This may or may not be news to you. I was an exchange student in High School. I lived in Ehime Prefecture, Saijo City for 10 months in 2003 and a few days of 2004. It changed my life forever.
The experience has helped to mold me into who I am today, has given me a more concrete vision of my values, my ethics, who I want to be, and what I want to become. Though I’ve always been a pretty open minded individual, this experience helped mold the way for me to think about things in other ways than simply “us” and “them.”
Being on JET is different than this experience. Think about the life you led as a High School student, and think about the life you lead after High School. Now imagine doing that in another land where the society is a tad different than the one you grew up with.
It’s becoming very apparent to me how the exchange in Japan way back in the day has helped me adapt and essentially become a very receptive person, not just to Japan. Let me explain. There’s a difference when you’re learning about a language and a culture through an exchange versus being a professional or working in another country. It has much to do with language.
For the ten months I was a student in Japan, I could not escape Japanese. My family spoke it, my teachers spoke it, my friends spoke it, and the society around me spoke it. That was a fact. I could not come home to the comfort of my own apartment, I could not create my own “other” linguistic sanctuary where I could exist outside of Japanese, and I could not not use Japanese in every aspect of my life for those ten months. There was no “work is over let me go speak English/Spanish now” for me.
I mention this because there’s certain functions that you become used to, there’s certain techniques about language that you learn, and there’s certain ways in which your mind grows when you are bombarded by language. Survival instincts kick in hard. That spongy brain that you had as a child comes back oh so suddenly and unexpectedly and it is a very intense experience. Five months or so into my exchange, I went to bed with a huge headache, and then I woke up the next morning speaking Japanese with no more headache. I distinctly remember that night. My brain was ready.
So, as I was sitting in my Chinese class today going along with the pronunciation, and really getting the hang of it, I thought, “holy shit, this language thing is cool!” Folks here (and other places I’ve lived) tend to point it out to me that I’m multilingual, but I just take it as a given, and to me it’s really nothing special. It’s simply my passion, and I don’t see how I could be as interested in anything else but various languages and the ideologies that surround that. And that’s what my exchange helped guide me towards.
It allowed me to realize through somewhat brute ideological force that there were other ways of existing besides the ones I grew up with. Though many folks know this and seemingly believe it, it isn’t until you are exposed to and literally become a member of a different society that it becomes apparent that when it comes to culture and language, folks around the world share a ton in common and there is no more “us” and “them.” And I do mean a lot. I mean so much so that when people ask me “what’s different in America than in Japan,” I am now always at a constant loss for words.
I have no answer because there is no answer. I legitimately believe and have seen through my own experiences that the way folks live their lives around the world are no better or no worse than the way folks live their lives where I grew up. It’s taken a ton of world exchange and living, being immersed in many languages and cultures, and simply saying “ok,” to be able to learn that lesson.
So as I now learn Chinese (I’m also learning Korean, and of course continuing Japanese), I look at the writing and listen to my teacher and other students, and I see it for what it is. Another form of communication. Sure, I’m still a novice, and it’ll take me a while to “get better.” But here’s what I’ve learned, and I’ve learned this well: Never be afraid to make mistakes, never be afraid to try, constantly try to make connections and just like a baby, speak what you understand and try to make sense of what you want to say without being afraid that others will judge you. They will anyway, so who cares, as long as you are learning and trying, you’ll get it eventually, no matter what.
And so my first Chinese class was a personal success. Because I picked up the phrases, pronunciation, and characters in today’s class all in a flash. (Not without any prior influence of course because I took Chinese for a semester in London, and of course Japanese kanji is derived from Chinese, and I do love my Kanji)
But I’m starting to understand how much of an “internationally” aware person I’m becoming, how much of a “global citizen” I’ve become (in the words of Friends World) and how sensitive I am to other ways of thought. I’ve become less and less judgmental about ways of being that are not my own. We’re all carved from the same block (this is not a religious, but metaphorical statement), and we all exist within the same matter. So to me learning other languages and about other cultures isn’t something “crazy” or something “so difficult and challenging and only for smart people,” but for me, it is life. It is fun, I like being social and seeing how others express themselves throughout the world. And all those petty differences sort of just lose their meaning, sort of become irrelevant, and sort of just vanish in my mind. Example, forks and chopsticks are not these polar opposite eating utensils. In my mind, they’re simply just eating utensils, no biggie.
Now imagine if we exposed ourselves to other ways of thought, other languages, and other ways of thinking. And imagine if rather than tokenizing entire groups of people, like saying “all Asians___,” we instead can say things like, “in my experience, I learned that___ and it’s really not that different than say ___(something familiar to the speaker/listener)______.” Then this amazing thing happens: prejudices are called into check, moments in time become precious because they are so unique and exist then and there, and imaginary and socially constructed boundaries and barriers begin to disappear. And the biggest lesson I’ve learned through learning different languages and existing in various cultures? Real communication occurs within and through the use of the heart (or soul or whatever, heart in a figurative sense of course). It isn’t about the nitty gritty nuances of language, it’s about how effectively you can communicate what you feel.
Language is just a convenience to be able to do that, but we all have something to express, and we all have different ways of expressing that something, and each way is no more or no less valuable than any other way. And that to me is where the beauty in life lays, and that is why I love to study language. Rather than making me focus on all the petty differences that exist between people and cultures, I instead am able to understand, appreciate, and value how alike we all actually are. And that is a powerful life lesson I think, and one that I continue to practice and continue to hold dear to my heart. Feelings and emotions are grand, exquisite things, and I am thankful that I am lucky enough to experience a wide range of them. Language conveniently allows me to exist as the person I want to be.
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