the girls, and the girls were giving them the addresses and numbers to play with them. It's like how you give a dog table scraps. It is a BAD idea to go up to a group of girls and expect to get anywhere, because they cockblock eachother. If she wants to get picked up/hit on, she normally goes about it alone, so that she does not lose face and end up being called a slut. Rarely, they go out in groups of two, looking for some fun with a trusted friend.

So, from what I understood, only 3 guys were "lucky" on the trip to Japan last May - Myself and Jon (who ended up on a Japanese-style date with two girls), and Guy, who could have hooked up with a girl had it not been his last night in Japan (she basically said, "you want to come home with me?") So if you're out to entertain, then feel free to talk to groups of girls, but if you want to actually try and get someplace, talk to one girl - and only one girl.

I guess it is good that I am more interested in learning about the culture than the language. In fact, the only reason I started learning the language is to have a better understanding of the culture, and so I could read about the culture in it's native tongue. I have a long way to go for both.