Japan or Not Japan?
Alright, this has been bugging me enough for the last 2 days that it’d be worth being a hypocrite and making invoking some complaints that it’s not an interesting story if I get some decent advice out of it.
It’s just like me to start thinking about the next thing I’m doing before I’m even done with what I’m on. So I’ve been planning for some time to do a year in Japan between college and law school, and just do deferred enrollment to wherever I get in. The program is called the JET program, Japan Exchange and Teaching. I had browsed their website before and talked to a couple people who had done it, and they both had really good things to say. Watching Lost in Translation was a little intimidating, but I got past that.
As of late, I’ve been treating it as a foregone conclusion that I’d do the program. I haven’t been saying “If I go to Japan…” It’s been, “When I’m in Japan…” Yesterday, though, for some reason I got sucked into going through the JET website and some other info on it some more, and now I’m really not sure at all.
First of all, it seems like Japanese language proficiency is not as inconsequential as it was originally made to seem for me. I wouldn’t even be eligible to work with diplomats and businessmen without the language, I’d have to do high school (which is fine, I’d have probably done that anyways), but that really made me think about what it would be to go to a foreign country for a year with no knowledge of the language whatsoever. And though I’d certainly pick some up, this is a fundamentally different linguistic world, with almost nothing in common with language as I know it.
I stayed up past 5 am reading the online journals and travelogues and testimonials and interviews of people who had done the program. On the one hand, people seem to get so into it. A lot of people reregister for 2nd and even 3rd years with the program (that’s the maximum), and even if they miss home, they’re not willing to leave Japan yet. At the same time, though, there are a couple people who, though it’s clear they don’t want to admit it, seem to have significant regrets. The people who get the most of out of it seem those who already had some long-standing fascination with Japan, to the extend that they even studied in the language in high school or college. I’m curious certainly, but it’s not a passion for me. I dunno how well I could survive that kind of environment if I wasn’t absolutely passionate about it from the get-go, since the beginning would certainly be one of the hardest parts. How would my personality survive in a country that does not have a concept of sarcasm? And a lot of those people came with at least a sense of the basics of the language. If I started studying now, let alone 9 months from now when I’d start the application process, let alone 4 or 5 months after that when I’d find out if I was accepted, I would still basically know nothing.
On the one hand, it’d be this giant adventure thing. It’d be so risky and crazy, to go to freaking JAPAN for a year, and when else am I going to have the chance to do that? I think about people like Abhi and Scott and David and Yu Kwan here who are definitely in a culture more dissimilar to their own than the UK is to America, and I wonder what the experience means to them that it couldn’t possibly to me. At the same time, US to Japan is still probably a much bigger divide than Singapore or Netherlands or Germany or Malaysia to UK. I mean, just how daring am I? Just how much am I willing to risk? You’re contracted to that program for a year, and if you leave early, you have to reimburse them for the money they’ve spent on you (not counting salary for time you did work, I think).
And the program itself does little to put me at ease. I read through the FAQ on the website, and essentially, the answer to every single question is “No.” It is spectacularly inflexible, which is something that pisses me off at home and safe and can adjust, let alone when I’m utterly dependent on others for my survival. Technically, you have to accept a position in the program before they even tell you where in the country you’re going to be stationed. You can pull out after you find out, but then you’re disqualified from reapplying for the next year (if I don’t do it right after college, though, I’ll probably never do it…the point is, they just don’t make it easy on you).
I just don’t know how brave I am, and how much I can trust myself not to sink into misery while I’m there. I like to think I could handle it…and whatever happens, as I’ve often said, recollection is kind. I’ve no doubt it would be a valuable experience whatever happens. But when you’ve only been alive for 20 years, it’s a pretty daunting prospect to just completely risk one. And a year can be a very long time under certain circumstances.
Alright, that’s that, lest I get even more repetitive. So what do you think? Japan or not Japan?
It’s just like me to start thinking about the next thing I’m doing before I’m even done with what I’m on. So I’ve been planning for some time to do a year in Japan between college and law school, and just do deferred enrollment to wherever I get in. The program is called the JET program, Japan Exchange and Teaching. I had browsed their website before and talked to a couple people who had done it, and they both had really good things to say. Watching Lost in Translation was a little intimidating, but I got past that.
As of late, I’ve been treating it as a foregone conclusion that I’d do the program. I haven’t been saying “If I go to Japan…” It’s been, “When I’m in Japan…” Yesterday, though, for some reason I got sucked into going through the JET website and some other info on it some more, and now I’m really not sure at all.
First of all, it seems like Japanese language proficiency is not as inconsequential as it was originally made to seem for me. I wouldn’t even be eligible to work with diplomats and businessmen without the language, I’d have to do high school (which is fine, I’d have probably done that anyways), but that really made me think about what it would be to go to a foreign country for a year with no knowledge of the language whatsoever. And though I’d certainly pick some up, this is a fundamentally different linguistic world, with almost nothing in common with language as I know it.
I stayed up past 5 am reading the online journals and travelogues and testimonials and interviews of people who had done the program. On the one hand, people seem to get so into it. A lot of people reregister for 2nd and even 3rd years with the program (that’s the maximum), and even if they miss home, they’re not willing to leave Japan yet. At the same time, though, there are a couple people who, though it’s clear they don’t want to admit it, seem to have significant regrets. The people who get the most of out of it seem those who already had some long-standing fascination with Japan, to the extend that they even studied in the language in high school or college. I’m curious certainly, but it’s not a passion for me. I dunno how well I could survive that kind of environment if I wasn’t absolutely passionate about it from the get-go, since the beginning would certainly be one of the hardest parts. How would my personality survive in a country that does not have a concept of sarcasm? And a lot of those people came with at least a sense of the basics of the language. If I started studying now, let alone 9 months from now when I’d start the application process, let alone 4 or 5 months after that when I’d find out if I was accepted, I would still basically know nothing.
On the one hand, it’d be this giant adventure thing. It’d be so risky and crazy, to go to freaking JAPAN for a year, and when else am I going to have the chance to do that? I think about people like Abhi and Scott and David and Yu Kwan here who are definitely in a culture more dissimilar to their own than the UK is to America, and I wonder what the experience means to them that it couldn’t possibly to me. At the same time, US to Japan is still probably a much bigger divide than Singapore or Netherlands or Germany or Malaysia to UK. I mean, just how daring am I? Just how much am I willing to risk? You’re contracted to that program for a year, and if you leave early, you have to reimburse them for the money they’ve spent on you (not counting salary for time you did work, I think).
And the program itself does little to put me at ease. I read through the FAQ on the website, and essentially, the answer to every single question is “No.” It is spectacularly inflexible, which is something that pisses me off at home and safe and can adjust, let alone when I’m utterly dependent on others for my survival. Technically, you have to accept a position in the program before they even tell you where in the country you’re going to be stationed. You can pull out after you find out, but then you’re disqualified from reapplying for the next year (if I don’t do it right after college, though, I’ll probably never do it…the point is, they just don’t make it easy on you).
I just don’t know how brave I am, and how much I can trust myself not to sink into misery while I’m there. I like to think I could handle it…and whatever happens, as I’ve often said, recollection is kind. I’ve no doubt it would be a valuable experience whatever happens. But when you’ve only been alive for 20 years, it’s a pretty daunting prospect to just completely risk one. And a year can be a very long time under certain circumstances.
Alright, that’s that, lest I get even more repetitive. So what do you think? Japan or not Japan?