When I was at Kansai Airport, I was approached by a bunch of middle school kids with a huge cardboard saying that they would like to ask foreigners some questions about Japan for their English class. When asked if I was willing to answer their question what I thought about Japan, I expressed that it was one of the difficult questions to answer. Thinking that they would pick up the hint that I was not entirely in the mood to be answer all the standard question one can ask foreigners in Japan, it turned out that Japanese politeness is gone when it suits them. And the smiling teachers without any reservation put the microphone in front of a very unwilling me. In the end I did answer the questions, angry at being dragged into a situation in which I did not want to be, but at the same time not feeling like making a scene and discouraging all those little kids to ever speak English again.
By now it’s been 11 months I lived in Japan this time and only a few days left. One knows things will come to an end, but it never really kicked in. Perhaps that is the reason why I don’t like being asked about my feelings towards Japan, it makes me realize that my experience here will soon be over. Rereading my first post I realized that the reason I came to Japan was to improve my Japanese. Although I am sure I really did improve on listening, talking and reading I am not entirely sure if I got everything out of the language which I could. But to be honest the part of acquiring language skills over time grew less important and the wonder of the first weeks also ceased. But in place of that I began to feel very comfortable and very at home in Kyoto. But on the other hand the fact that you know you only have one year, made we want to make good use of it and see a lot of Japan.
I am happy for all the experiences I had, and all the people that were there to share them with me. My classmates, the people living in my dorm, my Dutch classmates in Japan, people I met in bars, restaurants, on the streets. Thinking back all the images of this year keep tumbling over each other, some still very clear, some blurred, things I forgot that happen, things I remember as clear as yesterday.
This does not mean that when I am looking back this time at my previous experiences there are not a number of things I would have like to do in another way. But on the other hand I probably had to get trough all my experiences until this moment to realize that if I would do things again in certain cases I would do exactly the same and in other cases I would choose a different approach.
Nearing the end, I have to say goodbye to everybody and leave them behind in Japan, not knowing what the future will bring for them or for me, and it are those precious memories of all the experiences that I will be able to carry back to the Netherlands.
