Two of my Okinawan cousins attend Soka University (of Japan) in Hachioji, nearish Tokyo, and I’ve been making arrangements to stay with them during Spring Break. It’s an opportune time because my female cousin is graduating during Spring Break, so I’ll be able to attend the ceremony. She and I have been using cell phone messages to contact each other, and we use all Japanese (mine being crappy, of course).
My aunt, who will be flying up from Okinawa to attend the graduation ceremony, called me tonight to solidify the plans. She told me that she’d been nagging my cousin to practice English so that she can more easily communicate with me, but apparently my cousin replied that she didn’t have to because my Japanese was good enough.
My Japanese benkyou is slowly paying off.
[Here it gets cheesy]
But I think the satisfaction of finally seeing some improvement in my Japanese is overshadowed by my joy that my Okinawan family seems to be just as happy to see me as I am to see them. I’ve become very sappy about Okinawa in the past several years, and I’ve been insecure that my desire to reconnect with that side of me is not as strongly reciprocated. But as my aunt asked me tonight if I was too cold in Osaka and asked me whether I needed her to buy me a coat and told me not to refrain from asking her to buy me anything that I need, I remembered that night three years ago in Okinawa when I had dinner with the entire family for the first time in ten years. The love in the room that night was something I didn’t remember feeling before, and it was that love that made me want to study Japanese and reconnect with Okinawa as well as to strengthen my relationship with my immediate family.
I’ve had so many doubts about studying Japanese, but I know that it was the right choice for me.
[End of cheese]
Spring break, wootwoot! But first... a week of midterms... X_X
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