It never ceases to amaze me how strange a thing time is. It feels like I've been in Japan for years, but in reality it hasn't even been two months. I've only been in school for about half that time, and somehow I already feel like I need more weekends. I can't really tell if time is going by too fast, or too slow....
I've been plenty busy, as you may have noticed. I play futsal twice a week with a group at Sophia. It's coed, so I'm getting to meet a lot of really nice people of both genders. Last week they invited me and my friend Gene (who joined along with me) out drinking on a Wednesday night. Now before you go getting all riled up, it was a school holiday the next day and I was perfectly well behaved. It ended up being me, Gene, and a whole group of my male teammates. Only a few spoke English, and my Japanese is still a little stunted, but I had a great time trying to translate everything that they were saying and answer all the questions they directed at me. 'How do you like Japan?' 'Do you like Japanese food?' 'Have you ever had sake?' 'Do you like to read manga?' 'Do you have a boyfriend?' Some of these questions are hard enough to answer in English, but in Japanese there are different forms of verbs and some nouns that you use in different situations. In class when talking to a teacher, you use a polite form to defer to your superior. Among friends, you use a more casual, shortened form of speech. Most Japanese classes teach the formal forms first since it's always better to be polite than to offend someone. But when you're sitting with a group of your teammates and trying to answer questions posed in casual form, it can get a little confusing. Technically, it would be most polite to address your sempai (or upperclassmen) in formal forms, and the kouhai (underclassmen) in casual, but when you're an exchange student with very little Japanese ability, it's nearly impossible to tell who is kouhai and who is sempai. Despite the fact that I am a third-year student (which technically makes all second and first year students my kouhai and fourth year students my sempai), the fact that I don't speak Japanese as a native language means that I am kouhai to everyone. Which means that technically speaking, I should be answering everyone in polite form, right? Wrong! Answering in polite form in some situations (such as when you're out with a group of friends) can be considered extremely rude. Besides, I defy anyone who isn't a native speaker of the language to try speaking polite form when someone is talking to you in direct. You just get all confused.
I know that it's probably a difficult concept to understand, but its pretty difficult to explain too. Japanese has all these rules about politeness and deference that English just doesn't have, and for someone who is learning the language it can be hell to try to remember everything that you're supposed to. Most of the Japanese people that I've met have been very nice about it though, and they take into consideration that you probably have no idea that your speaking the wrong forms is offensive. I managed to make it through my night out with the team--I think I even got a date out of it--without any major complications. Plus I got to hear what Japanese is like spoken between friends, which comes in handy when you're trying to get into the culture. Best advice that I can give people who are coming here--speak in the polite if you know any Japanese, and just smile and shake your head when they start talking about things that you don't know.
