Japan Might be My Last Destination

When I think about Japanese culture (or maybe just the glimpse of modern pop-culture), I'm actually amazed by how my life has been severely influenced by it. Since the beginning of my childhood, I was already exposed to different types of entertainment such as watching anime like Naruto after maghrib prayer or Dragon ball in the weekend, collecting manga like Detective Conan, playing different console like Game Boy, Play Station, Wii and of course the game that has been launched by Japanese developer (Bandai, Konami, Sega, ETC). And when I reached teenager year, I also started reading novels written by Japanese writer. And maybe that was the turning point of my life where I thought of becoming a writer. I'd say I was destined by the kami-sama back then. 

At that time, my house didn't have subscribe to any wifi provider and because of that, I didn't have the privilige to explore my interest while surfing the internet that much. Moreover, pre-paid internet plans at that time was so ridiculuously expensive. Imagine, in today's world when average people who have access to the internet can watch marathon on Netflix without having to worry of running out of quota, I had to make sure to watch the youtube with the second lowest quality (240p). And even after taking some precautions, I still ran out of it before the end of the month. So, there's nothing I could do about it. I needed to kill time, so I randomly picked the book from the shelves. When I observed the cover, I didn't recall ever buying it. Probably my one of my parents bought it a long time ago, and when I checked the publisher's note, I found out it was published almost 13 years ago. My parents wasn't that interested in reading books, so I thought this book was probably one of their prized possesions, or maybe they just grabbed it from the best-selling author shelves. 

My first impression of this book was that it was probably just a normal love story like any other romantic books I've ever read before, but the early chapters of the book proved me wrong. I couldn't help but reading it, and when the I turned the last page, it leave a hollow in my heart and I wasn't the same person anymore. I was speechless. How come a mere book could bring so much pain and gut-wrenching experience. So, that was how it felt like to experience Haruki Murakami's books. Norwegian Wood wasn't his overall magical realism book, but it truly moved my soul to a place where I never set foot before.

So, the next thing I know, I'm already twenty five years old, and I've probably read hundreds book written by a Japanese writer and suddenly it occures to me why don't I live in Japan to truly experience the world that I've seen through papers. I've been in Kobe, Tokyo, Osaka, but it's only as far as my imagination wanders.

It's not definitely a whim. I can't stop thinking about it. It suits me well. I love to be alone, and the city's scenery is  indeed beautiful. I want to see it with my own eyes. I can't miss the chance and I shouldn't waste any time left.

'How to learn Japanese'

I just google it. That's the first thing that comes to mind and definitely the first step and the rest will follow. I leaned hiragana and katakana in just two days. It's not that actually hard to remember all of it by mnemonic method. It's actually fun because I find myself laughing because of my own imagination. 

And today I learned about particles and Japanese sentences are structured. It's kinda hard to actually process how it's really different from the usual english subject-verb agreement, but thanks to ChatGPT I successfully overcome that. Thinking about how many kanjis out there that I have to memorize makes me a little bit undaunted. Maybe I could use Anki not only for english vocabs,  but also japanese kanji!

It's still the beginning, and I have to be consistent no matter what. In the next five years, I'll see myself setting foot in Tokyo for the first time.

Wish me luck.