Let’s get the cheesy preamble out of the way before all of the fun begins, shall we?
This isn’t my first trip to Japan — far from it actually. Having family in Japan, my childhood summers were spent in the Ishikawa Prefecture with my Ojiichan and Obaachan. But that was before arguing with my mom that I wanted to “stay in Canada to hang out with my friends this summer,” seasonal employment, and skyrocketing airfare prices.
Despite my familiarity with Japan, I know this trip will be unlike any other prior visit.
For starters, I’ve never been to Hokkaido. Being completely honest, I haven’t been to very many places in Japan. People who visit Japan talk about how they visited landmarks and saw sights like Mount Fuji…
Nuh-uh, not me.
The whereabouts of my relatives determined where I went. I spent my summers surrounded by rice fields and the chickens and rabbits (it went from two to twelve bunnies in a matter of weeks — but that’s a whole other story) my cousin convinced my Ojiichan to buy as “pets.” Don’t get me wrong, those summers are some of my fondest memories, but I would like to reiterate that I’m talking like super countryside here. Did I mention there is no internet access where my grandparents live? The last time I went to Japan, my brother and I could only get signal in the local graveyard. So that’s where we went every morning. And every time my Obaachan would shout after us to pay our respects to our ancestors while we were at it with our “Feisu bukku.” Just try and picture an old Asian woman flailing Buddhist prayer beads in her hands whilst chasing after two clearly foreign teenagers 2x her size, who ran/walked away from her with laptops held up in the air, desperately searching for signal.
But I think the biggest difference is going to be the fact I’m going to Japan without my Mom.
Okay, so that sounds really pathetic, but it is actually really frightening! You know the whole language attrition thing? Losing a language because you don’t use it? Yup, that’s me with Japanese. Especially during my last two visits to Japan in 2008 and 2012, my mother was my translator. Every sales person, neighbour, and relative spoke to me through her. I got to the point where I didn’t bother to try and speak Japanese because, well, with my mother, I really didn’t need to. I was also going through this angsty teenage phase where I thought it was toootallyy uncool to speak or act Japanese like everrrr.
Fast forward four years: I’m in university and I start to realize that knowing more than one language is actually like so toootallyy cooool. I take a Canadian literature course that completely changes my life, and it helps me realize I’ve done myself a great disservice by neglecting my Japanese. I think primarily out of guilt, I’ve since done some damage control on what is essentially my Japaneseness. I took every Japanese language course UBC-O offers, and my Honours thesis is dedicated to Japanese-Canadian literature and considers untranslatability as a mode of resistance to dominant discourses of whiteness.
I think this is where the Kakehashi Project comes in.
I’m really excited to explore, for the first time, “my Japan” and not “my mother’s Japan.” Awkward conversations and all, I think I’m ready because I know my Japanese is in there somewhere.
いってきます!!!
Hey maranda, nice little intro! Very relatable to me and India.I was also hoping you would preface what exactly you’ll be doing there and what the Kakehashi Project is!
I mention what the Kakehashi Project is briefly in the “About Me” section.
As for what I am doing, I will be posting about it tomorrow 🙂 Stay tuned!