Just kidding, I will try to keep this short. But it's me writing, so I think it will end up being pretty long...
My first exposure to Japan probably came from The Karate Kid movies. I remember seeing the first one on my family's very first VCR; in fact that may have been the first movie we ever watched on it. I was probably five years old at the time. The Karate Kid is a fairly inspirational movie in the vain of the Rocky films about an underdog overcoming obstacles and emerging as a champion, but what fascinated me about the movie was Mr. Miyagi, played by Pat Morita. I thought he was one of the coolest movie characters of all time. Later I learned that he is somewhat of a stereotype, but nonetheless I was very impressed by Mr. Miyagi. A year or so later, I saw The Karate Kid Part 2 in the theater with my brother and my cousin. That movie is actually set in Okinawa, so that may have been my first glimpse of Japanese culture, at least as portrayed in a Hollywood movie. It was very influential.
My brother bought a Nintendo NES system not long after we saw those movies, and before too long I got into video games too. I realized that most of the best games were made in Japan, so I became more interested in this amazing place that made these amazing games. I always tried to pronounce the names of the Japanese game companies like Konami and Taito and Bandai as best as I could. Years later when I began studying Japanese, I was surprised to find that my pronunciations were pretty close!
Any movie or comic book or game with a ninja in it immediately appealed to me. I dressed as a ninja for Halloween at least two years in a row. To me, a ninja was the ultimate hero (or villain). I have always been drawn toward darker characters, the ones with some mystery to them. Batman instead of Superman, for example. Ninjas fit right in with that, because they would sneak in your house and try to kill you, and you never even got to see their face. (That never really happened to me.) I later found out that real life ninja were quite different from the ones I grew up admiring, but they were pretty amazing too.
Japanese cars and electronics have a reputation for high quality. I first became aware of that when I was a kid, and my dad would talk about how reliable his Toyota truck was, and my family would buy electronics made by brands like Sony and Panasonic because those were considered the best. I always felt "proud" of Japan for making the best stuff! I had developed this great admiration for a country and people I knew very little about. All I knew was that Japan produced ninja, Nintendo, karate, Toyota, and all of these other fascinating things, and that impressed me quite a bit.
It wasn't until the mid-90's that I really started to read about Japan as a country and culture, not just as a place that created cool stuff. I wanted to learn more about this country whose history extended so much further back than our own, a country who had been a bitter enemy of the US not so many decades before, but had reemerged as an amazing success story, a country of peace and prosperity. To accomplish that, it seemed that Japan must be full of some amazing people. I wanted to learn more about them.
It was also in the early 90's that I experienced Japanese food for the first time. My sister's ex husband is half Japanese, and he made sushi for us at one family party. I didn't really know what sushi was, except that it involved raw fish (which is not always true). I thought it looked like pretty interesting food, so I tried a little bit of everything. I don't remember everything he made, but there was definitely inari and maguro. I have to be honest...I really didn't like sushi the first time I tried it. It's kind of ironic that now it's my favorite food in the world! I could eat sushi every day.
By my senior year of high school, I decided I would try to learn Japanese from a book I bought at Goodwill. (I hate to admit that I have been trying to learn Japanese for so many years, because my Japanese is terrible...) To me, that seemed like the deepest immersion into Japanese culture I could experience. It didn't go very well, but it did inspire me to take Japanese classes later on.
And it was in those Japanese classes that I met people from Japan for the first time. And some of those Japanese students became some of my best friends in the world.
I have very fond memories of spending time with them, learning about Japan and hearing the language (and attempting to speak it) and getting to eat homemade Japanese food. I really enjoyed helping them with English and trying to help them with some of the culture differences. Some of them told me I was their best American friend, or even their only American friend. If that was true, I was honored to be that. I am certainly grateful to them for many happy memories.
I know other people who are interested in other countries in the same way I am with Japan. I imagine they can relate to the fascination I have. What is it about a different culture or country that reaches those of us who care to learn? Is it the differences or the similarities? Is it the desire to escape to a place so far away and different from where we grew up? I don't know. Maybe it's all of those things. I just know that I admire Japan. I admire the culture. I admire the contrasts. I admire the people. There have been disappointments and frustrations. The language still seems unattainable to my limited brain. But Japan is still a big part of my life. Japan is in my heart and my soul.
No comments:
Post a Comment