Culture Shock and a pottery wheel

A few days ago I was talking to my suitemate, Tomoko, about studying and living abroad. You see, she's a lot braver than I am. She's gone to an American college for four years now. When she came to America (she started at a two-year school in Hawaii along with my other, very brave, suitemate Aiko) she did not know a lot of English and began school with an intensive ESL (English as a Second Language) program. That means HOURS (I think about 6 or 7!!) of ESL all day. She also lived with a host family who wanted her to tell them about her day when she came home, in English of course. She described the stress she experienced and talked about how she carefully planned sentences to say to them "Today I went to ____ and did ____". She understood what I meant when I said hearing another language all day is exhausting. Then I told her my story about culture shock, from personal experience. Those of you reading this in Japan may remember it, unfortunately, and what a brat I was sometimes because of it (one side affect of culture shock: EXTREME GRUMPINESS ;).

I went to Japan in 2003, for those who don't know, in the VERY hot summer before beginning college. One day, I went out alone with Akira's cousin, Keiko. Keiko speaks amazing English and is an English teacher in Japan. However, she did not want to speak English to me because she wanted to help me learn Japanese - intense JSL! This day was difficult for me, but challenging. I had been in Japan a while by then, and eventually, hearing Japanese made me feel VERY tired. I mean WORN OUT. Everything involved thinking and contemplation - even just ordering some food or watching television. I couldn't even veg out in front of the TV without having to think about everything that was said. After my intense JSL day, pressure was mounting. The subway was in Japanese, every menu, every sign, every vending machine and gum wrapper - Japanese.

A few days later, Akira, Tomoko (a different one, not my suitemate), and Kenta, very kindly took me to a really old village that was famous for pottery. It was beautiful! Entire shops were made of pottery scrap tiles and all the walkways were broken pottery pieces. For lunch, we had soba ( wheat noodles served over ice and dipped in a cold broth - a common summer lunch because it's so refreshing in the humidity), umeboshi (sour, pickled plums) and cold barley tea (also common to have in the summer) served in handmade pottery bowls and cups. Traditional Japanese pottery is very beautiful! There are a lot of earth tones and greens and blues and they're coated in a heavy glaze that usually changes between two tones depending on how thick it is applied (black to green, black to brown, tan to brown are some common combinations). Often, the inside is a darker glaze, and the bottom of the piece is not glazed at all (this is where someone gripped the piece as they dipped it in the glaze!). In the middle of this town was a giant old kiln, and we took our picture in front of it.

All of them knew I loved making art or creating anything really. I did a lot of pottery on my own, so they decided to take me to a traditional Japanese pottery class. I was really happy about it because I thought to myself, "This is the one thing I can do. Even if I don't understand Japanese well, I can do this!" I expected to be good at it. We went in and put on smocks and changed our shoes (you change your shoes a lot in Japan! More on that later). We sat at our wheels and started making a rice bowl together as a class, in the traditional fashion. I listened very closely and watched other students, but the teacher had a heavy regional accent and I couldn't understand ANYTHING. Seriously, not ONE WORD. I tried to mimick everyone else, but my ball of clay just spun around, lopsided, on the wheel. I kept to myself about how I was feeling, but eventually, I felt so frustrated and out of place that I started crying. This was the one time I thought I would have some relief from the constant stress of being in an environment where almost no one could speak my language, but it wasn't true! I didn't know how to do this traditional kind of pottery, and even though it was completely silly, it really upset me! Tomoko, who spoke very little English herself, came over to me and walked me through the steps carefully, pointing and motioning with her hands about what I should do. Eventually, I got myself together and created 3 pieces - a rice bowl and two traditional tea cups. I chose the deepest brown - to - black glaze to cover them in once they had been fired, and arranged with Akira's dad to have them brought to me in America the next time he was in town on business, which was also very kind!

In the end, I was fine, but it was a difficult experience, maybe like what my suitemates felt when they started at an American college. It's so stressful being in that environment, feeling STUPID about everything (or at least, that's how I felt that day), but it's a great learning experience at the same time. You really have to give in and allow people to help you, and you learn to trust people, and ask for help too. I had such supportive friends when I was in Japan; I don't think I could have done much without their help!

The truth is, living abroad is hard. Tomoko and Aiko are extremely brave for going to school abroad.. Can you imagine? Day in and day out they sit in English classes, taking notes, trying to study all of the English information for their exams and writing 10 pages essays or 40 page theses in a language that is tiring for them to hear at the end of the day.

It's going to be hard for me in Japan when I move, but I anticipate that. Really, anything worth doing, I think, has to be hard. If it isn't, what are you going to learn from it?

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