Last night, okaasan and I went to visit her brother and his wife, who live down the street. It was a little nerve-wracking at first, and I was nervous about not knowing visiting manners or keigo (honorific speech) sufficiently. They served us tea, and I was kind of amused as okaasan told them (seeming very pleased) about my ability to eat Japnese food,  my ookisa (height) and the fact that I had gone jogging that afternoon. Luckily, both of them spoke slowly, and unlike my otousan, okaasan's brother was quite easy to understand. Okaasan's brother brought out his calligraphy to show us, which was really pretty and then got out his shamisen and started playing (I got to hold it!) This was all very interesting, and my iPhone dictionary saved the day more than a few times. The conversation was definitely way out of my vocabulary range as they ended up talking about things like the epic poetry sung along with shamisens and the type of dancing used in kabuki. I was following along as best I could with my dictionary, and learn all kinds of interesting words like  音感 (onkan, sense of pitch.) They then tried to describe the evolution of the shamisen, but all I could make out was that it originated in Okinawa and they used to use cat skin for it but that broke too easily, so now they use dog skin. Then we discussed how traditionally, blind people were travelling shamisen players.

Here are a few pictures:

...?

Sana and Kousuke, the grandchildren.

Oyako don and soba

Okaasan's brother's calligraphy

Okaasan's brother with the shamisen

More calligraphy 

ホスト家族

I've moved into my host family's house! They live in a pretty, light blue house with a big garden behind it about an hour away from school. My okaasan (mother,) otousan (father) and oniisan (brother) are all very friendly and energetic. As I stepped into the house for the very first time, I was greeted loudly by their two grandchildren-- Sana, a very friendly nine-year-old girl, and Kousuke, her adorable (but shy) two-year-old brother. Thanks to Sana and Kousuke, I also got to learn my first Japanese children's song: it has the tune of Frère Jacques, except is about sumo wrestlers instead. Otousan is a real challenge to understand: his speech is very low and slurred, and he uses speech patterns particular to older males. The combination of these three factors made him nearly incomprehensible to me at first, but I'm trying really hard to understand, and I think it's getting a little easier.

 I gave my host family my "omiyage" yesterday (the present that one brings when visiting people.)  I brought maple sugar candy as well as a book of pictures from the Hudson Valley, and they seemed to like them a lot. They were also very curious to see pictures of my family, so I showed them several that I had on my computer. I was amused as they pronounced my father "like a movie star" and my mother "very pretty" and even called my cat "sugoi." 

Behind the house, okaasan has a garden in which she grows all sorts of vegetables. There was definitely a gap in my vocabulary where Japanese vegetables were concerned, but thanks to a tour of the garden last night, that has been rectified, I'm especially excited to try the pumpkins that she's growing. I had pickle-like things that okaasan makes from Japanese radish (daikon) that she grows herself, as well as spinach this morning for breakfast and they were both delicious. We had ramen with all sorts of vegetables for dinner last night too- totemo oishikatta! 

We live pretty close to the nearest station, so they lent me an extra bike, and I bike (along with dozens of uniform-clad Japanese middle-schoolers) to the station every morning and catch the 7:40AM train from Namiiso station to Hakodate station. The train ride is about 30 minutes long, and the walk from the station to HIF is another 30 or so.

We have quite a bit of homework for Japanese class as well as daily quizzes, so I've been learning a lot of new vocabulary as well as reviewing difficult grammar structures such as the passive-causative tense, and I did my first small speech in front of the class the other day about my trip to the onsen. I decided to do my independent study project on the Japanese college preparation and entrance process, so I'm excited to interview local high school and college students as well as teachers. I also signed up for Judo, which is a Japanese martial art that I know very little about, but it starts next week, so I'm excited to try it. I also signed up for Japanese cooking, visiting Asahi elementary school, and quite a few other activities that start later in the semester.

In the last few days, I've had a few really encouraging conversations with Japanese people. First, I successfully managed to buy my monthly train pass by myself, which required filling out forms in Japanese. Then, on the train ride home yesterday, after asking the woman sitting in the seat across from me if she knew the station name, we talked for almost 20 minutes. Trying to keep up with what she was saying felt a good deal like running with someone in better shape than me, but I successfully managed to understand all her questions and answer them. I'm starting to get the hang of politely deflecting compliments in Japanese, which seems to be a pretty important skill.

Unfortunately, there is no internet whatsoever at my host family's house, but I found a place with free wi-fi within walking distance of HIF, so I'm updating from there. I'll try to include pictures in my next entry- my camera wasn't working this morning, so I left the battery to charge.

The first few days in Hakodate have been packed  with placement exams, meeting people and sightseeing! We woke up before 5 AM to catch a plane to from Tokyo to Hakodate and didn't even get a chance to put our luggage away before being whisked off for hours of placement tests.  Still, we had enough energy to do a little exploring after dinner on Thursday, and I walked around the brick warehouses and Hakodate Bay.

Elliot was brave enough to try the perplexing "salted squid guts" at dinner on our first night. They were very interesting and each bite had a few waves of very distinct but not quite unpleasant flavors.

On Saturday we had another test (very mysteriously labeled "SPOT Test" on our schedule,) which turned out to involve filling in blanks in sentences on paper while listening to extremely rapid Japanese.

Luckily, this rather painful test was mitigated by the excellent breakfast buffet provided at the hotel that morning. Observe on this plate: fresh Hokkaido milk, an entire squid, pumpkin, rice and various (unidentified) delicious side dishes. This is real Japanese food, not the California rolls or chicken teriyaki type things they sell at the Chinese-owned Japanese food places near my house.

Later on Saturday, I went with 9 or so other HIF students to the other side of Hakodate near the historic park. It was a several mile walk, and it started raining when we got there, so I'll have to go back again soon. 

This morning, I woke up early again from jet-lag (時差ボッケ) and went to breakfast around 6:30. I like sitting there for a long time, because it's a great place to meet other HIF students and have conversations with them. I met two PhD candidates, one from the Harvard Divinity School and another from Southern Illinois University as well as several graduate students who told me about what they were studying.

After that, I went to the Asaichi fish market, where the vendors were selling mainly squid, king crab, sea urchin, and cantaloupe. The people in the stalls were so friendly and we talked to them and observed すごい seafood. 

The most fun part was talking to the woman selling "taiyaki," little fish-shaped pancakes with red bean paste inside. While she cooked the taiyaki, we spoke to her in Japanese. I told her where I was from and what  I was studying, and she explained how she made the foods she was selling (she's been making taiyaki for 50 years!) I couldn't understand everything she said, but we talked for probably almost 10 minutes, and I left with a feeling that my confidence in speaking had improved.

After a brief excursion to buy a little notebook to write all the new vocabulary I'm learning (today's kanji is 株, "kabu" or stock,) a group of us decided to try to hike Mt. Hakodate and then go to an onsen, or hot spring, which are famous in the area. We climbed part of the way up the mountain before reaching a dead end, so we decided to save the rest of the journey for another day and head to the onsen. We didn't realize that the onsen was also a public bath, divided up by sex, until we walked into a huge room of completely nude Japanese women: we turned from cool, Japan-savy foreigners to flustered, embarrassed, "baka na gaijin" in a split second! Still, we had already paid, so we reluctantly showered in the huge public shower area. After about 10 minutes, we got over our Western embarrassment and had a great time, and we were really happy that we went! 

Intro Post

My interest in Japan began somewhere around junior year of high school. At my all-girls boarding school, we had many international students from Asia, and I had a close friend and roommate from Japan, named Yukiko. I often helped Yukiko with her English homework, so in exchange, she started teaching me Japanese. We had lessons together on the weekends for most of my senior year. Yukiko does Japanese calligraphy, so her kanji, hiragana and katakana are beautiful, so I loved learning them from her.

I'm extremely grateful to Yukiko for everything she taught me, but it was difficult for her to explain grammar (since she knew it intuitively, not by grammar rules,) and we conversed almost entirely in informal, 16-year-old girl Japanese. Last summer, I went to Tokyo for four weeks in June and lived with a host family while taking Japanese classes, where I got a chance to learn more of the essentials of grammar. My host family (on the right are Tomoko-san and Satsuki, my host mother and her 9-month-old daughter) were very welcoming and I had a great experience . I'm now a rising sophomore and have just completed L4 Japanese at Yale.

Thanks to the Light Fellowship, from June until August I'll be in Hakodate studying at the Hokkaido International Foundation's summer program. For reference, I google maps'd the city:

    

I just got my host family information from HIF, and I'm excited to meet them (after the hotel quarantine to protect against swine flu, aka, 豚インフルエンザ.)  I'm also really excited to see Hakodate and eat some delicious fresh seafood, especially squid and crab.

In terms of Japanese, I'm looking forward to improving my fluency, and I'm particularly hoping by the end of the summer to have overcome the inevitable mid-sentence pause in which I try to figure out how to end the verb I'm trying to use, especially when using the more difficult tenses. I'm not sure where my current grasp of kanji puts me in terms of ability to navigate everyday life in Japan, but I'm sure it will be significantly easier than last summer considering how much I've learned in the past two semesters (thanks to Seto-sensei and Maruyama-sensei!)

I'll be leaving New York on the 8th of June and arriving a day early in Tokyo to meet up with some high school friends who are there currently.  I also bought my JR pass exchange ticket, so I hope to be able to travel around Japan for a week or so after the program ends. 

I still have a lot of studying, organizing and packing to do in the next 10 days, but I hope to update regularly once I get to Hakodate!