Why I Study Japanese

                     Why I Study Japanese

I could conclude this post by simply saying that I registered for first-year Japanese taught by Okamoto Sensei, because someone I know speaks extremely high of Okamoto Sensei. It is true. It is just that he also encouraged me taking Calculus III, a course I did not ended up signing up for.

There is a more complexed reason I would like to try sharing, with respects and discretions. I rarely talk about it with people I know, because people could get emotional and irrational. I share it because I trust Okamoto Sensei that she would not have prejudice on me because of the following rationales.

I was born in a very small city in the northeastern of China. The main street of the city is called "Sakura walk". It is really beautiful when the cherry flowers on that street blossom. The street becomes decorated with a mixture of whiteness and pinkness.

(This is a picture I found from the internet. This is how the"Sakura Walk" looked like today. It seems to me that I never returned to the small city, or visited it, once I left. I can only learn about it from internet when I think of it.)



It is so because, according to adults around me,  Japanese had conceived about making the city some sort of a secondary capital if it succeeds at invading China. In addition to Sakura trees, there are also hospitals, parks, and university buildings built by Japanese. I remember looking at these building as a toddler, wondering why they looked drastically different from other buildings in the small city.

I left the city for Beijing when I was extremely young, and grew up attending international schools. Now, this is my third year studying at New York City. Because of an education like this, some of my friends and teachers were Japanese. They are intelligent, friendly, and extremely hard-working. Also, in the process of growing up, I have been introduced to different aspects of modern Japanese culture: My parents like taking me to Japanese restaurants when we have family outings. I do figure skating, and I think Yuzuru Hanyu, Mao Asada and Marin Honda are great athletes for the impressive sportsmanship they exemplify. I like music, and I listen to albums of  Mitsuko Uchida, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Seiji Ozawa a lot. In literature class of high school, I read "the Snow City" by Yasunari Kawabata in Chinese, and I was blown away by it. When I visited Tokyo last summer, I was impressed by the warm-hearted and polite people there.


It is me who was born in a small Chinese with Sakura trees. It is also me the girl who has Japanese friends, loves eating Sushi and green tea mochi, fancies about reading Japanese literature in its original Japanese language, and enjoys the family trip to Tokyo. It is me who has a grandpa who majored in Japanese studies when he was a college student.

When I log on to Chinese websites, I see news about how conflicts with Japan from the history extend into contemporary society. When I browse about news on some of the foreign policies and educational policies introduced by the government of Japan, I am usually astonished. Such a discrepancy exists, between what each of the sides says. I don't think it would be wise to buy stories from either side. Instead, I feel obliged to make sense of it.

When I was in primary school in Beijing, I tried to decide if it is fine for me to continue loving Cinamoroll, the adorable Sanrio fictional character. When I was in middle school, I tried to explain to fellow classmates why it would be unfair to discriminate classmates who also speaks Japanese because of what happened in the history. When I was in high school, I tried to argue that there are at least some elements of logic and rationality in issues about national history. As a college student, I think there is no better choice to me than learning Japanese.

Honestly speaking, I find studying Japanese really challenging. It was very difficult learning Hiragana. Also, it was really hard to comprehend the Japanese grammar. I tried to respond to these challenging by making more time for Japanese studies. I also try to find Youtube Videos that transform vocabulary flashcards into video with pronunciations, that would probably help me with memorizing words. I kept going even if I am constantly confronted with aforementioned barriers because I really wanted to be able to communicate in Japanese.

 By learning the Japanese language, I hope to be able to communicate with more Japanese people, to understand its history and society better, and to understand about its politics better. I hope to be able to communicate with Japanese people directly, so that I would know how they really feel, think, and believe. I also wanted to tell them about China and show the friendliness I could as a Chinese person.

I feel really lucky that I have chances of taking Japanese courses at my university from such a nice teacher like Okamoto Sensei.  I am aware that chances like this are not available everywhere. Highly compelled that I feel to achieve the aforementioned wishes. In that way, maybe one day, when I share mocha ice cream with my children, if they ever dwell on if it is all right to enjoy mocha ice-cream being children of a Chinese mother, I would have answers that are sufficiently good to me, that I can tell them about.