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I’m having some very stressful times in my Japanese odyssey, and I really need some outside thoughts…
I mentioned in my self-intro, that the whole reason I have for wanting to learn Japanese, is my undying desire to move there and build my life to my own specifications in the land I’ve come to want to call “home”.
However, I find I have several doubts pounding at my head that keep rearing their ugly heads and sabotaging everything I’m working towards. I just can’t get the fear out of my head that immigrating might turn out to be either the best thing to happen to me, or the worst mistake of my life. The topic gets brought up a lot amongst people with my goals, but I’ve never been able to get a clear view of the truth.
I’m scared to death of the oft-mentioned xenophobia that supposedly exists there. I’ve heard it’s different from someone who’s just a tourist because they’re just “visitors”, but those who choose to live there are suddenly seen through different (worse) eyes. I’ve seen two polar extremes among ex-pats. Those that say their time there (sometimes on the order of decades) has been bliss for them, and those that say it’s a racist nightmare. What exactly am I supposed to expect? That fear and doubt is constantly freezing my progress to the point where I stop studying altogether as I wonder if it’s even worth it any more.
On another level, I also can’t get rid of the fear of practising. That is, I’m at the point now in my learning where I really need to practise with native speakers to learn how to speak more fluently. I’m blessed to have access to native speakers (a rarity in my area), but I constantly chicken out when trying to talk for fear of looking like a fool. They talk to me in Japanese and I want to respond, but I just choke and switch to “safe” English. It’s immensely frustrating, and I go home feeling like a failure. It’s bad enough that I can’t even bring myself to use Lang-8 any more.
Both these issues have destroyed my progress. I just don’t know what to do or what to think. Is my dream to live in Japan a fool’s errand? How can I be sure I’m not making a huge mistake? And apart from that, how can I shake the fear of embarrassment and force myself to practise speaking?
I post this here because I think the people here might be a little more understanding of my issues. It’s hard to talk about this with others because of the nature of my “obsession”. It’s not like saying you like Germany or Italy or Spain; saying you like Japan instantly labels you a “weeaboo” amongst my peers, and for me my dream is based around something much deeper than being a blind “otaku”, so I hope I can find a gentler ear here.
Thank you for any opinions.
I can’t speak about xenophobia, but I can certainly emphathise with the fear of practicing. When I go to a Japanese restaurant, for example, it’d be so easy to order in Japanese – “ramen, onegaishimasu” – but at the last moment, I second-guess myself out of it – “what if they’re only working here part-time, and they don’t actually speak Japanese? Then I’d look silly. Or pretentious.” When I went to Japan last year, my reluctance to ask directions from a random stranger, even when I had the phrasebook to tell me exactly what to say, cost my friend and I about ten thousand yen.
This may not be what you want to hear, and I can say from personal experience that it’s much easier to say than it is to put into practice, but frankly it’s a silly fear. The worst that’s going to happen is they won’t understand, and maybe it’ll be a bit embarrassing for all concerned, but they’re not going to ridicule you (and if they do, find new practice partners). Try it again. Speak slower, or use different emphasis, or whatever. Ask your practice partners for pointers. If they’re speaking to you in Japanese, they’re wanting to help you. They themselves probably had (or even have) the same fear of speaking in English.
You’re worrying yourself into a vicious circle – because you’re lacking confidence to practice, it’s affecting your motivation to study, and because you’re not studying, you’re not gaining the confidence to practice. Focus on the goal – don’t let the speed humps trip you up. You’ve got a dream, and it’s certainly not unattainable. Set yourself some intermediate goals, maybe – “by the end of the week, I’m going to at least greet a friend in Japanese”, something to get you over that first step.
You hit the nail on the head when you gave the restaurant example, as the practise partners in question are actually the staff of my local Japanese restaurant. I’m a regular customer for over a year now and they all know me by name (affixing -kun to my name and all) and treat me very well, the owner especially often pushes me to try speaking in Japanese.
And yet, despite all that, I can’t shake the unease. It’s like, they’re OK with practising with me, but I know they’re also trying to work, and I don’t want to cross that fine line where the silly gaijin stumbling in broken Japanese just becomes an inconvenience.
And of course, they’re all used to customers walking in eager to try out the few Japanese phrases they picked up in travel phrasebooks to impress their friends (but who are not actually students of the language), and I fear that I might come off that way, like a pretentious guy trying to look cultured and everyone’s just humouring me. I can’t expect everyone to know how serious it is to me (indeed, my whole plan for my future hinges on it), so I withdraw and either stick to English or just keep my mouth shut to “save face”. And it kills me every time.
What you said about the vicious cycle is exactly right. When I try to speak, I freeze and chicken out. It reminds me of how little progress I’ve made and how long I have yet to go, and I become frustrated. So I lose the will to study, and only make myself feel worse the next time I have a chance to “test” myself.
What I wish I had was a “safe zone” to practise. That is, a closer friend whom I can trust, someone who won’t make me feel self-conscious, whom I can just hang out with and practise with face-to-face. But alas, there’s very slim pickings around here, and I’m lucky enough as it is to have the people I have.
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