My Japan Journey: Kaede Yanagihara

My journey in Japanese started when I was in elementary school that was in Hawaii where there were many others at a nearby Japanese Language school practicing Japanese. And I had attended that Japanese language school as extra-curricular study as an interest. The family had interest in Japanese language as well, so others in the family also went to the same language school to practice and learn their Japanese at a young age.

At the time, I was not quite as passionate about Japanese and Japan studies, because it was a lot and knowing what it was for would take a bit of time. It was about the importance of communicating in another language other than english, but its also about the fun of the language. I did enjoy the arts and crafts that could be done when learning certain words and knowing what they meant, so this also was part of the learning at the Japanese language school. The ability to read Japanese would either limit things I could participate or expand it, so I would continue learning Japanese to participate in more things. I enjoyed participating in the karaoke competition, and playing games after the Japanese language classes were over.

After graduating from elementary school, I transferred to a private high school starting from sixth grade. Sixth grade students were not allowed to study a language, but seventh graders and older students were allowed to study a foreign language. By this time, I had decided that I wanted to continue my studies in Japanese, so I opted to take the Japanese language class offered at my high school. I took Japanese for six years at my high school, and was able to get to the highest level Advanced Placement Japanese course offered at the school. I also decided to continue my Japanese language studies at the college level, graduating with a bachelor's degree in Japanese.

My first experiences with Japanese culture and Japanese things started with weekend sleepovers at my grandmother's house. She was a second-generation (nisei) Japanese-American, and she had a great interest and passion for Japan. My earliest memories of being at her house included playing with her go set with my siblings (even though we didn't properly know how to play the game), watching Japanese television shows (including historical dramas) with my grandma, and learning from my grandma about Japan and its culture. In addition, I was fortunate that we could travel to Japan with my family growing up, so I was exposed to many different areas in Japan, and could experience Japan.

I started studying Japanese more seriously when I entered seventh grade in junior high school. My studies in Japanese continued from seventh grade through senior year of college, when I received a bachelor's degree in Japanese. As for when I came to be known for my interest in Japanese culture, I would say it was around the time when I decided to more seriously study the Japanese language in seventh grade. My first Japanese-related project was when I decided to improve my Japanese comprehension by translating some Japanese volumes of my favorite manga series (Fruits Basket) into English. My original reason for wanting to translate these volumes started with me, perhaps with naive intentions, wanting to translate the manga into English so I could impress one of the students studying in the ESL program at my high school. However, gradually over time, as I got better and better at translating and understanding the meanings of more Japanese words, I came to like translating Japanese to English on my own terms.

Following this interest in Japanese to English translation, my next project was being team captain of a Japan Wizards Competition and representing my high school. As team captain for my team in this competition, I was able to assist my team and show our knowledge of Japan and Japanese culture. Due to our efforts and hard work, we were able to win first place in the competition, and a one week, all expense paid trip to Tokyo. I was very proud that I could help my team win first place in the competition, and proud that we all worked hard to achieve this goal. This project was different from the first because it involved working together as a group and achieving a common goal. As a writer, I want to communicate that if there is something interesting one wants to learn, the information is out there for one to discover.

The experiences that stand out most to me where I could experience Japanese culture are during my two exchange student experiences in Japan. The first experience was in Okinawa during my sophomore year (10th grade) of high school. This program was for two weeks, and it opened my eyes to more experiences in Japan I was able to have. Living with a Japanese family allowed me to see what Japanese daily life is like, and I was able to create a deep relationship with my host family that continues until today.

The second exchange student experience I had was during my sophomore year of college, where I studied abroad in the city of Kobe for a school year (September to May). While this experience was a little rocky in the beginning with homesickness and poor school performance, I was able to experience Kobe and create a good relationship with my host family. I was also able to experience more of Japan on my own in Kobe when I was not busy with schoolwork. During these experiences, the important things to me were developing good relationships with my host families, and developing my own sense of independence by exploring Japan on my own terms, living in Japan and experiencing daily life.

I didn't really think about having confidence to make a blog, but I would like to tell people about my experiences in Japan, and I think it is important if I can teach people things about Japan that they would not know otherwise. Perhaps having a blog will also help me have a place to organize my thoughts and experiences related to Japan. I am hopeful that my blog will be instrumental in helping people learn more about Japan they didn't know before. It would be nice if this blog could become popular from word of mouth or by being shared on social media, so that would be my ultimate hope for this blog.