文法を勉強し始めて天神に行った時 (When I Started Language Study and Went to Tenjin)

6/30-7/1

Thursday June 30th was the first day of language class. It was terrifying. I have definitely been placed levels above my comprehension. I spent the entirety of the two-and-a-half-hour-long class trying to understand whatever it was my professor was saying, while maintaining a managable level of anxiety which was being manifested by the presentation of the japanese-only textbook in front of me.

Here is a picture of my book.

Surely I have been placed into the level of Japanese I had hoped to switch into once I got back to the states, not one that would help me switch into it... Well, dear readers, I stuck it out. I got through that class and even decided to go back the next day. Yes, I had to answer questions I could blatantly not read. Yes, I had to use words like "typical" and "indication" after only one year of Japanese. Yes, I shat my pants. However, I eventually thought to myself: Why does it matter? I'm not submitting these grades to Swarthmore for credit. They mean nothing. The embarrassment is empty. I'm untouchable.

Thus, I decided to stay in the class, and hopefully experience some sort of a Japanese enlightenment as a result.

After class Anna (ah-na as opposed to the many Anna's in my life), Emily, Max, and I walked around Hakozaki to try and find cool places to go nearby. However, not much was accomplished. After finding a huge empty arcade in which we took more japanese photobooth photos (purikura), we decided to give up with the town and just look around the college. We found a couple museums and got invited by a curator to some sort of drinking party later in the week. Who knows, maybe we'll go.

One of the entrances to Kyudai's (Kyushu University, Kyushu Daigaku in romanji, thus Kyudai) Campus.

A random secret gate we discovered along the street that led to...

A shrine! (We didn't go in for fear it was forbidden.)

Friday was significantly easier, and we practiced grammar for a significant amount of time, thus allowing me to simultaneously scribble the words I didn't know into my convenient-and-trendy Nintendo DS dictionary. After answering a couple questions about low calorie menues and the increasing number of citizens who live alone, we studied a bunch of kanji that had 耳 in them.聞、聴、最、取、職、聖. Kanji is always nice. No talking, just writing.

Anyway, after classes, Anna, Emily, Max, and I went out with Emily's peer tutor. She took us to Canal City (which was really pretty) and we explored all sorts of Japanese stores. I found a store that stocked mainly cute little Miyazaki merch that I will definitely have to go back to. (The Ponyo DVD came out in Japan that day!)

On the way to Canal City. We actually thought this was Canal City.

We saw a lot of Giant yamakasa, which are huge art pieces teams of men from Fukuoka build once every year for a festival.

Every year at the peak of the festival, the teams carry their yamakasa on their collective backs and race across the city.

Of course the real yamakasa are smaller than these displays, even though they are in fact huge.

A view of the center fountain area in Canal City, and another yamakasa.

A better view of the above yamakasa. Trivia: this float is most definitely inspired by the kabuki Sukeroku.

This is for Azia and Leslie. When you touch the hand under him, he yells PIKA PIKAAAA.

Couldn't resist. Instead of Puma...Pu-san (as in Pooh-san <3)

After walking around Canal City a bit, we walked through an area of the city which seemed to have many a strip club, to Tenjin (read: downtown Fukuoka). We walked through an enormous underground shopping mall, then eventually went home. Anna and I were planning on going home to eat dinner, then possibly come back to go out drinking with Max, but plans sort of fell through and he ended up going with another friend from Michigan College.

View on the way to Tenjin.

At home I ended up helping a couple kids learn English by checking their homework and commenting on their reading skills. It was fun, though my Japanese was definitely not good enough to fully teach them anything. I asked one girl what about the section was hard for her, and it took me hours before I realized she had said "Answering the questions" in the form of the simple phrase ”答え方.”