This night I begin an extraordinary journey, one of growth, and learning. It has been a long time in the making, but has finally had the appropriate catalyst to incite its beginning.
First thing's first: Update schedule: I hereby pledge to update this Blog at least once a week, to track my progress in my mighty quest.
Second: This tale shall be a bit of a narrative/diary/journal for me as well, partly to make sure I am staying on task, and partly to get me writing in the creative manner once in a while again, and with regularity. Follow if you feel it will interest you, leave off if you do not.
Now that that's out of the way, let's get started with this tale, shall we?
I suppose I should start this tale from the very beginning, shouldn't I? Well, this will take some mental digging. I suppose it began way back in middle school, perhaps earlier. History class (or as it was known in those days, "Social studies." Imagine me saying this with disdainful sarcasm.) was my first exposure I suppose. No! Wait. There was one earlier exposure. When I was young, I do not remember how young, my mother rented and showed my brother a film that, at that age, gave me a couple nightmares, but due to it's continuous mental re-examining, grew and festered in my mind, its themes resonating with my soul for years to come, and having re-watched it for the first time a few years ago, and many times since, I have fallen quite deeply in love with it. This film was Princess Mononoke, written and directed by the master Hayao Miyazaki, and produced by his Studio Ghibli. I will not provide a synopsis of the film here, as if you have not seen it, I firmly believe that you should, and barring that, this is the internet. You can find a synopsis yourself. However, what is relevant, is that it introduced me to Japanese culture and beliefs for the first time. My second exposure that I can recall was another of Miyazaki's movies Spirited away, which I first saw in 6th grade, preceding a unit on Japanese history and culture in my history class. It was then that I became consciously aware of this love and resonance to their culture.
I have since discovered that the best description of my religion also comes from them, as I had known I identified as a buddhist, but I knew that was not all, as it offers no explanation for the spirits and gods which I believe in. Just this past spring however, I saw a presentation on Shintoism at the MCLA (Mass College of Liberal Arts) Undergraduate Research Conference, and that sparked several very late nights of personal research, followed by the immensely satisfying feeling of knowing how to accurately describe one's beliefs after so long a time of not having a suitable explanation. It was then that I knew very deeply that I was a Shinto Buddhist, with a couple slight personal belief twists to account for my belief of afterlife other than reincarnation, which I do also believe in. I fervently wish to pray at a Shinto shrine, in the original language of the religion. Is it required by the religion? No, they merely dictate that one respect and honor the gods in whatever way they feel appropriate. I feel I have not duly respected a god if praying at their shrine unless I have given them the simple courtesy of speaking in their native tongue.
Senior year of High school, 4 short/long years ago (I have a conflicting, paradoxical feeling of "It's only been 4 years!? It feels much longer than that!" at the same time as "4 years already!? It feels like I've only just graduated!!") I, on a whim, went with some new friends, and a couple old friends to Anime club. It barely wet my appetite for anime and manga, I would not fall truly in love with these amazing and versatile art forms for almost a year. I was introduced to one of my favorite anime series the summer after Graduation by my now ex girlfriend. I am blessed to have been pointed to it, but cursed that the first season brings back a lot of painfully bittersweet memories. This series was when I first fell in love with Anime, and is called Spice and Wolf. Again, find your own damn synopsis, or better yet, go watch a few episodes, it is on Hulu. I then devoured several more anime before the summer ended and vowed to go to anime club in college and make some friends in it. Looking back, a majority of my friends on campus are from anime club, as well as a majority of my good experiences here at MCLA.
Not long after joining the anime club, people showed me where to read manga online. (manga is to anime as the analogous cartoons are to comic books in american culture. (though a very poor likening, I'll explain why personally if you would like to know)) I then swiftly learned to enjoy this art form just as much, and sometimes more than anime, though both have very special places in my heart. This lead to my first urge to learn to speak and read Japanese. I want to enjoy these works of art as they were written, not after the myriad of imperfections and changes involved in translation, both of language, and cultural jokes. Even just seeing the difference between subtitled anime and anime that has had an English track dubbed onto it can be shocking, and that is between two translations to the same language! I can only imagine how different they both are from the true, original Japanese. I owe it to the amazingly talented artists that produce these to read them and watch them as they were intended and made to be. But there is one more reason behind my will to learn this complex and deep language.
I have wanted for some time to live in Japan. I know it is a pipe dream and recognize that it will likely not happen, and may not even be possible. But I want to try, and taking this step makes me feel I am that one step closer to this dream, and is that not an admirable goal? Whether or not I can ever accomplish it, I may at least work towards it! I still hope and pray that I may, even just for a short time, live in this noble and ancient society built upon honor and respect.
This brings me to the catalyst. The will has been explained, and now the fire that kicked this dragon into motion. I will be going to Japan next spring. Words can not adequately describe my immense joy and excitement at this prospect. One of my good friends then discovered a website dedicated to helping and providing self-learners a good method to learn Japanese, both spoken, and written. I thank him greatly for this, and will be following in his mighty footsteps along this path, at least for the start. I am excited to learn enough to both enjoy the art I have loved for several long years now in its original format, and to be able to pray with what I deem appropriate respect to any of the many shrines we will be visiting on the travel course I am now a part of.
This website, in its first chapter asks for a couple goals and reasons why its user wants to learn Japanese to keep them motivated upon their journey. I hope this post is an adequate answer to these questions!
~Dragon
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